Va-va-voom your vanilla sex life with try-at-home tips from the fetish scene…

Whilst whips and chains may not be your thing, even the most vanilla couples can learn a titillating trick or two from fetishists, say the sexperts. “While many people find comfort in seeing themselves as ‘vanilla’, pushing the envelope on occasion can revitalise their sex life and open the door to new sensations and pleasures,” says Dr Yvonne K Fulbright, author of Touch Me There! A Hands-On Guide to Your Orgasmic Hot Spots.

Maybe you feel too shy to even think about introducing a kinky twist into your sexual repertoire, but a little experimentation can actually boost your sex-esteem. “One of the most important benefits to finding your ‘inner kink’ is good, old-fashioned sexual confidence,” explains Dr Pam Spur, Sex Doctor and author of Fabulous Foreplay. “When you start allowing yourself to try new things, you will find your confidence grows.” 

To discover just what kinks the fetish world has to offer, Scarlet spoke to some major players on the scene and asked them how their sex tricks could work for curious vanilla couples. Some of the kinks below may surprise you, but with an open mind and our Vanilla Versions, may also lead you to places in the bedroom that you’ve never been before…

The Fetish: Sploshing

From smearing cream all over each other’s bodies to a full-on food fight, sploshing’s all about having messy fun. “Food fights and pie battles might seem bizarre, but they’re a great way to release sexual inhibitions and have child-like fun,” says one spokesperson from the world of Sploshing “As a woman who spends her life in a business suit, worrying about her appearance, to completely let go and behave like a messy kid with a lover, rather than trying to impress them, is wonderfully liberating. And food can provide a fabulously squishy form of lubrication on your naked bodies when you slide around together.”

Vanilla Version: Michelin Star Foreplay

Prepare an evening of erotic food fighting with your lover. To protect surfaces, lay down waterproof sheets on your bed or floor (such as cheap shower curtains), and then go to the supermarket together, but instead of regular shopping, look specifically for foods you’d like to rub on or lick off of each other. As you shop, whisper into your lover’s ear exactly what you’d like to do with that jam and where you want them to squirt that whipped cream. By the time you hit the check-out, you’ll be gagging to get home and start dinner. “Covering each other in food means you spend time licking places you might never have paid attention to before,” says Millie* a fetish model-turned photographer, “and you’re bound to find new erogenous zones along the way.”

The Fetish: Ballooning

Balloon fetishists – sometimes known as looners – find balloons sexually appealing for various reasons, including their texture, smell and surface tension, and the thrill of popping them. “Looners jerk off with balloons, fuck them in the nozzle and bounce on them while masturbating,” explains Katharine Gates in her book Deviant Desires. “Couples can also ride balloons or press them between their bodies during sex.” 

Vanilla Version: Lubey Loon

This tip is bound to be popular (sorry) with your man. Buy a big balloon – the longer and wider the better – and cut off the thick rim of the nozzle, then squirt lube inside, so that it fills up about a third of the balloon. Next, stretch the lube-filled balloon over your man’s member, and then rub it up and down his shaft for his wettest hand-job ever. He and his balloon will be bursting with excitement.

The Fetish: Medical Play

“The thought of a sexy doctor or nurse taking care of a needy patient is extremely stimulating,” says MedicalToys.com’s Sebastian Wood. “As a patient you’re somewhat helpless – your carer could be kind and gentle, or instead, take advantage of your situation. Just the sound of a latex glove snapping as it goes on to a nurse or doctor’s hand, or of stainless steel instruments clanking on their metal tray can make us nervous, yet curiously excited.” 

For hardcore medical fetishists, play can involve a range of procedures, from anal dilation and administering enemas to needle play and urethral sounding (sliding a steel rod into the eye of his penis – ouch! – a procedure we absolutely don’t recommend).

Vanilla Version: Sensory Check-up

To play doctors and nurses, blindfold your patient with bandages for an authentic touch (we like Boots Elasticated Stretch Bandage), then tell them they need a thorough examination as you lead them into the ‘surgery’ (your bedroom). Using more bandages, tie their wrists and ankles to your bed, making sure the binds aren’t so tight as to restrict circulation. With your patient deprived of sight and the ability to move, you can tease them mercilessly. Tell them how thoroughly you must examine them and let them hear the intriguing noises of the various instruments you’ve already laid out in your ‘surgery’. Moving cutlery on a plate will create the sound effect of surgical steel tools on a tray. Also, let them hear the snap of latex gloves going on (Boots also sell latex gloves which will suffice), and the squirting of lube is particularly useful if your patient is open to an anal examination. 

Proceed to play with your patient’s sense of touch by conducting various ‘examinations’: run the back of a cold spoon over nipples to test reflexes, then suck them with your hot mouth; massage genitals with lube warmed in your hands then spread open thighs; stroke a lubed finger and watch to see if they opens their legs further to allow you inside. By the time you decide to ‘cure’ them they’ll be in sensory overload and desperate to ‘get better’. Set them free, then tell them that all the medicine they need is between your legs.

