A survey of male submissive kinks: #4 Control of pleasure
The category that deals with sexual fantasies of orgasm denial, ruined orgasms, masturbation instructions, chastity, etc., and how they intertwine with other kinks.
This is part of a series of essays that collectively survey male submissive kinks. Find the Table of contents here.
To pursue a successful reproductive strategy, a man needs to have control over his reproductive organs, namely the penis that enters the vagina and the testicles that produce the sperm that inseminates the woman. He also needs to have the power to choose when and how to use his organs in order to have sex and reproduce.
If a man is deprived of control over the reproductive organs and the way he uses them, his chances at successful reproduction become slim. This deprivation can take place through the application of a physical barrier that prevents the man from accessing his penis, or through the imposition of rules to be obeyed by the man and the provision of instructions to be followed by him without the need for any physical barriers.
Some men fantasize about this loss of access to their penis and control over the way they use it, surrendering it to a dominating woman who comes to hold power over the man’s reproductive organs and his sexuality. I call this category of kinks “control of pleasure”. It encompasses all aspects of the woman’s control of the man’s sexual pleasure in one way or another.
The most prominent kink in this category is chastity, but other kinks run along similar lines on the theme of control of sexual pleasure, such as orgasm countdowns, orgasm denial, and ruined orgasms. In all these kinks, the man assents to obeying the woman's wishes when it comes to his masturbatory habits and his orgasms.
Masturbation instructions
Countdowns
The simplest aspect in which a woman controls the man’s sexual pleasure is the so-called “cum countdown” where the woman counts the man down to orgasm. This is a prominent feature in pornographic videos in the style of “jerk-off instructions” where the female actresses give specific instructions to the male viewer on how to masturbate.
For the men with submissive sexual fantasies, the appeal in the cum countdown is the subtle power the woman holds over the fate of the masturbation session, surrendered to her willingly by the subject.
The woman can for example control the number from which she starts to count down, the pace at which she counts down, and whether or not she restarts the countdown at any given moment. All these aspects can serve to frustrate the man who has to closely follow the woman’s instructions.
Failing to comply—that is to say, either accidentally ejaculating before the end of the countdown or not being ready to ejaculate when it ends—can sometimes be accompanied by punishments laid down by the woman.
Instead of making the countdown agonizing to the man, the woman can also go the opposite way by making the countdown shorter on purpose, thus forcing the man to try to ejaculate prematurely. This intertwines with the premature ejaculation kink.
Rules
More generally, the woman can lay down any rule for the man during the masturbation session. An exhaustive enumeration of all the instructions a woman can give to the man is a hopeless exercise as there is no limit to creativity in this domain. A few examples will suffice to illustrate.
The woman can dictate that the man only touch himself when she gives a specific signal. A prominent style of pornographic videos in this context feature the so-called “red light–green light” game, where the man is only allowed to touch himself when the woman gives a green light signal and he has to stop stimulating himself when she gives a red light signal.
The woman can also dictate that the man only touch himself when she is clothed and that he has to cease masturbating when she reveals skin. This intertwines with aspects of rejection as it is implied that the man does not deserve to touch himself to the nude view of the woman.
Instructions can also feature aspects of corporal punishment. The woman can for example instruct the man to strike his genitals when she gives certain signals, in which case the kink of genital torture is involved. Financial domination can enter into the picture if the man is made to send the woman money on specific signals during the masturbation session.
The woman can instruct the man to stimulate his anus, in which case the masturbation instructions intertwine with feminization kinks. In these, the man can be made to anally penetrate himself with fingers or toys. He can also be made to perform oral sex on the insertion objects. This is particularly humiliating if the oral sex is performed right after anal penetration, due to the disgusting nature of this practice.
Cum-eating
A prominent feature of masturbation instructions is the so-called “cum-eating”, in which the man is made to ingest his own emissions. This is usually accomplished through the consumption of his semen after he ejaculates, either by attempting to shoot it directly into his mouth or by collecting it in his hand or in a cup and consuming it from there. Cum-eating instructions can also include the tasting of the man’s pre-ejaculate while he masturbates.
