"Gag Reflexions"
by david stein
with Richard Sommers, M.D.

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Copyright ©1993 by david stein (gorgik@aol.com); all rights reserved, including the right to reprint in whole or in part in any medium whatsoever. Printouts for the viewer’s personal enjoyment are encouraged, but please contact the author if any other use is desired. This article combines my “Bond+Aid” columns from Bound & Gagged, issues #37 and #38, cutting any redundancies.

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“I feel from your writings that you are a little squeamish of gagging in a thorough manner,” a faithful reader from upstate New York tells me. His letter made me feel that someone had finally discovered my guilty secret: The safety columnist of Bound & Gagged magazine is not an aficionado of gags!

It’s true. I confess — but it’s not really a matter of personal taste. While I like the idea of being gagged, various problems keep me from enjoying the reality. I have a long history of respiratory allergies, and my nose also tends to clog when I’m simply anxious or excited. Even if I’m okay with a gag at first, knowing that I could suddenly have trouble breathing at any time puts a real damper on my enthusiasm. Moreover, I’ve suffered from TMJ (temporo-mandibular joint) syndrome, and I have a strong gag reflex. Stick a ball gag or ring gag in my mouth, and a few minutes later my jaw muscles are in agony. Stick a large cock or plug gag in, and I tend to choke or even vomit (at least a live cock moves in and out — gags just sit there and tickle the uvula). Given all that, I’m not a good candidate for happy gagging, and you’ll forgive me if I seem extra-cautious in my warnings on the subject.

But mine are not exactly rare conditions; many other bondage enthusiasts share one or more of them. People vary — a lot — in what they can take, but the factors that can make gags risky are legion. In addition to those mentioned already, there’s asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, and other common respiratory diseases, all of which can cause severe breathing problems with little or no warning. Anybody can catch a cold or another respiratory infection, and a gag that’s too large for a particular bottom’s mouth can cause excruciating jaw spasms or vomiting despite his being able to handle smaller or less intrusive gags very well. And even someone with no known medical counterindications can suddenly develop a breathing problem while gagged for a wide variety of reasons.

Nevertheless, lots of guys enjoy gags, and, at least in consensual scenes, we rarely hear of anyone being killed or hurt because of one. The reader whose letter spurred these “reflexions” says he really turns on to being “gagged to the fullest extent,” and he explains the attraction very well:

“Part of the excitement of being tied up,” he writes, “is knowing I will be gagged and my top will have control. After I have told him what my limits are, I want to be taken a little beyond my limits, and I trust my top with all my being. Gagging me makes the scene much more dominating for him and more fun and interesting for me. I’m happy because I can’t call out, and it’s exciting to see my limits being stretched. My being silenced effectively [means] I have to trust my top further and learn what he teaches.”

Others have suggested that just as being tied up can give us “permission” to enjoy things we’re ambivalent or even negative about — as well as letting us abandon our usual bodily self-control and thrash about or push and pull as much as we like, knowing that someone else has set safe limits — being gagged can “allow” us to play a nonverbal role in the erotic conversation, voicing our passion in elemental grunts and moans and muffled screams. For anyone who tends to watch his words carefully, it can be a marvelous release — if you can relax and enjoy it.

My correspondent says that he loves “the feeling of a gag being forced into my mouth and sealed extremely well, especially with tape,” but he’s worried about it. “I know it is dangerous to have someone gagged in this manner. You have stressed this many times, and I agree with you. But say your top is caring and trustworthy. You have no reason to fear or doubt him. He also agrees to stay close to you, never leaving you, making sure you are never on your stomach, ready at a moment’s notice if something isn’t right. Can you tell me of a gagging procedure that is almost foolproof with all of the above included? Please give me some gagging ideas that are effective without depriving me of the thrill of being gagged.”

Let’s dispose of a couple of red herrings immediately: First of all, there’s no such thing as a gag that can truly silence someone — without killing him, anyway. As long as you can breathe at all, you can vibrate your vocal cords, and the result will be audible, if not as loud as when it emerges through the resonant cavity of your mouth. A gag that cut off all air to your vocal cords would also prevent it from reaching your lungs, in which case the phrase “deathly silence” would be all too applicable. A gagged bottom who’s having trouble breathing or feels queasy will normally start making distress noises well before the problem becomes acute — and he’d better do so, because after breathing stops he won’t be able to. Total silence from a bound and gagged bottom is the most urgent danger sign of all.

