Originally by Grayhelix on Fetlife. Original Writing.
So you think impact is easy. You think all you are doing is picking up an item of some sort and hitting another person with it all willy nilly like and that’s it. Maybe you think it takes no skill. And along that vein maybe you think it takes no knowledge. Maybe you even think that those who do impact are somehow less then those who do other types of play.
You know what I think? You are wrong. It’s that simple.
Now maybe you are wrong because you are not educated about impact and what it takes to do it right. Maybe you are wrong because education takes a back seat these days to more fun stuff like drinking at happy hours and going to parties. Maybe you are wrong because you yourself don’t do impact. Or maybe you are wrong because you have seen scenes where people just pick shit up and hit other people and they clearly have no skill or can’t answer questions about why they are doing what they are doing. Maybe they have been hanging out at said parties and happy hours drinking and not getting educated about something that could kill you.
Wait… did he say kill you? Yeah, I sure as fuck did. Sure that is extreme but in the last 25 years I have seen broken bones, a few very bad eye injuries, a bruised kidney, as well as nerve and tendon damage – all from poorly executed, unskilled impact play. I know a woman who to this day, and for the rest of her life, cannot and will not be able to walk right do to a bastinado scene (foot caning) gone wrong.
Kidney shots are VERY common. And it is simply a lack of education of the part of the Top. Repeated, or even a single solid shot to the kidney can cause blunt renal trauma. Most the time it’s a contusion, which happens when the 12th rib compresses the kidney against the lumbar spine. I wonder how many people who think impact is so easy know where the 12th rib is located. This can also happen from hitting the abdomenal anteriory, just below the rib cage. I see these blows almost every time I go out to an event. All it takes is the right amount of force or repeated blows to the same area to cause enough damage and send someone to the ER.
The bruised kidney I know about happened from a “light” weight deer skin flogger. And happened because the Top and the bottom felt that there was no way to hurt someone with a “light” flogger. In this case the male bottom when to the ER a few hours after getting home in extreme pain.
With punching and rough body play, really any impact play you need to know human anatomy. And you need to know your “toy” and how it is going to interact with the human body. What happens on impact? What will the reaction of the body be? How deep will the impact really travel? How does the skin move? What happens in the brain?
I get requests now and then from bottoms wanting to play with me. And when I do they almost always remark to me after the scene that what I did “felt” so different then what other Tops they have played with before me did. And that they were able to go much farther then they thought they could. But they can never put their finger on why it was different.
This difference comes from education about what it is I am doing. It comes from skills built over years. It comes from the knowledge of knowing how to read the human body and its reactions to the impact and pain I am inflicting on it. It comes from the fact that I care.
If you don’t care to learn about what it is we do. Then don’t do it. Impact, rope, fire, or simply fucking. Because if you don’t care to educate yourself then you don’t care about the partners you are playing with.
Impact is not easy. Unless you don’t care about your bottom, then have at it.