The St. Andrew's Cross: a kinky history lesson.

I'm not an expert in BDSM, but have a circle of friends who practice different components of it, and let me use their dungeon to explore and learn a bit. Furniture can be a big component in setting a "scene" before engaging in play and the cross is one of the sexier ones.

Named after St. Andrew himself, representing endurance and humility, opted to go out on a cross, which was turned sideways as he felt unworthy of the traditional cross you associate with religion.

I dug deep trying to find scholarly articles indicating the timeline and the why of how BDSM adopted this and didn't find much. But honestly? Really not a big jump to imagine how erotic it is to tie someone down, and the endurance and humility that occurs with being the one tied down.

Typically, the submissive is tied with ankles and wrists to the cross (I went with the traditional route here, but you can also be tied with your arms down and a rope around your entire body at the midsection to the cross) and the dominant can either enjoy the view and pleasure themselves, or engage with the person on the cross.

I think people seem to have a misconception that BDSM is just always painful, scary, or intimidating but it doesn't have to be.

In this case, I was tied up and touched lightly and teased gently, building an astronomically-increasing level of being turned on before being untied to then decide what to do with all my pent up energy 🫦

There's lots of neat websites that teach you how to build one, and fun ideas on what to do for play in using one if you have the room or are feeling particularly handy.

I don't know what St. Andrew would think about all this but if I'm ever canonized I hope it leads to something like this.