sometimes beauty can be blood-wreathed
The Bleeding Ribbon Bloodplay Awareness Campaign is a campaign to demystify the ideas and practices involved in bloodplay.
Did you know that ...
AIDS, HIV and other diseases are carried in the blood and if you drink someone’s blood, you’re basically letting anything they have go into your system.
Also known as bloodsports, bloodplay could be defined as sexual gratification or pleasure from being cut, pierced or otherwise wounded in a way which draws blood. That’s the sub side of it. The dom side is, of course, gaining pleasure from being the one who does the cutting. It is often described as an obscure and "fetishy" subdivision of S&M.
Bloodplay is ...
Something which can make a person feel great, or beautiful; or something which two lovers use to show how much they feel for each other. It can be an act of dedication, worship or pure pleasure. You can do it by yourself or with someone else.
Former Bloodplay Awareness owner, Fiona Corealis, said:
"When I was younger, I was into what some people would call ’self-mutilation’. I cut myself with knives, often fairly seriously, and wounded myself, but never to the point of hospitalization. I did it because I hated myself at that point. Self-mutilation is something that a lot of people do, some more seriously than others. It can end in psychiatric treatment or, in the worst cases, suicide and death.
Nowadays, I still cut myself, but I do it for pleasure. I love the way I look when I have twisting lines of blood across my arms, and I love the sensations as the blade caresses its way through my flesh, the ice cold metal against the warmth of my flesh. Now what was once hatred has become love, in a way."
This campaign has two purposes: the first is to show people that bloodplay isn’t freakish. Other people do it and it shouldn’t be hidden away like a dirty secret. If you do it, you are not alone, and if you don’t, then please try to understand why people do practice it.
Secondly: There is a distinction between bloodplay and self-mutilation. If you know someone who hurts themselves out of self-hatred or depression, it might be best to talk with them, find out why they do it. In some cases professional help is needed, to stop them going too far, but often understanding and kindness is all that is required. Bloodplay, on the other hand, is much a part of a relationship as sex is. And it can be done alone: if masturbation is sex with no one, then cutting yourself for pleasure and not hatred is equally valid. It can be loving, kind, gentle and beautiful and sweet.
Blood drinking:
For many practitioners of bloodplay, a significant part of it can be an intensely erotic experience for both parties. Blood is one of the body’s vital fluids and in some senses, drinking blood could be seen as even more intimate than sex. It has ritualistic and vampiric connotations which appeal to many people and is quite often the only form of bloodplay which people practice.
As long as you: are careful and don’t cut yourself, or your partner, too badly; you make sure that the blade or any other instrument you use is clean; and you clean and bandage the wound afterwards, drinking blood can be erotic, rewarding and safe.
With love and consent, bloodplay can be an expression of complete devotion, as much as kissing, touching and saying “I love you”
Bloodplay without someone’s consent is wrong. It is a crime that our community does not condone and is viewed as an unforgivable offense.