The most you can do with a gag that’s safe for erotic use is to block all articulate speech and to reduce the volume of whatever other sounds the bottom makes. If the main concern is to prevent his verbally controlling the top, a wide variety of gags can work quite well without an unreasonable degree of risk — provided both top and bottom behave responsibly and sensibly.

A safe bondage or s/m scene depends on continual clear communication between the top and bottom. If the bottom can’t let the top know when something’s wrong, a small glitch can grow into a major fiasco. Regular bondage buddies, longtime lovers, and highly experienced players can usually “read” each other’s body language and inarticulate noises well enough for the bottom to communicate that he’s in trouble — or having a wonderful time — even when he’s well gagged. But using a really effective gag is not a good idea for most first encounters, no matter how much discussion of limits has occurred beforehand, and novices are always well advised to master the simplest, least risky techniques before going on to more advanced equipment or methods. Even a “safe” gag cannot be made “foolproof,” meaning safe in the hands of a top or bottom who’s stupid, careless, drunk, or ignorant.

Gagging must be regarded as one of the most dangerous bondage practices, simply because little else we do can kill someone so quickly if things go wrong. (Breath-control scenes and attempts to simulate hanging can have the same fatal outcome, of course, and they’re even more dangerous since it’s easier for mistakes to happen in these tricky “advanced” scenes than in ordinary tying and gagging.) Even though things don’t go wrong 99.9 percent of the time, the magnitude of what we’re risking should at least make us pause to think about what we’re doing. (Rope burns and nerve damage from misuse of handcuffs are probably the most common bondage mishaps, but no one dies from them.)

Improving the Odds
While any gag carries some degree of risk, no gag can be considered reasonably “safe” if it can’t be removed quickly.

How do I define “quickly”? Remember that from the time breathing stops to the time the brain stops is just 4 minutes on average, give or take maybe a minute. But well before the brain stops — sometimes after as little as 2 minutes — oxygen deprivation can cause irreparable damage to parts of the brain and other highly oxygen-sensitive parts of the body.

That doesn’t leave a lot of time even for a “caring and trustworthy” top who’s right next to you (1) to realize you’re in trouble and (2) to remove whatever he’s gagged you with. If he’s across the room or otherwise preoccupied (as may easily be the case in a long-term scene or a shorter one that involves much other action besides bondage), he might not respond instantly even if you make a lot of noise — especially if you’ve been making pleasure and pain noises all along. Any rule of thumb will be somewhat arbitrary, since there are so many variables, but conservatively (and on safety matters I’m always conservative), I would say that no gag is “safe” unless it can be removed in less than 15 seconds. That’s plenty of time to get off a plug gag fastened with a strap and buckle, or a sock or bandanna tied between the teeth, or one or two pieces of tape applied directly to the mouth. Unfortunately, all the measures to make gags more secure, thorough, or effective — filling the mouth completely, padlocking any buckles, using a hood on top of a gag, sealing a gag inside the mouth with tape wrapped around the head, and so on — also make them harder to get them off, thus reducing the safety margin.

Here are some risk-reducing steps anyone who enjoys gags can take:

• While it is the bottom’s responsibility to alert the top to any pre-existing conditions that could make a gag more risky, a sensible top will also ask about these, particularly in a first encounter, and be prepared to modify the scene accordingly.
  
  
• Allergies to pets (cats, dogs, birds), animal-hair fabrics (such as wool or mohair), flowers, smoke, natural or chemical scents, etc. require special precautions. It’s not enough simply to remove pets, etc. from the room where you’re going to do the scene just before you start. If they’ve been in the room regularly, or even within the last day or two, they’ll have left enough hair, pollen, or other contaminants to affect an allergic bottom’s breathing — if not immediately, then within an hour or two. Play somewhere else, and if you can’t (if, say, you live with a pet in a small apartment and have no other space available), forget about using any severe gag — and consider not using one at all. Also note that some people are allergic or sensitive to rubber, which means you can’t use a rubber gag or other rubber equipment on them.
  
