Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

I’ve had a number of what I’d consider relatively long-term experiences with the CB-3000 (which I think is safe to say is the most popular male chastity device available today). I’ve been able to wear the chastity device for several weeks with no problems, almost 24/7. However, that success did not come easy (no pun intended) and annoyingly, very little if any of what I know now came from the page of (really pathetic) instructions shipped with the product itself.

So, since this is the sort of stuff I see asked time and time again on newsgroups and forums and the like dedicated to male chastity, I figured I’d share a top ten list of things I’ve learned. Lots of these things are probably not sexy, so if you came to read some erotica you’re probably looking for Tom Allen’s hawt chastity porn instead. (Or maybe “Real Ultimate Male Chastity”?) These aren’t in any particular order, though, they’re just noteworthy.

Also, of course, the standard caveats of Your Mileage May Vary apply. These are just things that work for me and are thus naturally untested on anyone else. (Though that lack of testing on anyone else is mostly only due to a lack of opportunity. Are there any volunteers who want to give enforced chastity a try with Eileen and I?). ;)

1. Cotton swabs (aka Q-Tips) are your friends

I’m a really, really big fan of cotton swabs for lots of reasons, and one of them is their usefulness for hygienic purposes during a long-term chastity belt lock up. It probably seems obvious once you’re told, but lots of folks don’t realize that getting locked in a chastity device is a lot like wearing a rubber glove non-stop. That can get pretty messy and—worse—unhealthy, if you’re not careful about hygiene, so it’s important to be able to keep yourself clean.

Cotton swabs are one of the two essential tools used to clean one’s genitals when they’re all locked up. The CB-3000 and most other male chastity devices have some kind of small air holes big enough to stick the cotton swab in, roll it around and rub off any dirt, sweat, and general ickyness that may have accumulated in the device over the course of the day. They’re also helpful as a follow-up to using toilet paper to wipe down any urine remaining after peeing that has seeped towards the sides of the device, which is hard to get to with just toilet paper alone.

Unlike what you may have heard elsewhere, it’s a good idea to keep your genitals as dry as possible without drying out your skin. One way to help do this is to use cotton swabs to dry off the inside of the device as much as possible after taking showers, swimming, or otherwise wetting the device (such as, say, dripping lots of precum during a sexy scene where you remained locked). This is because in such a small and confined area, stagnant moisture like that is your skin’s worst enemy. This holds doubly true for people with especially sensitive skin (such as yours truly).

On the flip side, you may find yourself getting dry skin on occasion, such as what might happen if you over-wash with harsh soap. In these cases, put a drop of your favorite moisturizing cream on the tip of the cotton swab and apply it to your genitals. At first it might be hard to maneuver the cotton swab to the right places, but you’ll soon learn how to roll and twist it just right—well, right for cleaning, anyway. (I could never get enough stimulation this way for any pleasurable sensations.)

One last cotton-swab-related tip is that they are great indicators of how well you are doing hygiene-wise. Take a whiff of the tip of the cotton swab after rolling it over your genitals and you’ll quickly be able to determine whether or not you need a thorough cleaning. This may sound gross, but seriously, how often is your nose right up in some genitals anyway?

2. Strategically placed baby oil helps scrotum soreness, particularly at night

The single most difficult part of wearing the CB-3000 for me (and I imagine this would be the case for most trapped-ball devices), is the soreness it causes on my scrotum when I get involuntary erections at night. It’s a catch-22 because the device is designed not to let me orgasm and so I get hornier, which causes more involuntary erections which causes more soreness. When it’s real bad my ball sack gets red and painful and it becomes difficult to sleep comfortably because every way I turn I feel it being stretched.

It took a while to figure this out, but I realized that one of the most effective solutions is simply to rub a bit of baby oil or other absorbent cream (NOT LUBE!) on the sore areas. In fact, doing this before bed (and after a cleaning) can even help prevent the soreness throughout the night. It works by helping the so-called A-ring (the cock-ring portion of the trapped ball device) slide more easily away from the body. If you’ve sized the device correctly, the ring is still snug enough that your testicles won’t be able to slip through, but when they get stretched due to your nightly erections (and they will), the ring won’t scrape your scrotum.

Note that doing this for your penis by placing baby oil or other moisturizers inside the tube portion of the device is a very bad idea. See tip number 1, above, for why.

3. Hygiene is easiest with a nozzle and high water pressure

Along with the cotton swab thing, I find that the other absolutely essential tool for hygienic long-term chastity device wear is a squeeze bottle with a nozzle small enough to maneuver just inside the holes of the device. I found one in the form of a hair dye developer bottle and it works wonders, but a specialized shower head can also do the trick. What you’re after is a high-pressure stream of water that you can aim with precision.

