Welcome back to a Sluts Guide to Happiness, where your body is perfectly imperfect and it’s safe to be as sexual, kinky, queer, or slutty as you want. 

Today I will be talking with a dear friend, caring goofball and wicked smart sex-positive educator and the Chief Learning Officer of Cliff Media, Hazel Havoc. We’re going to be discussing the intersection of BDSM impact and the energy that your body, your mind and your spirit experience during that impact play.

This lady has a lot to say and a lot of experience and with serious impact play. She thinks about it really deeply for the well-being of people and their experience.

Hazel, can you tell us about the first time that you experienced – and I’m gonna I’m going to drop these words, and then we’ll unpack them later – “top space” or “subspace”. 

Hazel: 

For me, it’s been top space. The first time I experienced it, I felt like I was floating, like being high or drunk without being in any of those spaces at all. In fact, like in order to do BDSM, I think you should be pretty sober to experience these feelings of euphoria, these feelings of, like magnanimity. You’re almost larger than life. 

When this experience happened for me, I was playing with this dear friend of mine, probably the bottom that has taught me more than any other person I’ve probably worked with. He is a deep, deep masochist and just able to take all the pain.

Vanessa: 

He likes the pain?

Hazel: 

He loves it. So I was working with him and we were just getting so intense, and I realized at some point that I was just dripping sweat. I was like, wait, why is my body sore? Why am I tired? I looked at the clock and we had been at it for some two hours straight, flogging and paddling, going from one to the other. The time flew by. 

That was the first experience for me where working with impact shrunk time. We we’re just really focused on what we were doing, just in this flow headspace that felt so euphoric. He was in euphoria too. The emotions that he was feeling from the subspace that he was in that helps to feed the top space that I was in as well. And vice versa. It became like a circular loop that we were in where my emotions can play off of his and his off mine. We feed off of one another and it becomes this beautiful space where the higher I go, the higher they can go. And the deeper into those subspace levels that they can go, we can play in.

Vanessa: 

I love that. Even if someone is outside and looking at it and they just see a flogger, there’s so much more going on. There’s so many more levels happening there at the moment.

Hazel: 

Yes, there’s so much more going on than just a flogger flying through the air. When you’re talking about BDSM and impact, particularly if you’re talking about a physical impact with the tool or your hands, I’m taking my energy and I am physically putting it into you. 

You can think about it as a vibrational thing. All humans at a core level vibrate. So if I am hitting you, I am literally changing your vibration and I’m changing it depending on the rhythms that I’m using, the intensity that I’m hitting you with, the object, the materials that I’m using. They all interplay in how that energy gets transferred from the person who’s hitting you. Me, in this case, right into your body, and then how your body absorbs it.

It’s going to feel different with a flogger that is made out of really soft lambskin versus a flogger that’s synthetic and made of something that’s a lot stiffer. Those feel different and they transfer energy differently into your body. It’s really interesting because I think a lot of people look at that array of sex toys or impact play toys and think, oh, this is going to just it’s about whether or not it feels nice or whether or not it leaves marks, but it’s actually there’s something so much deeper.

Vanessa: 

Before we dive into those details, I want to take a minute to talk about these words that we’re using and the general concepts of “top space” or “subspace”. I have definitely been in what feels like subspace, I know that experience of losing time. Could you help us get some more definition around these words, what do they mean for you?

Hazel: 

You’re entering top or subspace – what that means for me, it has to do with a lot of hormones. Actually, there are a lot of chemical responses that’s going on in your body. Euphoria can be experienced, sort of like floating. Sometimes people almost feel almost out of body. Some people get very calm, very relaxed. 

But what’s happening inside of your body is actually a hormonal response. You’re playing with your nervous system. And that’s what we’re doing when we talk about putting energy into people and changing the vibration in people, we’re talking about, we’re talking about your nervous system.

When I’m hitting your nervous system, it’s telling your body that you should feel pain, right? That’s the first response. And when we feel pain, then the second response to that is to send pleasure responses to that area because we want it to feel better. The body’s protecting itself. So the more you hit it, the more you hit the same spot, the more you play with that chemical response, the more your body starts getting confused about what’s going on.

It starts to release chemicals like your endorphins and all those feel good hormones. But not only that, it starts to release things like adrenaline. And the ones that are making your heart go faster. Then when you start noticing the person you’re working with, their body starts to tense up, or their heart starts beating faster or their breathing starts to accelerate, that’s when you start playing with the softer side of sensation and pain. 

