Can we talk about face-sitting? Because I’ve just been gifted the perfect news hook (read: excuse) to do just that. As you have perhaps heard, the U.K. is restricting pornography featuring certain sexual acts, including fisting and female ejaculation. Now, protesters are planning to sit on each other's faces -- another act banned by the new rules -- in front of Parliament on Friday. Call it a face-sit-in. Call it totally freaking brilliant.
As I’ve watched this news circulate, it’s become clear to me that many folks are unclear about what, exactly, face-sitting is, despite its straightforward hit-you-over-the-head-with-it (so to speak) descriptive name. First, allow me to turn to Jay Wiseman’s “Erotic Bondage Handbook,” which defines this “popular form of female-dominant play” as “sitting or squatting over the bottom’s face so that the top’s anal or genital area is pressed against the bottom’s face.” (Face-sitting isn’t restricted to women, mind you, but a woman sitting on a man's face does seem to be it’s most common incarnation, according to the Internet.)
If that doesn’t give you a visual to work with, feel free to consult these NSFW but oh-so-quaint historical depictions -- I’ll wait here, naively hopin...
Face-sitting, which is also referred to as "queening," is typically about dominating or being dominated. Good Vibrations staff sexologist Carol Queen -- whose name, to the best of my knowledge, has no relation to "queening" -- explains by email, "It’s practically a form of bondage, with an overwhelming and inescapable vulva right in your face!" she says. "It has the implication of forced oral and can incorporate breath control and smothering (I want to be clear -- that’s what people like about it), and the fun can be heightened by the dominant talking to the submissive in role."
Maitresse Madeline, a dominatrix and porn director who knows a thing or two about sitting on faces, tells me, "From a femdom point of view, face-sitting is an extremely sexy and erotic form of objectification," she says, adding that it can be done nude or in pantyhose or latex. "The dominatrix is in control and can achieve heightened orgasm from the act of objectifying her toy using her most intimate body parts. The sub is satisfied with a taste of something so cherished and the opportunity to please."
It need not be part of BDSM, though. "Its more vanilla manifestation is as a positional variant of oral sex, particularly cunnilingus," explains Queen. "The person receiving the oral pleasuring kneels over the one doing the licking. It’s sort of the oral version of the 'woman on top' position, and it’s ideal for those who like some movement." As Queen puts it, face-sitting can either be "an innocent cunnilingus position" or a "submissive overwhelmed by their Mistress’s all-powerful vulva."
I find that in trying to get a better understanding of a particular fetish, the poetry of Internet porn sites often helps -- and entertains. Consider facesittingvixens.com -- tag line, “Take A Deep Breath!” -- which riffs, “Hot round mounds of succulent female flesh descend on a man's protesting face, ready, willing and eager to rob his breath and dominate him in the most demeaning - and sexy - way possible!" The cultural symbolism here is just rich: What is more "demeaning" than a man being subsumed by a vagina, the place from whence he came? The site continues, "She sits seductively, swallowing his face in her magnificent butt, or crushing it between her squatting thighs and using her musky womanhood to subject him to the most humiliating submissiveness possible."
Then there's this from facesittinglovers.com: “Look at him, poor little fellow is gasping for air, blinded and literally squashed under his Domina's smooth, delicious crotch."
One sec, let me put back on my semi-serious journalism face.
Clearly, the restriction of air is eroticized, which is why these new U.K. rules contend that the practice is dangerous, but when done responsibly it really isn't. Charlotte Rose, the sex worker activist in charge of the upcoming protest, says smart precautions include writing beforehand "a standard of procedure to ensure all factors are discussed to ensure health and safety," using facial color charts -- which she is bringing to Friday's protest, like a good BDSM ambassador -- to identify whether a partner's oxygen levels are low and using "a special groan of a safety word to stop." As with any well-executed kinky act, it's all about agreeing beforehand on boundaries and having a safe word (or sound or physical signal). Queen bears repeating here: "I want to be clear -- that’s what people like about it."
Maitresse Madeline says the restrictions are arbitrary. "Out of the hundreds of faces I've sat upon in my life and career, never once did myself or my partners feel as if they were in harm's way," she says. "Did we achieve heightened sexual gratification and pure satisfaction? Yes. Did we feel as if we were endangering our lives? Never."
Shares