Mummification
Many of my sessions centre around encasement bondage, heavy rubber, medical play, transformation and objectification.
As a regular feature of my sessions I wanted to talk a little bit about what mummification is, the ways I use it within the scenes I use it in, and some different ways I have been told it can be interpreted or experienced by the people who I play with. For me it is a kink but also a creative practice. I am often inspired to experiment with different materials, setups and love combining layers of bondage, predicaments and playing with someone once they are bound as part of a longer scene.
In my sessions I see a mix of different people. I play with submissives, fetishists, switches, couples, groups, and all different combinations of people who have a very wide range of reasons for being interested in what I do.
One way I approach this type of play in my sessions is viewing it as a ritual of objectification. It's a slow process of restriction as opposed to something instantaneous like putting someone in a body bag or cuffs, or something quick where you may be playing with an of element of capture or a shock to their system when somebody is suddenly restrained. Mummification for the subject is a considered intentional
process of giving yourself over, surrendering your autonomy and willingly giving the person topping you control. It's a two-way process, like everything within BDSM. I need to trust that my subject will communicate with me if anything is not right. I need to be aware of their body. I need to be completely focused on them and in the moment. I find myself getting into a state of creative flow, which I feel adds to the energy exchange for the person who I am encasing as they find a state of calm and acceptance even if anticipation is building.
I find with some people who these scenes appeal to, it's almost as if that tight encasement is an inherent part of their sexuality. I've spoken to and played with some people who had fantasies or self-practises of bondage that originated very young and early in their personal sexual development (or who saw something very early on that really ignited a desire to be tightly wrapped and captured and bound).
I've also seen people who want the physical endurance of the challenge, curious to experience the headspace you enter when you're fully immobilized.
I do a lot of longer sessions where people are maybe bound for multiple hours. That can allow somepeople to enter into an altered state that they may not be able to access during other times in their life, when they have all of the stresses, distractions, and worries that are such a common part of people's day-to-day experience.
I think a lot of people struggle to stop and slow down and find stillness in their life and there are a lot of ways that people can find this. Mummification can be one of them. In any scene involving sensory deprivation or physical restriction or bondage, there's a potential for the other senses and emotions of the subject to be heightened and brought into focus in a way that they are often not.
I have found, in some of my longer-term dynamics with submissives where I explore bondage and different setups (especially as I photo document a lot of my setups), that it has changed some people's relationships to their body and how they see themselves. That's been, for some people, a positive way of reconnecting with their own physical bodies as they give themselves over to me to use and manoeuvre as I play with and engage with them.
I personally have a big kink for objectification and dehumanisation so I really enjoy the anonymization of the human that occurs during this process. One of my favourite things is to create a faceless creature to play with. I often play with themes of reprogramming and brainwashing in my scenes and combining this with full body encasement, physical restriction and moving from sensory deprivation to overload, adding layers of bondage and sensation.
Even if I'm not doing a full-body mummification, if I'm doing a scene where I want a bit more access and manoeuvrability, I really enjoy using elements of this type of bondage in play that’s not about stillness. For example I may tape up someone's head. or their hands interlock, or their hands are together, or connect their hands to another part of their body. You can do a hog tie where you connect someone's hands to their feet (if they have the flexibility and endurance for this!) I love to play with gags and other elements of sensory deprivation: taping a blindfold over someone's eyes, taping a gag into someone's mouth, adding an element of permanence to the tool and really securing it in place, increasing the sense of helplessness. I also sometimes secure someone in place by just their head or just their hands, as you might with cuffs or a harness. I find creating a mummified straight jacket can be a very fun element of play. I do a lot of medical scenes and I do have rubber straight jackets and leather straight jackets in my studio. But as part of longer scenes creating one in bandage or plaster or fibre cast can add to the bizzare medical fantasy and intensity as the bondage gets more restrictive and the anticipation of what’s to come builds.
