Shots Toys

Ouch! Crop

The Ouch! Range of BDSM and bondage products attracted my attention a few months ago and now I have the opportunity to bring you a review of another item from the range – their riding crop. It comes in two versions, PVC and leather. Here I’m reviewing the PVC version, though apart from the surface finish and aroma I suspect the leather one will be pretty similar.

Excluding the practical wrist strap the crop is 67cm long from one end of the handle to the tip of the square tip – there are two shapes of tip so check which one you’re buying, square or heart shaped. The crop comes in several colour variants too, ours is black, but you can get white, purple and pink as well as combinations of these colours.

I suppose the crop is easier to wipe clean if it’s made from PVC and it does look rather nice and shiny in your hand when you’re wielding it However I would have liked to play with a leather one – I do love the smell of leather. The shaft of the crop that joins the round handle to the flat square tip is covered in plaited PVC with the same shiny finish as the rest of the toy.

The Ouch! Crop does make a lovely swishing sound when you swing it through the air so I was eager to try it out on Alex’s ass. Purely for professional reasons you understand. I had him strip naked and lay face down on the bed so that I had unhindered access to the skin of his pert buttocks. We both enjoy this type of play, sometimes he’ll be submissive sometimes I’ll submit to him; We both have our own preferences and pleasure/pain thresholds, it’s finding those thresholds which is the most fun.

I began as I usually do, gently rubbing his skin with the tip of the crop, and hit a problem. The shaft of the crop is so flexible that you can’t massage or rub your partner easily with it. So what? You might think if you have not used a crop before, it’s about inflicting a good thrashing isn’t it? Well, no. We think good BDSM is about control, control of your partner and control of the experience for you both. Pain is a part of that but contrasting a stinging thwack with a soothing massage can amplify the effect of a toy and enhance the experience.

OK, I thought I can rub him with my hand. I tried some gentle strokes and found the crop pretty good, though with a tendency to bounce a bit as the blows landed. Harder strokes with a longer swing tended to make the accuracy of my blows increasingly erratic.

Despite the lack of stiffness in the crop I was able to play quite well, inflicting stinging hits with the Ouch! Crop until his backside started to glow. I don’t like to inflict too much pain but on a couple of occasions Alex commented that I had landed an uncommonly harsh switching to his skin. There’s that slight lack of control again, although it did add a little randomness to the fun and made me smile in a sadistic way.

I found that the crop had some unexpected features. The plaited shaft drags across the skin and can therefore provide a different sensory experience to the subject of your play. This was even more fun when I decided I’d had enough of Alex’s buttocks and began to toy with his turgid cock. Laying on his back I gently tapped and rolled his member with the crop, and boy did he enjoy that!

I wouldn’t say the Ouch! Crop is perfect because of its over-flexible shaft but it does have a lot going for it. The construction quality is good and the PVC model is nice and easy to wipe clean after use. It looks the part too being nice and shiny. I can’t vouch for its durability yet having only used it once but what I can say is that it was a lot of fun and is reasonably priced.

Ouch Deluxe Handcuffs

Some sex toys speak for themselves, and perhaps one of them is the Ouch! Handcuffs. That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a sex toy review; But I mean, they are just another set of handcuffs, right? Actually no.

We’ve tested a number of bondage restraints over the years and when it comes to handcuffs it’s often difficult to find the ones that work for your mood. Steel cuffs can be a little harsh, and all that covering them in faux fur does is to make them fiddly to use and look a bit daft. Often you need something in the middle, not too hardcore but a set of cuffs that will stand up to some reasonable strain.

The Ouch! Handcuffs consist of two loops of thick, braided synthetic strands connected by metals rings that include a cast central section with the Ouch! name, naked lady logo and the words “For pure sexy spanking”. Two of the rings have spring-loaded catches allowing each of the rope cuffs to be easily removed and attached. When closed these loops are smooth so will not easily catch on skin and don’t require a key to release them.

I’m pretty impressed by the practicality and build quality of these cuffs. The broad, braided loops that restrain the wrists (or ankles) of the submissive partner are reasonably comfortable until you start pulling them about, at which point they can feel a little coarse. This means you are able to gently restrain, or if the mood in the bedroom demands it apply a little gentle coercion by simply guiding your slave with the cuffs. Don’t over-do it though, synthetic fibres can mark skin and burn skin if used too harshly.

When used in the bedroom these cuffs stand up to all the demands we placed upon them, gentle but firm manipulation of the submissive partner (Suze) was easy. So long as you don’t cause the cuffs to slide quickly around their respective limbs you can exercise control without the risk of damaging skin. The series of rings between the cuffs allow you to grab them easily during play to guide your partner in a way that a pair of normal Smith and Wesson style cuffs with a short chain can’t.

So long as the submissive partner doesn’t pull too hard on these cuffs you could use rope or some other means to tie them to the bed. However the cuffs do have a limit. While the soft wrist sections would probably be strong enough to tow a small car (don’t try it please!) the interconnecting rings do spread if you pull the cuffs apart hard enough. This does not damaged the rings with the spring catch in them but the other rings begin to open up which could lead to an unexpected failure of the cuffs – the moral? Don’t use them for any sort of play like suspension where you’d be relying on them to support your partner. To be fair, this applies to a lot of cuff designs and you really have to apply a lot of force to make the rings spread but I have to mention it for completeness.

This is a really useful set of cuffs for adventurous lovers. There are going to be a lot of couples wanting to explore bondage in the bedroom because of the 50 Shades Of Grey series of books and I can see these cuffs working well for them. They are not a set of expensive and scary shackles, nor are they the sort of badly made and uncomfortable faux cuffs sold to stag and hen parties as novelty items. You can have a lot of fun with these restraints, especially if you combine them with a little spanking … Ouch!