Cum-eating instructions involve aspects of feminization as the man assumes the role of the heterosexual woman who ingests her male partner’s semen. Similar instructions can include the man’s ejaculation on his own face or body. All of these acts are humiliating to the man and degrading to his masculinity.
The issue with the fantasy of cum-eating instructions is that, like all submissive sexual fantasies, the desire for it immediately fades away after orgasm. As such, a man can intensely yearn to eat his own ejaculate while he masturbates, entertaining this craving up to the moment immediately preceding climax. Once the man orgasms, however, this desire instantly evaporates and the man no longer wishes to go through with the cum-eating exercise, repulsed and disgusted by the idea that just a few moments before took such a strong hold on his imagination.
For this reason, cum-eating instructions can get very creative. For example, the man can be made to collect his ejaculate beforehand and keep it in the freezer. On a subsequent masturbation session, the man is to fetch the frozen ejaculate and eat it like a popsicle, thereby solving the aforementioned problem.
Permission
A prominent aspect of control of the man’s sexual pleasure by the woman is the requirement of her permission to climax. The man surrenders the decision to orgasm over to the woman, and she decides when to grant it and when to refuse it.
This aspect intensifies the submission of the man to the woman, as he has an added incentive to please her and to follow her instructions in the hope that she will grant him release. If the man slips up, the woman can easily forbid his orgasm as punishment. She can also torment the man by not giving him permission even if he obeys all her orders and follows all her instructions, as an act of gratuitous cruelty.
To get the woman’s permission to climax, the man can be made to beg. Imploring the woman and pleading with her to allow him to orgasm is humiliating, and the longer it goes on, the more humiliating it becomes as the man is made to beg with more intensity, degrading himself more and more in the process. The man remains uncertain about the success of his doubled efforts as the ultimate decision resides with the woman. In some fantasies, the woman is pleased with the man’s efforts and she grants him permission to climax as a reward. In other fantasies, the man is denied.
Denial
One of the ways the woman can control the man’s orgasms is by denying them. She can instruct the man to masturbate and to bring himself to the edge of orgasm, exciting him to the utmost only to ultimately deny him release. At the end of the masturbation session, the man is expected to stop touching himself and to let his penis lose its erection without bringing himself to orgasm, thus frustrating himself on purpose.
The practice of masturbating on the edge of orgasm but stopping oneself from going over the edge is called “edging”. The woman can use this as an instrument to agonize the man as it can take a tremendous amount of self-control to fight against the overwhelming desire to orgasm when the man is on the edge. In this context, the woman can lay down punishments if the man fails to stay on the edge and orgasms against her woman’s instructions.
The woman can inform the man that he will be denied before he starts masturbating so that he knows what to expect. Alternatively, she can make him believe she will make him orgasm but deny him instead. This denial can come as a surprise, sometimes in a “surprise countdown” where the woman initiates a normal cum countdown which the man assumes will bring him to orgasm, but she stops just before reaching the end to reveal to him her intention of denying him. Some men derive great sexual satisfaction from these forms of surprise denial and situation reversal.
When the man denies himself orgasm, he can have a condition called “blue balls”, which refers to mildly uncomfortable sensations in the testicles after a prolonged state of sexual arousal which causes temporary fluid buildup that is not relieved by orgasm. The woman can talk of leaving the man with blue balls to verbally humiliate him and mock him.
In today’s internet culture, some men engage in a challenge called “No Nut November” in which they attempt to abstain from masturbation for the entirety of that month. Men with submissive sexual fantasies can engage in a specific version of this challenge where they are teased and tormented by a woman (typically in pornographic videos) but denied orgasm, with this occurring for the whole month. Alternatively, some men fantasize about engaging in the original version of No Nut November but having their efforts laid to waste by a seductive woman who persuades them to break their streak of abstinence.
Ruin
Another prominent way the woman can control the man’s sexual pleasure is by forcing him to have a so-called “ruined orgasm”. This is when the man brings himself right to the edge of climax by masturbating normally then ceases all manual stimulation right as he goes over the edge.