  
• Vomiting while gagged is even worse than having your nose clog, because it can prevent any air from getting to your lungs, even through your mouth around the gag — and if you survive that, the vomit itself may be sucked into your lungs and cause a very severe pneumonia. Therefore, it’s safest to enter a scene with an empty stomach (that’s good advice for other bondage and s/m action as well). Eat only lightly, if at all, for up to 6 hours beforehand, and especially during the 3 hours immediately preceding the scene. If you get into an impromptu scene right after a meal, don’t submit to being gagged, and the same holds at any time if your stomach feels at all queasy or fluttery. (But don’t just refuse — explain why you can’t handle a gag at that time.)
  
  
• Using a nasal-decongestant spray before a scene (or allowing the bottom to spray his nose before you gag him) may help prevent trouble — but be aware that most of these sprays cause the nasal passages to swell up even worse than before once they wear off. Check the package for how long the decongestant effect is supposed to last. Using a 4-hour spray for a 12-hour scene may be worse than not using any at all. And if you’re a nose-spray addict (as I am), you may have built up a tolerance that makes the decongestant effect wear off sooner.
  
  
• Don’t take any other drugs or chemicals unless they’re medically prescribed or recommended. Over-the-counter oral decongestants usually have more interactions or side effects than nose spray, and some illicit substances, including poppers, actually dilate the blood vessels, which is likely to make the nose clog up.
  
  
• Always have tools close at hand to cut through straps, rope, socks, tape, etc. if necessary — preferably EMT (emergency medical technician) shears or else a blunt-tipped scissors or knife. Always keep the keys for any locks you use in easy reach (and be sure you know which key goes with which lock). Before using an elaborate, severe gag “for real,” on yourself or someone else, practice putting it on and taking it off until you can do it quickly — then learn to do it in the dark.
  
  
• During any scene where your partner is gagged, check his breathing as often as possible. Listen for ragged, rapid, or forced breathing through the nose and the mouth. Just because he’s able to continue breathing through his mouth doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to make him do so indefinitely. If he becomes frightened and starts breathing very hard and fast, he could hyperventilate and faint. Prolonged labored breathing can tire out the respiratory muscles, and if they suddenly cramp or fail it could lead to a fatal respiratory collapse.
  
  
• Once you notice that a gagged bottom has stopped breathing through his nose, restore normal respiration before continuing the scene, even if you have to remove the gag and ask him to identify the problem. The solution may be as simple as changing his position from lying down to sitting up, or giving him some nose spray or a prescribed medicine. Or he may just need a break in the action and some TLC.
  
  
• If it’s important to his fantasy to think you’ve abandoned him, pretend to leave the room and keep quiet. But never, ever really leave.
  
  
• Reserve the more severe gags for relatively short scenes where you’re in intimate contact at all times. Sitting across the room reading a book or watching TV just doesn’t cut it if you’ve totally sealed your partner’s mouth, nor does sleeping next to him — it’s too easy to miss a low-decibel distress noise or nonverbal signal.

“Safe” Gags

• Probably the safest gag, if also the least effective, is a bandanna, towel, or scarf tied around the outside of the mouth. For some bottoms, particularly novices, this may be all they need to get the full psychological effect: “permission” to shut up and do as they’re told.
  
  
• A “bit gag” or a handkerchief, sock, towel, scarf, rope, etc. tied between the teeth is considerably more secure and effective yet also pretty safe. The main things to watch out for are that the gag doesn’t mash his lips or cheeks against his teeth (an athletic mouth guard can help prevent this) or pull too hard into the corners of the mouth. Rubber bit gags are a lot more comfortable and less likely to cause problems than those made of rigid materials such as metal or wood. With any kind of gag using a fabric material, be sure there are no dangling bits (frayed edges, corners, loose threads) at the back side, inside the mouth. A piece of a sock or hanky trailing into his throat is likely to make him swallow or cough convulsively, and ultimately choke (or vomit and then choke).
  
  
• A ring or tube gag (often used in piss scenes) is usually safe, in terms of breathing at least. Be sure that the ring isn’t too big (if it doesn’t hurt after a few minutes and he can still swallow easily, it should be fine) or too hard (bare-metal rings can chip teeth or damage gums). With a tube gag, make sure the tube doesn’t stick so far back into the mouth that it makes him choke, or move too easily in and out (it might slide in too far during a vigorous scene).
  
  
• A cock gag or plug gag is usually safe if it’s not too big or too long. These gags generally don’t seal the mouth completely, but if you use one that does, you can drill air holes in the faceplate on either side of the gag itself to enable the bottom to pull in air around it.
  
