MISERY KNOWS NO BOUNDS: Stretching Rack (and Related) Blog

The following is the best description in words I can give for the physical sensation of being stretched on the rack. I can almost always tell, usually with fiction authors, if they themselves have or have not experienced it by description alone, and I have done my best to relay it here from memory. I write this post for those who are curious about it and to give the sort of literature I wish I had obtained years ago. My blog is focused on this niche of BDSM because there is still so little out there about it, and if I can’t find it, I guess I have no choice but to do it myself. I hope this will be a rewarding read for you! And yes, the photos are me.

It’s horrible. I often wonder why this is my fetish whenever I mount a rack, knowing what’s to come. Part of the curiosity of the rack is what it’s like to be on it. This was my fascination and curiosity for really my entire sexual life, and now that I’ve finally been able to try it, for some reason I keep coming back, dreading yet desiring the sensation of being stretched. I suppose it might be the adrenaline rush, like a climber who looks at a cliff wall, or the sky-diver gazing down from the airplane door. The rack is intense, one that is amplified even more by the inherent helplessness of being spread-eagled.

The rack is a machine, simple in its design, but devastatingly effective. The human body is not particularly flexible or lithe. Muscles can only pull; they cannot push. The enticement of the rack is the complete and total vulnerability it renders on its captive. This is either a horror for people, or a fascination and a revelry. I’ve heard masochism described as a creepy impulse. I see no fault in this, so long as the assumption is an innate desire for one’s freedom and good well-being, yet it is clear to me that some of us have this masochistic side. Psychology is a mysterious thing and may never be fully understood. Enthusiasts of BDSM have attempted to explain it, some better than others, and each of them have reasons of their own for being there. It is as varied as sexual preferences themselves. The connection between violence and sex is also a mystery to me, but it is there, and the rack is a violent event, subtly at first, with an immense sexual allure, at least for me.

The rack is as much a mental test as it is a physical one. These things go hand in hand. Discipline of the mind is essential, or you’ll cave too early. You have to trust yourself to keep going, that you can take more and that in fact nothing bad will really happen. You just need to accept your suffering, like one of Pavlov’s dogs. The sensation of being stretched is gradual. It is nothing like a good-morning stretch, refreshing and invigorating. You feel “pulled", or something like hanging from a chin-up bar. As the winches wind up, your stomach collapses into yourself and there’s an acute awareness of the edge of your ribcage.

Though you inch your body across the rack, stretching yourself naturally to accommodate the pull, you never feel wholly comfortable, like sitting in a chair the wrong way yet you cannot adjust yourself. The buttocks feel smashed and improper. You test the pull, and though I’ve never reached the point where the muscles can’t budge me at all, there is little they can do, and you snap back into place.

As tension increases, it’s almost like you’re being crushed, condensed. Your hands are smashed in the cuffs. You can wiggle your fingertips a little, but the circulation of blood is quickly cut off, suffocating them and intensifying the sensation of their being squashed. Your instinct is to grab the ropes tied to the cuffs, to hold on as if for a ride before it’s too late. Doing so helps a little, gives you a small sense of control, but at some point you just have to let go, forced to let the ropes have your body completely. The rack is a progressive loss of liberty. Your feet aren’t affected to the same degree, but circulation can be lost there too. They aren’t as uncomfortable, but you can’t dislodge them either. You might be able to twist them, but without assistance from your legs, they don’t swivel very well. It actually takes a lot before the bend in your limbs is nearly removed. The muscles are strong enough to cause a tiny flex in the knees and elbows, but it isn’t much. To twist and writhe, or attempt to anyways, is something you give up. It only agitates the stress in your shoulders. Most of the worst feelings, by the way, are in the arms. The legs are not as affected. Besides being thicker muscularly, the legs are in a natural pose while your arms are not. The Master I play with knows this, and tends to tighten me from below as the session goes on. Of course, his rack has a winch on either end. This can’t be helped if there is only one overhead.

As your hands squeeze into the cuffs, your capillaries there might burst, leaving a bruised appearance similar to that left from an impact, or even a rash. It will go away in a day or two. In short order, almost right away, your hands begin to tingle with the loss of circulation, and eventually they numb. They don’t move much. You can’t see them anyways. It is also common for me to feel my diaphragm pulling on its hold inside the wall of my ribcage. It keeps you still, lest any movement or hard breathing cause it damage. It stings a little, feels like it can tear, but you’ve accepted your suffering. I’ve heard that being stretched can cause a difficulty in breathing, but I really haven’t yet discovered that this is so, and I can take a lot!

To call being stretched “painful" might not be accurate, because it suggests to me a cutting, searing sensation. It’s more like an ache or discomfort that gradually builds and worsens. “Burning” wouldn’t be a good word for it either, except where the bonds pull at your skin nearest them, in particular that of the forearms. The only reduction of this ache is when your body acclimates to its forced condition, the ligaments and joints loosening their natural firmness just a little. In later stages, however, there is nothing natural remaining, and it’s pure stretch. You try to do it yourself as the winch turns again, but there’s nothing to give anymore. You can just barely move your head, but you can’t even lift it well enough to see over your own torso. You’re forced to look at your own chest, and your body has never felt closer to you than it does now, as if it’s swallowing you up. The nearest to the feeling of a tearing-type stretch is, as I mentioned before, on the bottom of the forearms and also along your undersides, right along the fringe of your lat muscles.

The only relief and distraction from it all is sexual excitement. It makes it somewhat bearable, and you can nominally accept the worsening adjustments made to your body. As tension builds, you find that grunting and groaning help ease you a little too. Sometimes, the sound is physically forced from within your chest. The effects of the rack are all encompassing and inescapable. Though not every place on your body is aching, there is a totality to it that is hard to define and “totality" is the only word I have for it at the moment.

When the Master has finally had his fill and allows you to ejaculate, the elation is the greatest I yet know, at least for myself. Your body convulses a little, shaking through the aftershocks of orgasm. But this was a mistake. You should not have let yourself go because all the tortuous effects of the rack come into terrifying focus as the sexual adrenaline that previously masked and subdued it is now completely gone. It is at this point you really want to be removed, and you might even beg the Master to do so. I have yet to endure passed it. Hopefully, he’s in a merciful mood and quickly goes to unwind the winch. He does it slowly, because it hurts just as much to finally be loosened. Your limbs, especially your arms, feel weak. You lay on the rack, coming to grips with your experience as your body is relieved of its agony. It is not uncommon to come off the rack trembling, as if you were cold or fearful, but you know you are neither of those. It’s the body telling you that it was stressed, and it gives you the sense that perhaps the body has a mind of its own too. I’ve always had to be helped up from the rack, the arms limp with exhaustion. You work them, shrugging and trying to rotate the joints. You work your fingers, trying to bring life and strength back to them. It takes a few minutes, but you recover. If you were stretched with your arms directly above your head, you may find your trapezoids sore the next day, not realizing how much of a fight they put up while you were on the rack. The body tries to resist in its own way.

Having been on the rack, I appreciate all the more those people who found themselves upon it against their will and with a captor who has no limitations. I couldn’t imagine being stretched to dislocation or beyond. I personally find no satisfaction in the thought, either for myself or anyone else. When done consensually, safely, and with respect for mind and body, the rack is an intense, demanding, challenging, and hopefully enriching experience. It’s what keeps me coming back.