When fully mummified, the subject can enter a state of surrender and experience full objectification, they are really giving their body over to you. I find some people I play with find it a sort of meditative experience. I've also had some people speak similarly about bottoming for rope: entering into a of floaty very relaxed state where they can let go and enter into a different sort of mode of being.
Safety
The main considerations when planning a modification bondage scene are:
- Bidy awareness, physical safety, sustainability and positioning
- Breathing
- Materials, as some restrict further once layered
- Having sufficient materials at hand to get somebody out: either scissors for tapings or an oscillating saw for plaster and fibre cast
When doing any sort of mummification play, similarly to any other bondage like rope bondage, it is important to make sure you have easily accessible scissors that you know work in order to get someone out. It is important to make sure you can remain calm if someone decides that it's not for them. Some people don't realise it will induce a certain state of claustrophobia or panic, or just physical discomfort that can take them out of the headspace if it's perhaps their first time so it's very good to be mindful of this possibility and to remain calm yourself if someone does start to feel like they need to get out.
Another main consideration for safety with any full mummification is breathing, make sure that you're not compressing somebody's chest too much in the wrap. If you are doing a full-head taping make sure that your sub can breathe! I have done some quite heavy intense mummifications where I've taped in a breathing tube or taped an anaesthesia mask to someone's head or something like this. I do recommend, for most tappings, you leave the nose and mouth free and then you can maybe add a mask over the top or you can tape over that right at the end. You don't want to fully completely cover that area of someone. It can cause them to be quite distressed. If I ever do any play involving gags or breathing tubes or something that limits somebody's ability to say a word, then I establish a signal that would be a repeat sound. That tends to be what I go to if I have someone in bondage and gagged. I will get them to demonstrate before we begin the play what this is going to sound like and I'll be very conscious of them as I'm focusing on the scene.
I tend to leave someone's nose and mouth free and then add elements of playing with covering it once I know that they're settled and the whole Mummification is done. In some of my photos it does look like I have done full head tappings, but in most of these cases what I have actually done is tape just over someone's nose and then underneath it so their nostrils are still free and their mouth is covered.
Some people are very distressed if their mouth is covered because they struggle to breathe through their nose so I don't cover those people's mouths. You can use a porous material like a bandage or even grip tape which somebody can breathe through but is good. It's in the initial pre-scene negotiation to talk about how someone feels about these sorts of things. Different things will be distressing to different people in different ways so you need to know that going in when you're going to be doing anything that is restricting breathing (especially in a setup where someone is fully immobilised).
Regardless of what the mummification I have planned is, I always leave the head and face until right at the end so I can communicate about how every aspect of their body is feeling on the way to full encasement.
Checking in advance and throughout the process about what your sub is okay with, and being mindful of reading their body, should be a process of them feeling more and more comfortable to surrender themselves.
I think it's a process of speaking to people who are experienced bottoms, if you can, or thinking about how something might feel, maybe trying it on yourself, or just having conversations with someone that you're playing with about how things feel and taking things slowly. With some of these scenes you don't necessarily know how you're going to feel about something until it starts happening.
Sometimes someone has a very strong fantasy and then the reality does not feel anything like what they'd hoped which can be a very difficult thing for the top or bottom to process. That's something that I try to be mindful of when I'm playing with people. If they're not experienced in the kink that they're intrigued by, I try to always let people know that it's okay if this isn't actually what you want, even though you thought it was.
I will link to a further article about nerve safety for heavy bondage, especially if you're doing anything like suspension or an extended scene, or something with different positions or adding elements of pain play once someone is bound. It is good to have a basic understanding of a person's body, what to be conscious of.
Further information about nerves and pressure points to be mindful of:
https://andyburu.se/2019/10/28/bondage-and-pressure-points/
https://ropestudy.com/lesson/notes-on-nerves-circulation/
I've seen a lot of people speaking about this in Shibari and rope spaces. There's a lot of information that I could find about what to be mindful of for people practising ties and a lot of it does also apply to all heavy bondage.
