Figging: Anal Discipline

Oh, that’s not nice — and it’s never a good sign when your non-consensual chemical-play makes the police blogger:

There was plenty enough wrongness in this artwork of force-feminized cat and vengeful mouse and giant strap-on-packing mouse-dominatrix:

And then ErosBlog had to speculate about Jerry looking for the jalapeño lube. Injury to insult, I’m thinking!

Somebody posted a question about figging on a BDSM sub-Reddit a few days ago, and the discussion so far is fairly helpful, with people who know correcting some of the ignorant fears people often have about figging. Check it out, and maybe participate!

Somebody out there is fondling the ginger a little bit too warmly at Price Choppers. Show some discretion, I fear you’re freaking the mundanes:

now that I’ve learned figging exists i just can’t help but be creeped out by the lady scoping out ginger root at p-chops

Agnes Teesdale wrote an article for the SF Weekly called BDSM 101: Figging, or You’ll Never Look At Ginger The Same Way Again. In it she says in part:

[W]hen I first heard about figging, a now somewhat popular BDSM practice that involves ginger used as a buttplug…I became fascinated with what sort of sensations raw ginger exposed to such a sensitive area could create. Since I am a dominatrix, getting a willing partner was as easy as blogging about my new interest.

…

I carved my ginger in my dungeon, smoothing out its edges and leaving a solid base so that it wouldn’t disappear up my slave’s ass. After dipping it in cool water, I inserted it and waited for the burn. It was delightful. Or at least, I found his noises delightful. Having never played with this toy before, I stuck to my Victorian erotic classic: I gave him a good spanking and that was that.

This so-called “prank” video doesn’t strike me as particularly funny, but it does feature a cute blonde woman being tricked into eating sushi laced with a 2,000,000 Scovilles capsaicin product. Her distress is evident:

Seeing as how these two apparently “enjoy” a prank-counterprank relationship, I can only hope she gloves up and gives him a Ben-Gay handjob when he’s expecting lotion.

I think somebody got the wrong memo:

I learned via twitter, that figging is sticking garlic cloves up your partner’s anus during sex. #Themoreyouknow

I’ve never heard of anybody doing this, and I don’t think it would be very effective. Whether or not garlic is volatile enough to cause a sensation (and it might be) it’s got a smooth surface even after you peel it; I’m not sure there’d be a lot of effect. Always willing to learn new things, but until I do I’m gonna opine that somebody was screwing with our reporter (or vice versa).

So Jade got figged, and liked it:

I know, I wasn’t supposed to like it, and there were times when it quite uncomfortable, but mostly, it was a good sensation, even the burning. But then again, I ask for Ben Gay sex, so maybe I am not a reliable witness to this sort of play.

The pic at that link doesn’t show the figging explicitly, but she’s subsequently posted two pics here of the ginger being rubbed on her pussy.

Kinkster Franklin Veaux (you may know him on the web from his famous sex map) tweets:

Question for the Kinkyweb: Was asked about using ginger essential oils instead of ginger root for figging. I’m skeptical; thoughts?

— franklin veaux (@franklinveaux) November 20, 2012

My instant thought was “Sure, why not? It will work (for certain values of work). But I don’t think it would quite be a proper figging.”

All of my experience is with the root. The carved root has bulk and texture that stretches the anal membranes and enhances the effect of the ginger juice on the surface of the root. I’m not convinced that a smooth oily toy (or gloved finger) would feel at all similar.

What’s more, fresh ginger juice is very aromatic and complex. Whatever apothecarian process you use to capture those aromatics and bind them up in oil is likely to be incomplete; you’ll get some of the virtue, but I’d worry you won’t get it all. Will the resulting oil cause warmth and tingling and possibly (depending on concentrations and dosages, something that’s not a worry with the fresh root) pain? Sure. And in its broadest sense, the figging fetish encompasses just about any chemicals people put on their tender bits. But it won’t be the fresh-root sensation that true figging fans have learned to love (and hate).

I’ve not personally tried ginger oil, but I did have some strong “essence of rosemary” oil once that I’d used (a few drops at a time) to scent massage oil. It made my girlfriend smell like a cooking turkey (yum!) (and that’s a whole ‘nother fetish for ya) but it also had a substantial warming effect when the massage got personal, to the point where she was vocalizing and writhing (in a good way). So that essential oil (especially if not diluted in quite so much olive oil) would definitely have been entertaining in a figging-style anal application. Other people have reported very effective sensations with peppermint and cinnamon oil, although I think an appropriate level of dilution is probably called for:

“The one and only time we used the cinnamon oil I thought my clit was going to be seared off. It wasn’t but I have heard of cinnamon oil raising blisters.”

Hot pepper oil, too, is sold on grocery store shelves and has frequently been used in BDSM, although most accounts suggests it’s very intense and cruel, with no way to dial it back when enough fun has been had.

That’s a key feature of figging with ginger root. When you take out a ginger root, the sensation begins to taper off quite rapidly. Not instantly, no, but quite soon. Oils aren’t easy to wash off skin, especially tender skin that’s already quite sore. So when you “fig” with warming oils, you’re signing up for a much longer ride with no quick way to get off. Not a problem if that’s the game you both want to be playing, but not as convenient as regular ginger figging.

A brutal but nice caning and figging photo goes with this:

The insertion of freshly peeled ginger into the asshole of the slave girls, just before the spanking, deprived them from the ability to tense up their bodies and forced them to fully experience the upcoming dance of the riding crop on their butts.

This bondage figging picture is, I think, a screencap from one of the movie clips that’s all over the tubes. If anybody knows the original source of this movie (the original publishers, the name of the movie it appeared it, that sort of thing, not just another stolen copy on another sleazy tube site) please comment!

Bondage figging picture

It’s a very short vignette, that starts like this:

Tears were in Rose’s eyes, and the noises she was making into the gag were driving the Doctor crazy. But he held his hand steady on her clit, watching her face as the sliver of ginger there steadily burned desire into her…