“Start by pulling magic out of your fingers…”
—“The Invisible Toybox: Incorporating Energy Work into BDSM,” Raven Kaldera
If you’ve been exploring BDSM for any length of time, you’ve undoubtedly stumbled across references to BDSM energy play, sex magic, and the like. A quick online search conjures up workshops on “exploring energy play in kink,” guides on using sex magic to “manifest positive life energy,” and D/s classes on “conscious energy flow, power exchange, and feeding.” But what does any of this mean? In this post, we’ll translate these mystical concepts into plain facts.
“Now, let your orgasm wash through you. As it does, allow the waves of your pleasure [to] send your vision into the universe. The momentum you’ve generated carries your vision out into the universe, where it plugs into the fertile womb of the matrix and creates a magical child.”
—“Guide to Sex Magic,” Chantelle Raven
What Are BDSM Energy Play and Sex Magic?
It’s not uncommon to read entire articles about these concepts without ever getting a clear sense of what they are because the language that’s used to describe them is vague, self-referential, or both. So we’ll attempt to break it down here.
Energy play is based on the belief that people have a vital life force, or energy, in addition to their physical body. Energy play involves consciously directing, exchanging, or manipulating this subtle energy during intimate encounters with the goal of creating more intense sensations and a deeper bond between partners. In the context of BDSM, this usually involves tops/doms stimulating bottoms/subs via sensory stimulation, impact play, hypnosis, and much more.
Sex magic (sometimes spelled “magick”) involves using sexual energy and arousal to manifest desires or achieve spiritual goals. Manifestation is the act of thinking something into physical existence or reality. Sex magic typically involves setting a clear intention, engaging in sexual activity (BDSM or not), and focusing on the intention during arousal and orgasm.
Is This for Real?
To dig into this question, we need to examine the concept of energy. In science, energy is the capacity to do work and is a quantifiable measurable property (like calories) of physical systems. As you can tell, this is not how the term is used in energy play, sex magic, and manifestation. In these and other New Age spiritual concepts, energy refers to a non-physical, intangible life force or vital essence that runs through all things. This subtle energy is also known as qi, chi, chakras, auras, prana, and so on.
Although believers in New Age energy often use scientific terminology to gain credibility, there is no scientific evidence to support its existence and it’s considered to be pseudoscience by scientists. In other words, it’s a purely faith-based spiritual concept. This is demonstrated in martial arts through so-called touchless attacks, where a martial arts master can fell opponents without even making physical contact with them. How? By allegedly interrupting the person’s qi, or energy flow.
One such master appeared to deftly perform touchless attacks on a group of his students. But then he fought an MMA athlete who handily beat him (watch the whole video). It’s hard to know what was really going on with his students. Perhaps they were acting or succumbed to the power of suggestion. But the video proves that his technique wasn’t as good as he thought.
Likewise, manifestation, or the law of attraction—the idea that thinking positive or negative thoughts will manifest positive or negative outcomes—has no basis in science. This concept is integral to sex magic and was popularized by the book The Secret, which came out in 2006, and has since been amplified on social media. As with “energy,” there is no scientific evidence backing manifestation up in a non-sexual context, let alone with sex. In fact, research has shown that the overconfidence some believers have leads them to make risky life decisions that result in poor outcomes.
To sum up, just because people believe something, doesn’t make it true. The New Age concept of energy as a manipulable life force or spiritual essence is not supported by scientific evidence. By extension, then, energy play also has no scientific underpinning. And the concept of manifestation via sex magic is similarly in the realm of belief rather than scientific fact.
Does It Matter that Energy Play and Sex Magic Aren’t Real?
Assuming you’re not skipping your annual physical because your dom just reiki’d you into a healing bliss, there’s certainly no harm in playing with magical concepts in the bedroom. Various energy play guides online talk a lot about verbal and tactile communication, paying close attention to your partner, and being mindful of every breath and sensation. With and without metaphysics, research shows that mindfulness practices can improve sexual pleasure by reducing anxiety, improving communication, and deepening connections, and are commonly prescribed in couples therapy.
For those who aren’t fully on board with literal magic, energy play isn’t off the table for players with a little imagination. A roleplay scenario, such as a dom telling a sub they’re channeling energy to stick the sub’s hands to a wall or flog them into oblivion, could be quite erotic because the power of suggestion and storytelling really does affect the way we feel, especially in an intimate experience. After all, no one is truly our partner’s giantess, pet, or police detective, either. Belief aside, BDSM is a place we go to feel the closest thing to magic we can find.