When you’re talking about impact, it’s not just pain and everything hurts. Impact is also softer. It’s a range of sensations. So you play with all of those ranges and the body starts getting confused. It’s kind of like if you’ve ever done cold and hot water therapy and you jump from the hot pool to the cold pool, and then you go outside and it’s 30 degrees and you don’t know why you’re not shivering and your body is confused. This is what’s happening with impact. 

Your body is sending off all of these hormonal responses so quickly. And it’s getting the pleasure hormones as well as those stress hormones. And it’s putting you into a space that is, this head space that’s just this chemically induced floating type of head space. 

Vanessa:

I love that you are explaining it in such a technical and physiological way, that you are aware of what is happening on the body level. I think for me, often I’m so deep in it, so horny, I will do anything someone says to me. I see how, as a top, you are really conscientious of your responsibility and the potential that you have. When someone is experiencing those reactions, that’s also contributing to a series of emotions that are attached. 

Hazel: 

Yeah. What maybe brings up the fight or flight kind of response is who you are. You’re playing with the part of the nervous system that has everything to do with the fight, flight, freeze. 

Trauma lives in the body. We know that the body keeps the score – which is a great book, The Body Keeps The Score. We know that that trauma gets stored in the body.

So when you’re hitting places on the body, it is unleashing sometimes stored trauma and sometimes some of that stored energy. So when you’re talking with people before in pre-scene negotiations, we ask those questions. Is there some trauma that you’ve ever been through? Have you had a traumatic experience? Or even just asking if they’ve had a BDSM experience where trauma came up? What happened for them? What was the response that happened?

Because sometimes you can’t always pre-plan when trauma will appear, but you need to know how the person responds and what they are going to need at that moment. You need to know what those responses can look like and how they would be different.

For example, I worked with a woman and she typically is very giggly and bubbly. I know that if her bubbly nature starts to go away, something’s happening for her so I should probably check in. Checking can be a verbal check in or it can be like a physical check in. It could be a time where we just have some lower intensity. But we do some kind of check in if I see some sort of drastic change from how they normally are. 

Vanessa: 

I relate to that. In my life, I am that kind of energy – giggly, extroverted, talkative. And then when I’m in subspace, I melt into “ahhhh”, with the right person, when feeling safe enough. Losing the talkative part of myself and going into a different part of myself can feel really good. But the top has to either check in or know me well enough. 

Hazel:

Yeah, they do. They also need to know that when your bottom is entering into subspace, a lot of times they will become nonverbal. So you need to know to ask some sort of yes or no questions because they’re not going to be able to answer in full sentences.

They’re getting into the space where we want them to be. But also we need to be aware that this is a space that’s very fragile. It’s a sacred space. I remember the first time that I came out of top space, I felt really humbled that this is a space that people trust me to take them to – not only trust me, but want me to take them there. 

Vanessa:

I remember an instance where I was with a partner that I trusted very much. We were role playing a previous sexual trauma and it did make me cry, but that was a positive release. I felt like it finally moved it through the body. 

I’m interested in how, when you’re facilitating that kind of energy movement with people, where things  can get really intense, how do you hold that in your body? How does that impact you in top space? 

Hazel:

Part of it is knowing that you have to let it happen. For me, when I see energy moving like that through somebody, I feel almost a sense of pride, like my work helps this happen. I feel a genuine sense of joy for the person that I’m working with, that this is something that they get to experience and that they trusted me enough to let them go there.

Like I said it’s humbling. You trusted me with, with your body, with your space, with your mind, with your emotions, with your physical energy. You trusted me with everything. And now here we are. I had one person, one time, tell me after a session that it felt like she went to therapy and working out. She said her body felt exhausted and her mind felt just purified. 

Vanessa: 

I was at a kink workshop a few years ago. It was a BDSM workshop open to everyone. There were some people who were super new and they had not experienced kink, but they were open to it. One guy asked a novice, but sincere question – Is there really anyone who likes receiving pain?

And I think one of the things that’s really powerful about what you’re describing is that pro-domme work can be a healing profession and, in personal relationships, it can be a deeply intimate and generous exchange. You are giving so much to the person during impact play.

