I originally went hunting for the BDSM community because I knew I wanted more impact play in my life.  But as soon as I starting meeting other kinky people, my world burst forth with possibilities of kinks I’d never heard of to consider.  One of the more intriguing of which was puppy play.

Most practitioners of puppy play feel it as an expression of power play: the submissive puppy and the dominant owner or trainer.  Puppy play also lends itself as an excuse to design and to wear some fabulously imaginative fetish gear, made by top-brand fetish outfitters such as Mr. S (pictured hood), JT’s Stockroom (pictured mitts), and Northbound Leather (pictured tail).

But honestly, when I first heard of kinky people pretending to be puppies, my first reaction was a flashback to being a little girl and fighting with other girls who wanted to play “House” but didn’t want to let me play the dog.  My grandfather was a veterinarian; my parents brought home my first dog when I was three; and strange dogs greet me enthusiastically as a friend in a way that strange humans don’t.  When I was young enough to play make-believe without raising anyone’s eyebrows, my closest friends and I spent plenty of time on our hands and knees barking at each other.  For me, it was a lot more fun than pretending that some doll was a baby.  And now, as an adult, my more vivid memories of play-pretend still delight me.

I write this with some apprehension of unintentionally offending people who get off on the dominant/submissive expression of training, or by puppy fetish-wear.  But personally, I’m not particularly submissive; I rarely find taking orders as gratifying as telling a top to “make me.”  Without training, I’m still attracted to puppy play for the same reasons that I liked pretending to be a puppy as a little girl: Because it’s a little bit silly and a lot of fun.  Puppies have joyous priorities: 1. Food.  2. Physical affection.  3. Playing.  4. Sleeping.  Fifteen years after puberty, I re-discovered these simple joys.  For some, it’s erotic.  For me, it’s an excuse to spend some time naked, hump my fiancé’s leg, bite, and eat “treats” (usually chocolate-covered espresso beans) without using my hands.  It is entirely silly, and, to some degree, that’s the point.  It makes me happy – much like watching the movie Clue over and over again make me happy.

A couple years ago at the New York Leather Street Fest, I met a gay man on his hands and skateboard-padded knees, leashed to his master and panting.  I smiled at them, and the human-dog scampered over and nuzzled himself against my legs.  I never got either of their names, but I spent a lovely while playing fetch, rubbing his belly, and chatting with his master.  We didn’t know each other, and we weren’t interested in each other sexually, but him playing a “puppy” freed us to play together.

This being my perspective, one could argue that puppy play isn’t “really” my kink.  Which comes down to semantics of whether or not “kinks” must be explicitly sexual.  If so, then this article may be off-topic for this blog.

But there is something about kink that ends up liberating one to hedonism, sexy or not.  At BDSM play parties, no one really reacts if I shed all my clothes and crawl around the floor with a squeaky-monkey toy in my mouth.  Where else in the world would that be true?  There is no rational explanation for a grown woman to find so much joy in a squeaky-monkey toy.  But then, not coincidentally, I gave up rationally explaining myself around the same time I embraced the eroticism of having my ass beaten.  Sexuality is not rational.  And so, when we embrace our unique sexuality, we liberate ourselves from the duty to rationally explain ourselves.  Sometimes the reward is orgasms, and sometimes it’s just fun.

-Annabelle River