Knives can make fun and psychologically powerful sex toys

You do not actually have to cut your partner in order to do knife play. A semi-sharp or pointed knife edge drawn over skin, not hard enough to break the skin, is an intense and erotically charged sensation–especially if it is combined with a blindfold. Draw the knife very slowly over your partner’s body for an emotionally intense effect.

If the knife is kept in a freezer before you use it, it can actually feel much sharper than it is; a blindfolded submissive may believe that you are actually cutting with the knife, when in fact you are not. The back, chest, thighs, and legs are excellent places for knife play.

Veaux also proposes a plausible scheme for using operant conditioning to elicit an orgasm in response to a word or phrase. Because we’ve been thinking a lot of late about the Zero Mostel film The Hot Rock, we’d like to see someone come in response the phrase “Afghanistan Banana Stand.” How about -

• “Soylent Green is people”
• “To Serve Man is a cookbook”

We’d like to hear nominations for the best (or worst, depending on your sense of humor and how much humiliation goes into your mix). We’ll see if we can, in the name of science, persuade a group (i.e. a set of sexual partners in excess of one; and we’re not so open-minded that we accept sexual relationships not divisible by the integer “1″) to use the winning phrase – and barring that, actor(s) to simulate the anticipated result.

In fact, we’re trying to put together a “one of these things is not like the others” contest – Some will be coming in in response to the “not-so-safe” word – and others will be faking it. Watch this space for further details, which may include recruitment of volunteers.