  
• Tape can make a reasonably safe gag if you use it all by itself, sealing the mouth and holding it closed without anything inside but his tongue. Leave a little flap of tape on his chin or upper lip to help you start pulling or cutting it off, and use gaffer’s tape, not duct tape. You can rip off gaffer’s tape without injuring the skin, but duct tape can pull parts of the lips, eyelids, and cheeks along with it, as well as eyelashes and eyebrows. If you can’t get all the tape off quickly, always free his lips first: As long as he can part them enough to pull in some air through his teeth, you’ll have time to finish the job.

A Real Mouthful
Any mouth-filling gag is substantially riskier than one that doesn’t fill the mouth, for two reasons: (1) It removes the possibility of mouth-breathing as a temporary back-up if the nose clogs. And (2), stuffing the mouth not only leaves no room for vomit to emerge from the throat, but it can trigger vomiting in a bottom with a strong gag reflex.

In general, a mouth-filling gag that incorporates a small breathing tube (which is different from a tube gag in which the wide tube itself is what prevents speech) is safer than one that doesn’t, but they can be tricky. For instance, you can roll a sock around a stiff rubber, metal, or plastic tube, or you could drill a hole through a rubber ball gag and insert a stiff tube. (It’s not enough just to drill a hole; without a tube to stiffen it the force of the jaw will compress the hole and block the air.) Very stiff rubber is probably safer than metal or plastic because there’s less chance of its scraping the inside of the mouth or of flattening or breaking from jaw pressure.

The diameter of the tube isn’t critical, but the length is: If the tube extends too far into the mouth beyond the back of the gag surrounding it, it will trigger the gag reflex. And if there’s too much tube extending outside the mouth, breathing through it will be difficult at best; at worst, you’ll simply breathe the same stale air over and over again until you suffocate. The ideal breathing tube should barely clear the back of the gag inside the mouth and extend outside the mouth no more than a couple of inches. Long, dangling breathing tubes — often seen on rubber hoods — can be worse than useless. But it’s easy to test whether the tube is short enough: just try breathing through it yourself (with your nose pinched tight with your fingers or a clamp) for a minute or two! If it takes more and more effort to pull in enough fresh air, the tube’s too long.

Also consider these points with breathing-tube gags:

• As with a ring gag or piss gag, be sure the jaw isn’t held too far open and that the breathing tube doesn’t slide in and out easily. A loose tube could slide all the way through the gag and into the throat, and with the gag filling the mouth behind it, he won’t be able to expel it by coughing or vomiting. If it isn’t removed very quickly, he’ll choke to death.
  
  
• A homemade gag with an improvised breathing tube needs to be firmly anchored, not only for security and effectiveness but also so that the tube doesn’t shift its position during the scene, which could block the air flow through it. The problem is that the methods of anchoring such a gag usually increase the time needed to take it out. The more straps, rope, tape, or locks you have to undo or cut off, the riskier the gag becomes.

Saliva is a problem with any mouth-filling gag (and some plug gags that don’t fill it), because holding anything in your mouth stimulates its secretion. If the gag is very absorbent, as some sock gags are, it may soak up the saliva too fast (at least until it becomes soaked through) and make it so hard to swallow that you choke. (Some bottoms find rolled-sock gags and the like easier to take if they’re inserted already damp.) On the other hand, if the gag isn’t absorbent at all, like a rubber ball, you may not be able to swallow quickly enough and end by drowning in your own spit — particularly if you’re lying on your back.

The safest kind of mouth-filling/mouth-sealing gag without a breathing tube is probably a rolled sock in the mouth, one piece of tape over the mouth, and one strap, stretched-out sock, necktie, piece of rope, etc. fastened under the chin and around the top of the head. You can quickly loosen the anchor strap (or whatever) just by pushing it forward or backward on the head, then rip off the tape and pull out the gag. I’m not sure why anyone would crave a more secure gag than this if the bottom is bound well enough that he can’t manipulate it. Anything that makes it harder for him to free himself from a gag will also make it harder for the top to remove it, which greatly increases the risk.

Perhaps the riskiest gag I can imagine — I get the willies just thinking about it — is a mouth-filling gag without a breathing tube that’s sealed underneath tape completely wrapping the head, as in a mummification. You can’t get the gag out until you remove most of the tape, which in an emergency could easily take more time than you have. If you have to go that far to enjoy the thrill of being gagged, be sure your life insurance and will are both in order.