I put a drop of moisturizing body wash in the squeeze bottle, fill it with lukewarm water (or cold water if I’m all hard right then), shake it up a bit, and then squeeze the water into the CB through its various holes. Lather, rinse, repeat a few times, then lather, rinse and repeat some more without the soap. This pushes water and soap all the way through the tube and underneath the ring, cleaning both it and me. Couple this with the cotton swab tip for a decidedly thorough clean.

This tip along with number 1 is how it’s possible to stay so clean for so long without ever removing the device. And, yeah, that’s kind of a frightening thought…. Aren’t you glad I told you?

4. Body wash or other moisturizing soap is better than lube for application

It’s kind of hilarious, but for chastity fetishists such as myself, it’s actually very difficult to put a chastity device of any kind on! Why? Well, most chastity devices for men require you to apply them when you’re flaccid and, if you get turned on by the idea of wearing a chastity device, it’s very unlikely that putting a chastity device on is going to be a situation in which you are flaccid. As a result, it’s surprisingly difficult to get the tube over my penis in order to get the CB-3000 on me sometimes. I’m sure other men (and probably some women) have had this experience as well.

For some crazy reason, the manufacturers of the CB-3000 ship instructions that says using lube helps this. Well, it certainly makes you a bit more slippery, but lube is not a good idea because it’s sticky and it’s hard to wash off. Furthermore, many lubes contain glycerine, which is basically sugar, which in turn is basically like inviting a yeast farm into your privates. Yuck! Instead of lube use regular soap; it’s just as slippery, it’ll clean you while you’re putting it on (see tips 1 and 3), and it’s cheaper than lube.

Also, the penis is surprisingly malleable. I don’t even bother trying to “git it all in” on first application anymore, especially if I’m semi-erect while getting the device locked on. Instead, I just get it locked and take a shower to clean myself up. By the next time I’m ready to take a shower, I’ll have gotten flaccid enough to finish adjusting myself however I need to.

5. Press on to smaller sized rings, spacers for both security and comfort

The other major hurdle you need to get past when you first begin wearing trapped ball chastity devices like the CB-3000 is proper sizing. You want to find a fit that is snug when flaccid, yet not too restrictive when erect, and that is comfortable all the time. Without going into the merits of the CB3k’s security, suffice it to say that smaller rings and smaller spacers are “better” than larger ones.

I think it makes the most sense to start out with the largest ring that you can easily fit your index finger under, and one of the larger spacers. Wear that combination for a while, and decrease the size of the spacer ’til you hit the smallest one. If this combination is still comfortable for you, revert to the next-smallest ring, and up the spacer’s width. Keep going in this fashion until you reach a point where you can still push your index finger under the ring but just barely, and are using the smallest spacer you can handle. You’ll know if you can’t because your testicles will feel cold, look blue, and lack blood shortly after putting on the CB. This is a sign that there is not enough space between the ring and the tube for your testicles’ blood vessels to keep flowing smoothly and it is a very bad thing.

It’s also worth noting that I think it’s actually the size of the spacer that is the biggest boon to the security of the device, since it’s the spacer that determines how “tightly” the device grips your testicles.

In any event, it turns out that smaller rings which are more snug are actually also better for your comfort. The simple fact is that the larger the plastic thing between your legs is, the harder it is to wear pants with a smooth outline, or just sit down comfortably! The smaller rings are also lighter, which pull on you less, and are also easier to find suitable underwear for. So whenever you can, go for the smaller ring.

In case you’re interested, I currently wear the size 3 ring with the second-smallest spacer that came in the pack, but am considering trying the next smallest ring size soon.

6. Swap the default lock for a rubber-coated one to avoid pinching

Another of the annoyances I have with the original product is that it ships with a pokey metal Master-branded lock. I mean, the thing has edges and corners that, yes, may look cool but when you’re all bulging out of the top air holes can really pinch you hard. More than a few times I’ve even gotten a small cut from twisting the wrong way and having one of the four corners of the master lock dig into the uncovered bit of my penis.

The solution to this is to go to your local department or hardware store and find a lock of equal size that is rubber-coated. These rubber-coated locks also often have curved edges, which is even more helpful. They cost on the order of 5 to 10 dollars depending on the make and model and are just as effective as the factory’s master lock, but they don’t hurt when they poke you.

7. Trim pubic hair short for increased comfort, but do not shave to hairlessness

There’s a lot of fantasy material out there that suggests you should shave yourself hairless before putting on a CB-3000. OMG NO! This is a terrible idea. First, you’re about to make it much, much more difficult to keep yourself clean, you’re going to cause potential irritation to your pubic area already, and now you want to compound that challenge by shaving all your pubic hair off?

