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The Best Beginner's BDSM Gear for (Literal) Cuffing Season

Strap down for the winter with these beginner’s gags, restraints, and spanking sex toys.
The Best Beginner's BDSM Gear
Composite by VICE Staff

We’ve been feeling especially bored and horny under these North Face puffers lately. The days are cold, and the nights are long; our situationships are getting solidified for the rest of our winter hermitage, and our lube pantry is getting stocked to the heavens for prostate play. Nigh are the days of popping out from our electric blanket for bodega runs, takeout, or catching a glimmer of Sunny D on our skin to keep away the SAD (seasonal affective disorder). We’re ready to turn into full BDSM (Big Daddis and Skanky Mammis) dungeon lords for the rest of winter, and we’re looking for kinky sex toys to help.

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If you’re new to BDSM, willkommen. The acronym actually stands for bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism, and it offers a whole oyster tray of fun for you and your partner(s) to explore now that summer is dead, and we’re no longer slug-trailing across the city. No, we’re a little more keen on holing up with our hunny of the week, finding a safe word, and getting spanked by the space heater. 

Of course, it’s crucial to do your research, listen to your partner’s and your bodies’ needs, and find out which areas of BDSM really twist your nips, as it were. It’s also half the fun: Go dabble in a bit of temperature play, or cop enough silk restraints for a champion ribbon dancer; find a choker for your balls, or a sperm stopper that you can repurpose for corking that *muah* great Napa vintage. BDSM encompasses a whole Crockpot of sex toys and fetishes that can take you from the medical (like the Wartenberg Wheel), to the earthy (figging, a.k.a. anal plugging with ginger) and beyond. Polish your pleather, and let’s stock up on some classic accessories for (literal) Cuffing Season.  

Start with a blindfold

Whether you’re riding Ds or getting Zs, a blindfold is a great thing to have on-hand (and over eyes) in the bedroom. 


$7.99 at Lovehoney

$7.99 at Lovehoney

Soft restraints 

Yes, it’s literally just ribbons on ribbons. That’s the joy of silky restraints. Handcuffs are also cool, but there’s something so nice about the ease with which you can use and store these babies, which will take up about as much space as a sock and a great gateway toy into more ~hardcore~ bondage tools.   


$36.99 at Lovehoney

$36.99 at Lovehoney

$19.99 at Lovehoney

$19.99 at Lovehoney

$24.99$12.49 at Lovehoney

$24.99$12.49 at Lovehoney
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Long live Cuffing Season 

Told you they were cool. Unbound Babes makes some of the vibiest sex toys and handcuffs out there, from a flexible silicone set to a blue handcuff set with adjustable, belt-style straps—meaning, no loseable keys—that are also designed to be used hanging from a door. (We love a multi-tasking, multi-level toy.) 


$19 at Unbound Babes

$19 at Unbound Babes

$39 at Unbound Babes

$39 at Unbound Babes

Go to Spank Town 

We’re partial to the ol’ bushel of twigs and the maypole, but we also enjoy a satin paddle. It’s also a softer intro to spanking than a lot of the paddles with cutouts or electric currents


$19.99 at Lovehoney

$19.99 at Lovehoney

Nipple stimulation

Nipple play isn’t just Gorilla Glue and Husky clamps, my sweet lumbersexual. You might want to start out a little softer, with some silicone nipple suction cups, before graduating to intense nipple clamps.  


$16.99 at Lovehoney

$16.99 at Lovehoney

A choker for your balls

Are your balls going to a Seattle rave circa 1997? Great. 


$16.99 at Lovehoney

$16.99 at Lovehoney

$1416.73 at 1stDibs

$1416.73 at 1stDibs

$17.99$13.35 at Amazon

$17.99$13.35 at Amazon

You are Seabiscuit

When it comes to beginner gags, you can use the same silky restraints from above, opt for a gag with a smaller ball (like a hot baby seal), or try a silicone gag bar that’s easier to bite down on. (Into group play? Get a partner and try a double-mouth gag for some in-your-face fun.)


$9.99$6.99 at Lovehoney

$9.99$6.99 at Lovehoney

$37 at Babeland

$37 at Babeland

$39 at Unbound Babes

$39 at Unbound Babes

Learn about Japanese bondage

Known as kinbaku or shibari, the Japanese art of getting tied up will turn you into a skilled, horny rope-slinger who can make better knots than a seafaring ghost (but that’s knot why you’ll be moaning). Start off by using your rope as a simple restraint, then dive into more intricate knots with the help of author Kenji Takada’s beginner’s guide to the practice. 


$29 at BBoutique

$29 at BBoutique
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$7.99 at Amazon

$7.99 at Amazon

The whole smorgasbord 

Welcome to the 20-piece drum set—the full BDSM kit for beginners that will keep you busy until springtime, because it’s packed with ropes, clamps, plugs, dildos, spiky wheels, floggers, and more. Put it all in a piñata, and make your beloved spank the goods out. 


$159.99$79.99 at Lovehoney

$159.99$79.99 at Lovehoney

Here’s to storing those nuts for the winter. 


The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story.