When negotiating a scene with someone I am playing with or discussing a session with a client I will always ask about their physical limitations, and injuries or anything to be aware of but it’s important to also always be mindful of paying attention and being empathetic and learning how to read different peoples bodies, which is something that comes more with practice and playing with different people, but even with one regular partner you can tell how sometimes things may just feel different, they may not be aware to express this themselves but if you pay attention you can pick up on subtle signs.
The main things to look out for, would be a basic awareness of nerves and pressure points, and padding between the ankles and the knees. I would usually pad between those with bubble wrap or a scarf, something soft, so you're not squashing a bone on bone.
I am also very conscious of wrists and the upper arms. There's a nerve that runs down that (if anyone has practised Shibari suspension, you may have heard of the potential for this) something called a wrist drop. If you have too much pressure on that nerve up there, it can cause issues with people's mobility of their wrist. Any bondage, belts, or anything pressing into the top of someone's arm between the bicep and the shoulder: it's important to be conscious not to be too tight there.
Also if you have someone strapped to something like a post or a chair and you have something around that place, I've found in previous scenes (where someone is straining a lot, for example, some pain play, E-stim, or anything intense that may cause someone to move) that even if that belt is not that tight, their straining against it can also cause these same issues with the sense of feeling in the hand.
It is something to be conscious of because everybody is different. Sometimes if you're not aware of these things in advance, then it can be very easy for mistakes to be made and things to be missed. It's good to check in with whoever you're playing with about how things are feeling as you're going along. If you're doing a long scene, you do want to make sure that they're comfortable in the bondage (even if you're doing something that's going to end in an endurance /predicament / pain play setup) so they can focus on the intentional pain or pleasure that you are giving them.
I find sometimes bottoms for heavy bondage have more intense fantasies than their physical bodies can withhold, or see an image and don’t realise how strenuous the position actually is to be in, even if they're quite experienced. As a top, it's important to be mindful of this and to negotiate and manage expectations. For any sort of longer scenes and sessions where I want to then be doing something with the person in the setup, I do try to be very conscious of the sustainability of a position and padding around anything that could be uncomfortable.
I have a scaffold frame in my studio so I have some foam piping around that, Using suspension points to hold people up so they don't have to hold their own body weight if you're doing a longer process that involves somebody standing: it's great if possible, to have another person to help you with the process.
For some of my more elaborate creative projects I often work with another person or sometimes two other people. I've done mummification scenes where I've mummified two people together. For things like this it's great to have another person there to help get someone in and help get someone out quickly if they are not feeling it!
Over the course of the many scenes I've done, there have been some that just haven't worked out in the way that I wanted or have just not been sustainable for the person inside. This might be because of the position, the way the person is feeling that day, or the temperature. It can get really hot especially if you're doing layers of something like cling film underneath heavier tape or if you do something like a casting where you've got padding.
Some of these are just not possible on the warmest days. I think with anything, any kind of scene or play, it's important to not be too fixated on the result being what you are hoping for. It's important to really make the person you're playing with feel like it's okay to change and do something completely different and to always be flexible and able to accommodate potential needs to do things differently. It takes a lot of trust to completely give over your mobility and autonomy in this way so being calm and reassuring and certain in what you're doing is an important part of this practise.
That's not to say you can't experiment or try things out. Just be honest with the person that you're playing with: it's something new to you. If it's a partner you can try things with each other. You can try things with someone else who maybe knows a bit more about it or you can just experiment and start small.
As with anything, if it's something you want to do more of, you learn as you go along, you get better, and you figure things out the next time. Each time it's all a process of experimentation and play and learning.
Materials :
Cling film
The most common material for mummification play is probably palette wrap or cling film. This is a very quick way to immobilise someone. A couple of layers of cling film can actually really stick someone in place and you can have them fully immobilised very quickly.
It's also a good way to have a layer underneath a heavier sort of tape if you are doing a full-body taping. It can also be something interesting to play with because you can wrap someone and then you can very easily open certain parts to access fun parts of their body to play with (in a way that's possible with the taping but slightly more tricky).