In doing so, the man denies himself the pleasure to be had from grasping his penis and stroking it for the short duration of the orgasm, which significantly enhances the pleasurable sensations of climax during male masturbation. By denying himself these sensations, the man is effectively ruining the orgasm, hence the name. Ruined orgasms can also serve as punishment if the man fails to follow all the instructions given by the woman.
Chastity
Chastity devices
The most prominent kink in the category of control of pleasure is chastity. A man with the chastity kink yearns to have his penis locked in a device which has the dual function of restricting it from achieving erection and preventing the man from manually stimulating himself. Such a device is called a chastity cage.
Chastity belts for women were purported to have been used in medieval times by crusading knights who wanted to ensure the fidelity of their wives in their absence. This history is now thought to be a myth invented in later ages.1
Some chastity contraptions seem to have been used by parents to prevent their children from masturbating during the short period of history in the 18th and 19th centuries where masturbation was believed to cause serious physical and mental ailments and even insanity.
These contraptions were never widely used or accepted but many such inventions were patented.2 The idea of a male chastity device as an instrument for sexual arousal seems to have become popular in the 20th century, but this history remains obscure.
Chastity cages for men are typically designed to have a ring that wraps behind the testicles. This ring connects to the actual cage that conceals the penis, leaving space for urination but otherwise constricting the ability of the penis to tumesce. The two parts of the chastity device are typically secured together with a small lock and key.
Keyholder
The woman who holds the key to the man’s chastity device is called the keyholder, and the key comes to symbolize the power she holds over him by controlling his reproductive organ. The woman can wear the chastity key in a necklace so that it becomes visible to the man whenever he is interacting with her, serving as a constant reminder of the state he is in.
When a man devolves this kind of control to a woman, he is effectively surrendering his entire reproductive strategy to her, for without the key his penis is doomed to permanent flaccidity and reproduction becomes impossible.
Men with the chastity kink eroticize the tremendous power conferred on the woman who holds the key to the cage and the dynamic that emerges after the penis is locked away. It becomes the woman’s decision of when to unlock the man’s penis. The man falls into a particularly submissive position to her as a consequence.
Some men fantasize about being locked permanently and living forever in chastity. In these fantasies, a man denies himself any and all sexual pleasure to focus exclusively on serving the woman who holds the key to his cage. The chastity kink thus intertwines with aspects of worship and servitude.
In connection with the idea of permanent chastity, some fantasies revolve around the keyholder’s accidental loss of the key or her inability to remember where she put it, thus forcing the man to permanently stay in chastity by force of circumstance.
In some fantasies, the chastity kink occurs exclusively on its own without any other kinks involved. Some men fantasize about engaging in chastity play with a female partner where the man is locked and the woman holds on to the key, controlling when he is allowed out of the cage. She can tease him and deny him or unlock him and grant him release, allowing him to masturbate or to have sex with her only to take the pleasure away again by putting him back in chastity after she is done with him.
While the man is locked, the woman can pleasure herself in front of him, frustrating him. This frustration can be furthered in a variety of ways, for example by making the man wear a strap-on dildo and engaging in pseudo-intercourse with him (with the dildo) while his actual penis remains locked.
In other fantasies, other kinks come into play alongside chastity. The following examples serve to illustrate.
Cuckold
If the chastity takes place within a relationship, it can intertwine with the cuckolding kink. In these fantasies, the chastity cage serves to deny the cuckold sexual pleasure while the woman freely enjoys herself with other partners. If the man also has fantasies of serving the woman’s bull, he can fantasize about having his chastity key handed over to the bull by the woman.
The woman typically denies the caged cuckold sex but she can periodically decide to free him from chastity and allow him temporary release. In this case, she decides if he is allowed to orgasm or if he should be teased and denied. The loss of power and the uncertainty involved in not knowing when the man will be unlocked next can be a great source of arousal.
Friendzone and worship
The chastity kink can also intertwine with friendzone fantasies where the man is locked up by the woman as a condition to be friends with her so as to guarantee that he does not inappropriately procure any sexual pleasure from their friendship.
This can be especially arousing when the woman tells the man about her encounters with her sexual partners while he agonizes in his cage. In these fantasies, chastity can also serve to prevent the man from pursuing other women, either because the keyholder believes he is unworthy of women or because she wishes to guarantee his complete devotion to her as a platonic friend.