A word to the wise: when your hair starts to grow back you will be very itchy, probably irritated, and unless your stint in the chastity belt will be for a grand total of two days, you are most certainly going to stay locked up longer than it will take your hair to grow back. Quite simply, do not do this. It is dumb.

That said, it’s a surprisingly good idea to trim your pubic hair so that it is short. The reason is so that you avoid situations in which a single hair or two or three get caught in the CB and pull on you. This is not a major problem since you can just yank them out, but it hurts and gets annoying when it happens too often. By trimming your pubic hair short you simply avoid this in the same way that cutting your hair short makes it harder for people to pull your hair (which may or may not be what you want, I guess…).

My longest pubes are approximately a centimeter in length right now, and that’s plenty short for fantasy play as well as CB comfort. The easiest way to do this is to use an electric razor with a guard (without wearing the CB, of course, though it can technically be done with it on, too) and simply trim that way. It’s fast, easy, and lots of folks consider it sexy. :)

8. Do not avoid hydrating, not even before bed

This is kind of related to tip number 2, because there’s this myth that it’s a good idea not to drink too much before you go to bed so as to avoid a possibly painful erection during the night. This is stupid. Why? Because it’s never a good idea to avoid hydrating your body. Your body needs water to survive, and peeing is a natural thing to do, even at night.

Further, I found that this doesn’t even work. Your body’s gonna want to go pee whether you drank water or not. It just might not pee as much. So instead of not drinking, I say drink all you want, as normal, and when you need to get up to go pee, go pee. If you’re having pain at night due to erections, it’s probably caused by soreness in your scrotum and you should take a look at tip number 2 to see how you can use something like baby oil to help ease that pain.

9. Tuck it in (like a drag queen) to keep your bulge from showing

Often times, people are frightened that the bulge from their chastity device is too noticeable under clothing. Obviously, one solution is to wear baggier clothes. This works, but is more like a work around than a solution, though it is a good one. Wearing a baggy swim suit, I’ve been able to go swimming at crowded beaches while all locked away without even getting a second glance. Nevertheless, I love wearing tight jeans, girl’s pants, and so forth, which are typically pretty form-fitting and thus not very CB-friendly.

Luckily, I can tuck my penis downwards and back between my legs to a certain degree and in many cases this helped reduce the bulge in my pants to nothing, depending on how severely I tucked. Drag queens are famous for doing this, but of course they (probably) don’t have unyielding metal and/or plastic between their legs to deal with. Since we do, things are a bit more difficult, but still possible.

Wearing the right kind of underwear can help you keep your chastity device-encased penis “tucked.” This is actually one reason why I wear certain kinds of thongs (sort of wide in front, thin in back) while locked up; they help press my penis to my body and avoid the bulge in my pants. The fact that they are also traditionally thought of as women’s underwear is kind of icing on the cake at that point. ;) Also, arguably even more effective than tight thongs are girls’ boyshorts panties.

10. Take it off if you’re not having at least a little bit of fun

This should go without saying, but it never does so I’m saying it. If wearing the chastity device becomes more trouble than it’s worth, take it off. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including sustaining an injury such as a patch of dry skin that needs healing, being unable to sleep due to pain or other problems, or even just because it’s not fun anymore.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a break for a while, and in fact I found it was necessary for me to adjust to wearing the CB long-term over a period of time, gradually building up the amount of time I would spend in the device over each round, as well as shortening how long I would spend out of it at the end of each round. It took no less time than a full month of trial and effort for me to be able to spend 5 full days in the CB, and it wasn’t for another three months that I could spend 10.

This was not easy, and you better believe there were lots of days when it came off during that period for one reason or another.

Finally, keep in mind that no chastity device is proven 100% effective 100% of the time. Staying chaste, not orgasming until your partner “permits” you to, is just as much up to you as it is up to them no matter what kind of chastity toys you’re wearing. Sure, your orgasm may not be quite as pleasurable if you orgasm while in chastity than while you’re released, but if you were determined enough you could probably do it. For me, it’s actually downright painful to come while in the CB, and it takes a ton of effort for a result that isn’t satisfactory at all, but it is a release of some kind, no matter how small.

In other words, chastity devices available today just aren’t denial devices, they’re deterrent devices, so it takes a bit of cooperation from you—the wearer—to maintain your abstinence. Rather than see this as a bad thing, realize that this means you can be just as denied without the device as you can with the device, and you and your keyholder can take that as license to remove the device if it’s not working out for some reason. There are a number of circumstances, mostly mental and emotional health reasons, where Eileen will remove the device from me and still tell me not to orgasm. This is hard for me, sometimes even harder than being locked up, but it’s still sexy and it’s still orgasm denial.

I guess my point is, find what works for you and go with it, even if that means what you go with for a day, a week, or entirely, is not a chastity device.