keeping her quiet - cleanliness is next to godliness edition

Dirty Mouth?

I said a bad word once, and I actually did get my mouth washed out with soap. 
    ~ Ashlee Simpson

Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 11) - Soap Gag

Welcome to yet another installment in an ongoing series of posts about gags and gagging in BDSM.  Other postings in this series (so far) include:

1. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 1) - Duct Tape Gags
2. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 2) - Introduction to Gags
3. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 3) - Variations on a Gag
4. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 4) - Wiffle Gag
5. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 5) - Serafina's Assignment
6. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 6) - Hand Gag
7. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 7) - Drooling!
8. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 8) - Gag Maker Extraordinaire
9. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 9) - Panty Gags
10. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 10) - Fetish Gags
11. Keeping Her Quiet (pt. 11) - Soap Gag

I'd like to take a moment to remind my readers that the series title is not intended to be chauvinistic of sexist.   Instead, it's entirely a reflection of my 30 years of experience exploring BDSM as a heterosexual dominant.

You are who you are, and I am who I am, and that is all good.  Isn't it marvelous that we all aren't the same in our personal wants, needs, and desires?  Instead of being offended or put-off by any references I might make to sexual orientations that are different from your own, I simply ask that you to simply change an occasional pronoun in your mind in order to bring my essay into line with your own orientation and/or world view.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.

    -  Mark Twain

Many of us, as children, when caught using foul language by a parent or other authority figure, were threatened with having our mouth washed out with soap.  It's a classic threat, although I'm not sure how effective it is in preventing cursing, for most of us all it did was perhaps encourage us to be a little careful when and where we used such colorful language.

It should come as no great surprise then, that the threat of similar treatment for a foul mouthed submissive is not unknown.  From there, it's not a giant leap to today's topic, the soap gag.

This isn't a common gag, it could easily have fit with the previous post in this series, Fetish Gags.  In all honesty, today's post was almost entirely inspired by a single image I encountered on tumblr this morning.  When I showed the picture to my slave/wife Serafina, she immediately asked . . . 

"Is that soap?"

When I nodded an affirmative, her immediate response was, "Ewwwwwwww!!!!"

I'm guessing that the threat of having one's mouth washed out with soap is going to be more effective with your average submissive than it was with your average insolent child, at least that's my line of thinking.  Let me make it clear, though, that's not a theory I've tested extensively, it's just some personal speculation.

When I asked Serafina if she'd ever been threatened as a child with having her mouth washed out with soap, her reply wasn't exactly what I expected.  "Well Master," she said to me, "Mennonite parents don't bother with that sort of thing, if they don't like your language, you get spanked."    OK . . . I'll spare you, dear reader, my reaction, as I don't believe in spanking children, and my language might be a poor example in a post about dirty mouths!

While on the topic of of discipline, I will say that while I believe the threat of washing a swearing submissive's mouth out with soap might be a valid part of a dominant's arsenal, I don't believe it's a threat to make to a child, and in some venues the act might be considered a form of child abuse.  I do know of an instance where a couple was charged with a crime when it was discovered they had placed a bar of soap in thier child's mouth for ten minutes.

I'm not planning on using a soap gag on Serafina anytime soon, and I'm not suggesting it as an addition to the average dominant's bag of tricks, I'm simply acknowledging that I've encountered the use of soap gags in my travels across the world wide web.  

If you are planning on using a soap gag, I have no experience from which to advise, and can only give some general common sense suggestions.  As with anything I'd put into a submissive's mouth, I'd want to know the ingredients so as to avoid unnecessary exposure to unhealthy chemicals.  I'd follow the same general advice used for folks who like to use some soap in an enema; avoid detergents, fragrances, and other chemicals that can irritate or be absorbed through a mucus membrane.  

I'd also remind any submissive actually experiencing a soap gag, that gags and drooling go together like dogs and stink. Soaps are made from lye and fat, not exactly what I'm looking to have my submissive consume.  I'd suggest swallowing nothing but your pride, as any swallowed soap can be an irritant in the stomach.  

In the case of  the couple who were arrested for placing a bar of soap in a child's mouth, they were actually reported to law enforcement by emergency room personnel, they had taken their child to the emergency room for vomiting caused by their version of what might be considered a soap gag.  

I'm sure soap could be a terrible irritant if inhaled, and surfactants found in some soaps could significantly impair lung function.  I'd avoid circumstance and conditions where my submissive might end up inhaling soap at all costs.