Review Thursday: Spartacus Press Clamps

The Masterly type and I were out to catch a movie, and of course before a movie, shopping is a great way to kill time.  Especially when there's an adult boutique down the street from the movie theatre.

I'd like to take a moment of my time to tell you Americans that you are very lucky in the adult toy marketplace arena.  My girlfriends and I used to shop at the big discount stores up in Wisconsin when I lived in Chicago, and the prices were phenomenal.  Even the prices at the little shops in the city beat Canadian prices by a country mile.  I never appreciated then how nice it was to be able to have a huge toy collection.  Which is part of why losing our whole collection in our fire was such a horrible thing.  But I digress...

As we wandered about and I pointedly avoided the wide varieties of feathers on sticks (one of these days I will explain my utter horror at being tickled.  It is the worst thing EVAH), we caught sight of these little babies, hanging on the wall among the small array of fetish items.

We had quite a collection of nipple toys in the past, but had never tried clamps quite like this before.  We were both fascinated by the way they worked, as opposed to our old favourites of tweezer clamps and clover clamps.  I have rather large nipples, so sometimes clamps are hard to use effectively, but these had a nice size to them, so we went ahead and picked them up on impulse.

I really like the feel of cold metal on my skin.  It's scary and goose bump inducing and threatening somehow.  So, I like clamps with metal chains.  Master... not so much.  He finds chains to be a bit more of a pain than a help, though pulling on the chains is an entertainment he seems to enjoy.  I also really like that the whole body of the clamp is metal.  It gives a sharpness to clamps that rubber cushioned tips soften almost too much sometimes.

At first, I found these clamps to be pretty mild.  I'm not sure how tightly they were adjusted, but while it was a nice mild pressure, there wasn't an initial "bite" of pain.  I immediately grabbed the chain and pulled upward.  Oh.  They came right off.  Either they weren't very tight, or just were very slippery without rubber grips.  Either way, it made Master look both amused and annoyed with me.  I think he probably was sorry he hadn't restrained my hands.

Once they were readjusted, we went back to what we were doing.  Namely, I remained positioned across the leather ottoman in front of him, and he resumed the movie (the 1974 version of Swept Away).  For endurance play, these work well, as my body seemed to adjust to the level of compression easily enough, leaving a throb, but not a huge amount of pain.

Every so often, Master would tighten them a bit, increasing the pressure, giving more pain, making me squirm more and more.  He likes having a toy at his disposal during movies and the like, so he spent lots of time just idly toying with the clamps and my clamped nipples.  The compression made them extremely sensitive, and even light brushes of his fingertips over the tips of them was very intense.  Tugging was really nice with these clamps, I think because of the configuration of the compression and where the chains are located on the clamps.  Whatever the physics of it, I could feel it quite deeply, and it shot both pleasure and pain through my body. Often it feels like a pull on a chain is only pulling on the skin of the nipples - particularly with "toothy" clamps, but this definitely lifted the full breast, with a completely different set of sensations when the chains were straight up (while on my back) or in other directions.

It took a bit of time, but it wasn't long before we were reaching my endurance limit.  This is something I think I'd like to work on, cause I was feeling a little bit like a wimp as I whined and squirmed around. Being as he can read me so easily, it was only a minute or two after I had the thought of "Oh holy crap I hope these come off soon" before they were being removed.  Because the compression is lifted gradually by the thumbscrew instead of suddenly, there is no OMG moment when they first come off.  I actually kind of missed that.  The sick feeling you get in your stomach when you really, really want the clamps to come off but are terrified of that shock of pain when the blood returns probably won't happen next time, because I know it's a gradual thing.  Perhaps if they were yanked off all at once you'd still get that... something to experiment with in the future!

Overall, I really like these clamps, and because of their slightly milder nature, they are great for endurance play.  These would be fun to use during a more prolonged scene, combined with flogging or other impact play, because they are easier to wear longer-term.  I think it was a great purchase and look forward to more playtime involving them.

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