Masturbation Budget
Kinky Ideas #2: What if self-pleasure had to be earned?
250 years ago, Thomas Paine famously wrote: “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value”.
Paine was talking about personal liberty, and exactly the same principle applies to sexual liberty too. He argued that the freedom to do as we please will be taken for granted if it’s unconstrained. We only consider our freedom valuable if something happens to make it scarce, or it requires some effort to earn.
The imposition of restrictions is a popular kinky practice. Those who have submissive needs enjoy giving up their liberties, and those who are dominant enjoy setting boundaries and enforcing them. Strictness is arousingly attractive because authority must be earned, and one of the hottest ways is to exert control over another’s desires.
The sexual pleasure obtained from masturbating is set by our physiology, so whilst some toys might provide slightly more stimulating sensations than others, to really achieve a mind-melting experience requires more than merely more intense physical sensations. Those who are kink-aware know the very best orgasms are those that are somehow psychologically special. This is why having limits on your ability to pleasure yourself can be so hot.
Erotic denial comes in two flavours: chastity and limited permission. The former is an absolute embargo, which may involve a pledge to abstain (for the very obedient), or some kind of chastity device (to take willpower out of the question). The other kind of denial, which is the subject of this post, isn’t as restrictive: rather than complete denial some finite quantity of playtime is granted, and the owner of that budget has some agency in how they decide to spend it.
One way this budget could be expressed is to say “you can have one orgasm this week, no more” - that’s easy to understand, but it fails to take into account edging: playing without climaxing. So a better arrangement is to set an allowance of time an individual can spend playing. Then the rule is, whenever you’re playing you start the clock, and you stop the countdown when you cease touching.
Then, to make this into more of a game, how about we turn this allowance of time into a physical artifact that can be seen and scrutinised?
Here’s a few ideas for you to try.
Option 1 - The Stopwatch
The simplest method is to set a countdown timer on your phone with the number of minutes you’re allowed to touch per week. Most phone timers keep their state when paused and backgrounded, creating a timer icon that remains on screen as a persistent reminder of your intimate budget.
If you prefer something that’s more obvious and always visible, get a dedicated timer for just that purpose. The best choices are those with large displays, search for “large timer”, “kitchen timer”, or “visual timer” if you don’t already have one. A conspicuous timer allows your disciplinarian to see it, so they know how needy you’ve been. And if it’s placed in plain sight, visitors will see it too, without ever realising it’s your most intimate secret quota.
And remember, some “smart” sex toys that connect to an app on your phone might have usage stats, just in case someone strict ever wants to check the accuracy and honesty of your timekeeping.
Option 2 - The Water Clock
It would be even better to have a physical depiction of the passing of time, like a sand or water timer, though pausing and resuming would require a valve to enable the flow to be halted. Most sandtimers only allow you to turn it upside down, which would lose your progress - although that could be turned into a feature if you were only allowed to turn over the timer once a week, and you could only play until the sand ran out.
If you were feeling creative, you could make your own pausable water timer. All it would take is a clear plastic bottle, a small hole in its cap, an on-off valve like a small tap, and a container below to collect what drips.
Wouldn’t that be exciting? Watching your allowance spilling out as you play? Your timer would be in pride of place in your bedroom, hidden in plain sight, a reminder of how much you’ve touched, and how much touching you still have in reserve. Someone should really create a product like that, handcrafted and beautiful.
Option 3 - The Battery Quota
An interesting alternative to a countdown timer would be to have a quota of battery charge. In this case, the rules are no touching, and only vibrations may be used for pleasuring. Playing will be restricted to one particular toy, adding an extra dimension of frustration as the sensations get weaker and weaker as the battery fades.
If you have a partner they’d be in charge of the charger. Being good earns you a certain allowance of charging time, like a full charge at the beginning of each week. Your partner might even keep possession of the toy itself, and you’d have to respectfully ask to use it. Imagine whining as your vibe splutters out, and being told: “Well, if you hadn’t been greedy and played for so long last time you’d be getting to come right now”.
Using a battery to store your budget also introduces the option of deliberately depleting the charge as a form of punishment. Being bratty might result in being told, “Fetch your vibe, and stand in the corner with it buzzing behind your back for 5 minutes”. Or, you might have to hold your buzzing toy between your bum cheeks as you’re spanked, or use it for a forced orgasm before you get your bottom whacked. However it’s depleted, the punishment is really felt later, when you’re desperately horny and your battery is flat.
Option 4 - Earning Your Allowance
Budgeting is not just about spending, it’s also about valuing what you’ve earned. You will appreciate pleasure more when you’ve done something to deserve it, rather than it being a hand-out.
It’s much more constructive to reward than punish, so ideally the disciplinarian will create a system where obeying rules results in additional minutes, and rule-breaking results in minutes being taken away. If you’ve been naughty, your timer could be left running just in front of your face as you’re spanked.
As well as rules, a good disciplinary system has expectations, and if those are met, that’s what replenishes your quota. In other words, your allowance is never a give-away, you’re always doing something to earn it.
You could even have two distinct allowances, one for playing genitally, and one for playing anally. This is especially effective if you have a favourite way to play, as the more precious ration will be treasured more. This effectively creates two types of playing: needy play when any relief will do, and a kind of play you save for special occasions.
Be Good
When pleasure is rationed, you will no longer be able to afford to lie back and languidly play with yourself whenever you like. There will be times when you’re horny, and have to go without. When whoever is in charge of setting your allowance asks: have you been good? - they now have a way to quantify exactly how good you’ve been. With an allowance, obedience means being faithful to the rules, and being a good girl or boy becomes more than a phrase, and something you actually earn. All are great reasons to have a budget for playing.
The longer the allowance has to last, the greater the challenge of rationing becomes. The renewal of a weekly ration is just around the corner, but a fortnight or a month is much longer to wait. What if it was 3 months, or 6, or was only replenished on your birthday and meant to last a whole year?
If you have a partner, you should show them this post, and ask them to set your allowance. If you don’t, you should set your own allowance, and establish the willpower to keep to it, and abstain when it’s spent.
Everyone should have a masturbation budget.
How much do you think you’d need?
This is the second in a series of Kinky Ideas posts, the previous one is here, if you need some ideas on what to spend your hard-earned allowance on…
Oohh, I think about 350,000 minutes a year should work for me :)
Alot of the ideas you discuss seem similar to common ideas of play. That games can be seen as arbitrary rules setup in order to make a simple task more difficult. Why can't you carry a soccer ball to net? Why do you have to dribble a basketball?
Budget or Rules, what we are talking about are Challenges.
On the app note, that would be a fascinating feature, to allow quotas (minutes) to be set by a partner and monitored.
thanks, we need to become friends your thoughts