Hazel: 

Once during the session, the sub kept saying, I’m so grateful, over and over. “I’m so grateful.” And when I asked about that later, they explained that they were grateful that they got to have this experience to work through the things that they needed to work through, that they could just be in their body and feel the things happening in their body, that it made them feel in a way that they don’t usually get to feel.

Vanessa: 

Yeah. And I hear that from a lot of people, from people I work with. Is that what they love the most is that it puts them in their body. They don’t get to float out and be daydreaming about five years down the line. They don’t get to be thinking about what happened four days ago or ruminating over whatever it is we ruminate on.

Hazel: 

Yeah, you have to be present in your body with your mind, like your soul. Everything has to be present in that moment. And people get really grateful for that. It’s not something we get to do very often. It’s meditative, it turns off that monkey mind. And I think about sometimes in kink role play where somebody is giving impact. Sometimes that’s silly and playful and sometimes, like you’re describing, that’s real because that feels good to be able to express that and to to be brought into that space where you get to turn off the anxiety and all that stuff that’s going on. 

Vanessa: 

I’m interested in diving into top experience, because I don’t have this experience. What is it, what is the energy that you get as you top? Because you’re describing a lot of what you’re giving. How does it feed you?

Hazel: 

Man, how it feeds me. Gosh, I feel it in my chest where I feel most of the energy. It feels like this overwhelming sort of joy. It’s playful and it gives me energy. So the longer I work with somebody, the more energetic I will tend to become, because I tend to be feeding off of how deep they get into subspace.

It’s hard to describe because it’s a false sense of control. But the idea that I am powerful in this moment, that somebody has given me this power, this control over their body and their mind. 

Even if it’s temporary, even if in a moment they could change the whole thing and say “red” and the scene’s done, they are trusting me and that feels like a gift. It feels like one of the biggest gifts I think somebody can give to somebody else is to say, here’s my physical body and my spirit, I trust you with it.

All those hormones and emotions and traumas and experiences that are attached to that body, they’re giving me their vulnerability. They’re trusting that I will notice when they’re starting to go down a certain path. They’re trusting that I will help to carry them in a way that is emotionally and physically safe. 

Vanessa: 

That is an enormous gift and a huge sense of responsibility. You need to think like if you run a marathon, afterwards, you have to take care of your body and your mind a little bit.

Hazel: 

Right. So what does that look like both coming out of subspace and top space? I’ll start with subspace because I feel like I’m better at that one. 

When I help people come out of subspace, I try to do it gently. I try to give people time because it is a transition. It took time to get there; it’s going to take time to get back. 

So I do a couple things. One is I try to be very grounding. So I put a lot of energy in my hands on physical parts of the body to try to ground energy into their body. For example, I’ll ground into their shoulders, into their head. I really try to just put energy in. Instead of that active hitting energy, it’s energy that is still and calm. 

I also try to do deep breathing because usually by the end of sessions, our breathing is pretty well synchronized. You’re doing so much energy exchange and dance into a sense of each other. Because we spent the time together and we’ve been in that flow together. To get into that flow space, that’s usually something that ends up happening. I slow our breathing down, get very audible about that, slow it down even deeper. 

During impact, your skin gets very hot. When you stop receiving impact, all of a sudden you can feel very cold. So I like to put a blanket over people, and I like to put it over their whole body from their feet to their head, and then slowly start to, like, pull the blanket off of them.

It’s almost like this being reborn, sort of healing. Because you’re coming back from a different universe. And then when once they’re kind of out from the blanket in their head is revealed, then talking to me like, hey, welcome back. But really, like a formal sort of greeting, like, come back to the world.

It is power, like meditation. Like when you ring the bell and it’s time to come back out of wherever your mind went in that space. Those are some things I try to do to help people get out of subspace. Some things I’ve heard with people in subspaces, they don’t want to be rushed out of it, and that when they are rushed that it cuts the experience short.

For me, for top space, it feels like a wave that I like to ride. I can’t be too high when I’m helping people come out of subspace. But I like to maintain this higher amount of energy because I’m still putting energy into your body.

I’m helping to ground you. I’m putting my hands on you. I’m putting my weight on you. To really come out of a top space really requires a lot of time. It requires some sitting or calmness. Because my body’s physical tiredness has to catch up with the energetic high that I’m on. 