This devotion can also be cast in the light of worshiping the woman, in which case chastity becomes a token of the man’s worship. If the feet of the woman are the focus of this worship, she can decide to wear the chastity key in a bracelet around her ankle, symbolizing the power that her feet hold over the man’s imagination.
Small penis and feminization
The chastity kink can intertwine with small penis humiliation in fantasies where a small penis is the reason behind the woman’s decision to lock it up. Chastity is therefore a punishment that the man endures for not having a penis up to par with the woman’s standards. Some fantasies also play on the imagined possibility that chastity will lead to permanent shrinkage of the penis, thereby making the man even more sexually inadequate.
In connection with having a small penis, the chastity kink can intertwine with aspects of feminization where the woman imposes chastity on the man as part of her wish to degrade his masculinity and to make him more feminine. In these fantasies, the penis is often referred to as a clitoris (“clit” or “clitty” for short).
Chastity can also serve as part of the training the man undergoes to behave more like a woman in the sexual sphere. For example, he can be trained to adopt more feminine behaviors such as learning to derive sexual pleasure exclusively from his anus. The chastity cage serves in this case to prevent him from reverting back to masculine masturbatory habits.
The imagined possibility of shrinking the penis in the cage can play into the feminization process, in which case the man can imagine that his penis will shrink to the point of practically becoming a clitoris.
Preventing the man from masturbating can also play into the “slut training” aspect of feminization, where the man is kept in a constant state of arousal without release to make him more obedient, more focused on sexually pleasing others rather than himself, and generally more promiscuous in his imagined role as a woman.
Genital torture
Some chastity cages have spikes on the inside that are designed to cause pain if the penis tumesces. The man who wears such a spiked cage has an added incentive to avoid any erection attempt in the device for fear of the pain caused by the spikes if they pierce the skin of the penis. Such fantasies intertwine with aspects of torturing the man’s genitals.
Challenge
In today’s internet culture, some men engage in a challenge called “Locktober” where they lock themselves up in a chastity cage for the entire month of October (hence the name). These men enjoy watching pornographic videos where women tease them while they remain sexually frustrated and unable to touch themselves or achieve an erection.
Caution
Chastity cages are readily available to buy online in a variety of materials. Buyers should beware the exposure risks that different materials carry. It should be noted that most of the chastity cages that are sold on the market can be readily escaped from without the key. Men who decide to wear these devices for extended periods of time should also beware the potential negative effects this can have on the health of the penis.
The penis needs to tumesce at night for maintenance purposes of the tissue. These nocturnal erections are also referred to as “morning wood” when a man wakes up with an erection in the morning. A chastity device can prevent this natural process from happening during sleep. Nobody knows conclusively if such voluntary inhibition of nocturnal erections leads to damage in the penis, but caution should be exercised.
What is known is that the lack of nocturnal erections occurs medically as a consequence of low testosterone. In this case, the lack of androgen signaling leads to irreversible damage in the penis in the long term. This damage can include a reduction in nerve fibers that contain nitric oxide and atrophy and apoptosis of the cavernous smooth muscle. This type of damage induces organic erectile dysfunction.3
This concludes a survey of the kinks involved in the category of control of the man’s sexual pleasure. If you think something is missing from this overview, leave a comment and share your thoughts. You can also message me on Substack or on Reddit if you wish to remain anonymous and discuss privately.
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The line art in this essay’s card is by Georgian artist Dorian Chelios.
Keyser, Linda M. (2010). The Medieval Chastity Belt Unbuckled. In S. Harris & B. L. Grisby (Eds.), Misconceptions about the Middle Ages. Routledge.
Bullough, Vern L. (1987). Technology for the Prevention of “Les Maladies Produites par la Masturbation”. Technology and Culture, 28(4), 828–832.
Soave, Armin & Kliesch, Sabine. (2023). Disorders of Erection, Cohabitation, and Ejaculation. In E. Nieschlag, et al. (Eds.), Andrology: Male Reproductive Health and Dysfunction (3rd ed.). Springer, Cham.