What you can sometimes do in a taping is pad with maybe bubble wrap or something over someone's nipples or genitals so you can then cut into the modification after you've frustrated your captive for long enough.
Also with cling film you can involve an element of breath play if that's something that you're bottom is into. You can just directly wrap the cling film around their head and then poke a hole in their mouth and re wrap.
Grip tape / cohesive bandage/ vet wrap
Grip tape, or cohesive bandage, is a really good material for partial mummifications when you're starting out and experimenting with learning about wrapping. It's a very easy material to work with. You can use it directly onto somebody's skin. It's got some flexibility and breathability as well so you can actually wrap fully over someone’s face and they can still comfortably breathe and talk.
It can cause more compression as the layers build up so that's something to be mindful of, as it will get more restrictive and tighter as you add more layers. There's a way of laying it on the body and working with it to not cause too much of this recoil that will then cause the wrap to be tighter than you intend.
I find it's something I tend to use more for partial bondage. Maybe I just use it on someone's head to attach the head to something like a post. Maybe I use it to attach someone's hands to their legs, or their head, is something that I've done before. You can get quite thin tape and you can wrap around someone's fingers. You can bind individual fingers to a part of a person's body. You can bind their hands to their head etc!
There are quite a lot of fun playful ways to use this and because it's adhesive to itself on both sides, you can use it for these sorts of positions.
Electrical / PVC tape
My favourite material for the aesthetic and the smoothness is electrical tape or PVC tape. You can get it in a lot of different colours. You can get the thin ones that are maybe something you would recognise from plumbing or a hardware store. You can also get a thicker one, which is better for doing a full body. It looks really smooth once you have it wrapped.
You can put this directly on the body. I've found that it's not too painful to take it off. If someone is very hairy I tend to use one layer of cling film or something underneath it.
If I'm going up somebody's legs, I tend to go around in almost like a tiling diagonal pattern. I find that's often the best way to fit the curve of the tape to the body so you use the least tape to have the smoothest wrap.
There are a lot of different methods of mummification. There are different ways that I do different wraps or in different positions.
There are ways of wrapping where you can make something look really smooth and really build it up. I find that, in order to get the sort of smoothest result and to not take too much time (especially if I'm doing it in a professional session where maybe there's more of a time constraint and I have other plans for the person), once they're mummified, I myself tend not to do loads and loads of layers or the same material unless that's a particular kink of the person I'm playing with.
Duct tape
A lot of mummification enthusiasts really like the heaviness of duct tape and the aesthetic. The main tape that people are using for the heavier tapings. It's stronger and it doesn't have the flexibility or give in the way that some of the way other tapes can. I think people feel much more of that heavy stuck-in-place feeling.
Plaster and fibre casting
I also do mummifications in plaster cast and fibercast, which are relatively easy materials to work with. Plaster cast is quite messy. Fibercast is not but it also gets very hard very quickly and you are going to need an oscillating saw to take it off. That is something to be mindful of if you ever want to try it. With plaster cast you can just cut this one off with cast scissors or even normal scissors, as if you're doing it for a session or to play, it will not be fully dry, it takes longer than most playdates last to fully set!
Fibercast however hardens very quickly. So you want to have an oscillating saw, which vibrates rather than rotates, so it's safer to be using near the skin.
For both of these practises you will pad it the skin first and put stockingette over it, a tubular bandage that you would put around someone's limbs. To learn how to do these, you can watch videos but it's quite good to have a demonstration from someone in person who has some experience with it. I would say, especially for fibercast.
This post is taken from some notes I wrote for a workshop I held on mummification. I enjoyed speaking about this kink sharing my knowledge with other people and would be interested to do more in-person workshops and events on the topic in future. I also offer one-on-one or couples sessions, introducing them to a specific type of mummification. If you have any questions or would be interested in something like this as a group, individual, or couple, please do feel free to contact me at mistressae@proton.me