The Fetish: A Giant Fantasy

As the name suggests, this form of power play features one partner pretending to be a gigantic all-powerful creature, presiding over their playmate, who in turn acts like a tiny helpless mite. The appeal lies in the feelings of control and surrender, respectively.

Brett Brook*, is a 22-year-old, US-based ‘giantess’ who runs a business dedicated to the giantess fantasy. She says, “Nothing gets me soaked faster than imagining I’m towering over a city. Some days I imagine discovering a shrunken town outside, where I force the villagers to sacrifice their lives to pleasure my pussy. Other times I want to be gentle, using a shrunken slave as a dildo.” 

Vanilla Version:The Cock Skyscraper

Have your partner lie face up on the floor naked or wearing a strap-on, then stand above them, either naked or in a short skirt, knickerless, so they have a tantalising view as you tower over them. “Imagine their body is a tiny city and their cock the city’s pride – a towering skyscraper,” says Katelyn. Have them coat your powerful feet with flavoured lube, and then ‘feel the city’ – massaging their body with your feet, pinching their nipples between your toes, toying with their cock and slipping your toes into their mouth for them to suck. “Then,” says Brett, “when you’re ready to violate the city further, slowly lower yourself onto the skyscraper.” 

The Fetish: Erotic Cannibalism

With the very rare headline-hitting exceptions, erotic cannibalism doesn’t involve eating flesh, but rather preparing it as if to be eaten by basting a lover’s skin them with oils, hogtying them (securing their wrists to their ankles), ‘stuffing’ them with fruits and vegetables (which may be eaten), and even placing a lover in a faux oven. 

Mr and Mrs Muki, a husband and wife team who photograph erotic cannibalism scenarios professionally for their website MukisKitchen.com, explain, “For the ‘food’ there’s the feeling of being hungered for; for the ‘cannibal’ there’s the complete domination of his or her dish; for both there is the sensuous feeling of preparing the flesh, and the combining of two of life’s most sensual acts – eating and sex.”

Vanilla Version: Make A Meal

Take turns being the cannibal and the food with your lover. After deciding who wants to be the main dish, that person should then assume the position, naked, on your dining room table – hogtying is optional. Next, play with different food preparation techniques: gag them by asking them to bite down on an apple, and then gently brush honey over their skin with a basting brush, focussing on their nipples, inner thighs and neck. If you’re the meal, your partner can roll a condom onto the cucumber and use it as a dildo. 

“The partner playing the chef should always remember to tell the dish how delicious they look,” advise the Mukis. To finish, slowly lick away all the honey. The genitals make a perfect dessert.

The Fetish: Electric Play

Electric play involves using implements such as ‘violet wands’ (handheld devices with electrical current dials) to induce mild electric shock in a person for erotic purposes. “It’s about sensation and pain as well as power control,” explains Mistress S, an Electric Play Domme. “I get a power trip from watching a slave wriggle at just the slightest twist of a dial. However, there’s no substitute lying around the house that can be used safely,” she warns. “Anyone wanting to try electric play should invest in proper equipment designed for the purpose, and read all the instructions and advice about it they can lay their hands on.” Extremists get their kit from Electrastim.co.uk, which sells a variety of approved electrical play equipment. 

Vanilla Version:  Cock Shock

“Vibrators can replicate elements of the sensation aspect of electric play,” says Mistress S. “Use a multi-speed vibe on a low setting on his nipples, balls and cock to assess his reaction. If he likes it, experiment with different speed settings. For the most extreme reaction, when he’s really hard, carefully pull back his foreskin and use it on the very tip of his cock in short bursts, recreating the pulse settings on electro-stimulation devices.” In between ‘shocks’, run the vibrator up and down his shaft. He’ll soon have an electrifying orgasm. 

The Fetish: Robot Fantasy

For robot fetishists, the idea of a mechanical-style sex partner is a wet dream come true. “The idea seems to be that on some level, mentally or physically, the person or object of desire is artificial and programmable,” explains erotic robot enthusiast Edward Gore. “Thinking that the mindset of the controlled can be made to fit that of a fantasy lover is seductive.” 

Typical mechanical role-play might include using a clipped voice, adopting a robotic appearance, and responding to on/off commands. “The fun for the robot is in being servile,” adds Katharine Gates. “The fun for the robot’s master is getting what they want and being playful while doing it.”

Vanilla Version: Push Buttons

Have fun playing robots by creating imaginary buttons on each other’s bodies and agreeing their functions in advance. “The master can program the nipples to be buttons that activate certain behaviours,” says Gates. For example, tweaking his left nipple means he has to kiss your neck, whereas a tweak of his right means he has to go down on you; while he’s down there, a stroke of his left ear could mean speed up, while stroking his right means slow down. If only life could always be so simple…