After a session, my body is often exhausted, but I won’t feel that immediately because I’m so high in this top space. The top space really has to come down first and then meet where my body is at for me to realize I need to sit. 

Vanessa:

It’s interesting that part of your role is getting the sub deeply into subspace in their body, whereas, as a top, you are kind of going into your head. You’re thinking about all the things that are going on and taking care of this person that you are in impact play with. So afterward, you have to come back into your body. This is like you’re having a swapped experience.

So my last question I want to explore is for people who are preparing to go into impact or who have done it but want to be really conscientious of this energy exchange. How would you recommend they use it in a way that is as caring and intimate and as healing as possible? 

What are some of your recommendations for how to prepare for that? What should people do before in the moment or in the weeks leading up to it. And what can be helpful to do through the scene to make it a safer, positive healing experience. 

Hazel:

Let’s say if you’re brand new and you’re just trying to get into it. First, start small, don’t try to do paddles and whips and all the things at once. 

Also identify the parts of your body that you want engaged. Do you want to be hit in your butt, but not necessarily on your shoulders? And if you’re not sure, start with some spankings. Most people can start with playful spankings with either on the butt, or even like little massage hits on the shoulders. 

You don’t have to go hard on the pain scale. You don’t have to come out and forcefully hit somebody for the first time. The first time, you can start softly and build up. Remember, it’s play, you’re playing. So in order to know where you’re playing, you need to know what your boundaries are.

That can be hard to figure out if you’ve never done it before. So be with a partner that you trust and then know the words to say when you’re reaching some boundaries. If you’re not sure what you like with spankings, that’s fine. You can still play if you have a partner that you trust. 

Make sure you have some words identified in advance between you and your impact play partner. I like to use green, yellow, and red. 

Green means go, go, go. I love this. This is great, keep going, go harder, do more. Yellow means, whoa, slow this down, his is getting a little much. This area is a little sensitive. Red is stop. 

So you can start figuring out what some of those are with your partner by using your words. And if you’re using one tool or even, even if you’re just using a tool, just using your hand, play with those. 

Play with what it feels like to be spanked and what you feel like is a level seven on the pain scale, what is a level five and a level four. When you are new to hitting people and you’re talking about how hard you want people to hit you, people don’t always have the same pain scale. So knowing what does a seven feel like for you and your body as both a top and a sub? How do you describe that to people so that they can know, and have an idea of what you’re talking about when you say something like “I like to play between the 5 to 7 range”. 

It’s one of the core pieces as you’re getting started, whether that’s in general getting started with kink or getting started with a new partner. There is more verbal communication at the beginning, and then you can lead into the intuition and the visual observations of what the other person is experiencing. 

There should always be a lot of verbal communication in the beginning, even with experienced partners. Even reviewing basic stuff is good and healthy to do. When I talked about the guy I first worked with, he was one of my oldest play partners at the time. But we still started with communication about remembering red, yellow, and green.

It’s always good to get the basis. No matter how long you’ve been playing with somebody, use those verbal cues. Especially if you’ve been having a long relationship and you’re playing in new realms, or if you’re introducing a new toy, or you’re trying something new, you definitely want to get used to having those verbal things in there.

Vanessa:

That’s beautiful. I know there are some days the world just feels messed up. Life is hard but I just want to be hit. So I am just grateful for the work that you do. You take care of people, you invite people into a space that is healing and conscientious of their needs. It can be healing for the body, mind and spirit, there are just so many different pieces of energy that you are giving to them.

And then as a top, you have the ground yourself back into your own body because you have put your focus so much into that other person. 

So Hazel, thank you so much for sharing, for sharing this wisdom with us. In a subsequent podcast, we are going to continue talking more about boundaries and negotiation in kink and porn and all kinds of sexual settings. That is so key to the difference between something that is a traumatic negative experience versus something that is positive life giving and healing.

Thank you, listeners, for joining us. This has been another edition of A Sluts Guide to Happiness with your host, Vanessa Cliff, and our amazing guest, Hazel Havoc.

You can find us wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple and Spotify, as well as on cliffmediaproductions.com. 

I encourage you to like and share this podcast and stay tuned for more deep, sexy, spiritual deep dives into beautiful, messy fun. If you’re over 18, you can also check out our video content on our website cliffmediaproductions.com

And most of all, I invite you to join us in the pleasure of being awkwardly human, naked, and without pretense. Let’s get free.