To many men, the idea of sticking stainless steel rods in their urethras sounds like torture. But to be honest, each of us derives a certain amount of pleasure from pain. Why else am I so attracted to women who are crazy?
After receiving the Hegar Sound set from Boston’s comprehensive and heavy duty adult shop Eros Boutique, I spoke at length with people familiar with the Medical Sounds fetish so that I could understand the appeal without having to undergo a sound session myself. After all, I am in an iron lung.
Julie Simone is a professional dominatrix, glamor model, and fetish performer and director. She is the real deal. But she had no idea what this fetish was until one blessed day in Arizona.
“I was featuring at Mistress Porsche Lynn’s dungeon in Phoenix and she offered to have someone teach me,” Simone told me. “Perhaps a client came in for it and requested me and I didn’t know how to do it. My initial reaction was surprise and intrigue. It was cool to feel the metal rod inside the sub’s cock and to feel it getting harder not just from the metal, but from the sensation. At one point when the urethral sound was removed, come shot out. I had no idea one could orgasm from that type of play.”
It’s important to remember that fetishes are sexual worlds we build around things that weren’t originally intended for sex. So one doesn’t have a vagina fetish, but might have an attaching-clothespins-to-vaginas fetish. Urethral Sounds are instruments used in the treatment of certain disorders of the junk, to dilate the urethra to ease painful urination, or to remove obstructions in the pee-hole. At one point, probably in the randy 1800s, someone realized a controlled version of the sounding procedure might be fun for the right person.
And that’s why something that you might think would be right at home at Abu Ghraib is called “Play.”
Fetish performer and director Jimmy Broadway doesn’t remember when he learned of the sound fetish, but sought out training when he first encountered the gleaming steel rods.
“Like many aspects of medical fetish, sounds are not for the inexperienced, so I needed to find a partner that knew what she was doing,” Broadway said. “Three years ago I was doing a shoot for Cock & Ball Torture and Ballbusting with Mz. Berlin. We had a set of sounds on the set, but we didn’t shoot with them. I knew Berlin knew how to use them, so when we finished, I asked her if she would mind showing me how they worked. From then I was hooked!”
I asked Broadway if the Sounds fetish was a lifestyle-level practice or if it were a delicious part of a nutritious fetish breakfast.
“Most people who use sounds are usually into a related fetish, either medical play or cock and ball torture,” he said. “I don’t know of anyone who is just into sounds. [But] using sounds is the closest a male can come to being fucked. I love the feeling, as the metal slides up and down my cock.”
And what is it like to be the person providing that sensation?
“I love the feel of cold hard metal in my hands,” Simone said. “I love that I am doing something that most men would never let someone do to them and that the person I’m doing it to loves it. I like the way the person’s breathing changes once [the sound rod is] inserted and seeing and feeling the cock get hard as the metal is worked in and out, stimulating from the inside.”
Broadway adds, “To add to the sensations, sounds can be heated or cooled, and used in conjunction with a vibrator or, for seriously heavy play, a violet wand.
A violet wand is another medical device with antique lineage. It has been used as a torture device by some countries as well as—according to Midwestern folklore—the Chicago Police Department. The modern version is a heavy plastic wand attached to an electrical cord that plugs into a wall outlet. It has an intensity dial that ratchets up the thrum and, used in conjunction with metal rods in one’s penis, well, sounds like quite an afternoon.
I asked Broadway how he got started down a road that led to something we might see in “Marathon Man XXX.”
“I’ve been a lifestyle BDSM player for close to 25 years, and actually developed that side of my sexuality in middle school, when I found a stack of porn that belonged to my dad’s business partner,” Broadway said. “Mixed in with the Playboys were some other magazines, and they had letters and articles describing various fetishes. Those were the magazines that I gravitated to. Jumping ahead, pre-internet there were things call Bill Board Services (BBS) and the Usenet- these were full of articles and stories, so I just started exploring. That led to live sessions with a pro domme, then getting involved with BDSM groups and a three year relationship with a professional domme as her personal submissive. Then 12 years ago I met my wife. While we have never had a 24/7 BDSM relationship, I now had a regular partner to explore with. Five years ago she took a job as a pro domme, and through that we made a bunch of kinky friends who started teaching us about their fetishes.”
What’s a common misperception about this group of people?
“That we are freaks. OK, maybe we are freaks, but hey, what’s really wrong with that? We’ve found a path to pleasure that works for us. If you saw me on the street or in a coffee shop, you would think I’m just an average guy.”
Plus, you can keep your coffee stirrer in your penis.
Julie Simone describes a session with a hesitant client and provides a great slogan for the fetish.
“The guy was so scared, he’d never done it before,” Simone said. “I told him it felt like a handjob from the inside. Afterwards he said, ‘No it feels like a metal rod inside your cock.’
“But he was able to get hard from it and almost came from it once he finally stopped freaking out from the fear.”
I am grateful to Boston’s Eros Boutique for their help with this article. Eros Boutique is a post-sex-positive store for serious people and dabblers with a purpose; it’s like a really good music store that isn’t trying to lure people in with silly trinkets. So don’t go there for gag gifts for a bachelorette party unless you plan to change someone’s life.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: The Upper Floor and underground at Kink.com; Workplace of the Year; “Asphyxiating Ariel”
See also: Jimmy Broadway, Julie Simone, Eros Boutique
Can I trade my Suicide Girls DVD prize for this set of sounds? Methinks they would be a good deal less pain inducing…..