To have a good session in figging, you'll need to start with the active juices of the ginger root. If you've tasted ginger, that is, a slice of peeled, fresh ginger straight from the market, you'll know that it burns. Now, transfer that burn to more sensitive openings of your body, and you have the concept of figging. Surprisingly, however, many people adore figging -- they like that burning sensation; they like the affect it has on their erotic experience. In a roundabout process, it can make an orgasm last longer and feel stronger -- not to mention hotter.

The original sense of figging came, most people think, from an equestrian practice of placing a piece of ginger in the horse's anus before ceremonies or parades. Apparently parades are much ado about a horse's ass. The effect of the ginger in the horse's ass is that the horse keeps his tail up in that nice high curl of the well-dressed steed. The word to feague, for you etymologists, goes back to the German word for "sweep" (as in "to sweep something away") which arrived at the idea of "drive" (as in "to drive something forward"). Since a horse is driven by a whip, the word "feague" soon came to mean (sadists, tune in) "to whip or to beat." But the word retained the meaning of spurring someone on (or a horse in this case). So figging's ancestor has had a long and colorful set of applications as "feague" and "feaguing."

And then figging came along, probably through the horse and showmanship connection. While spurring your horse to do his moves, you could also spur him to hold his blue-ribbon form indefinitely -- or at least until the potency of the ginger wore out -- about 20 minutes to half an hour. The rule was, fig your horse and his tail will stand properly. In fact, at various times and places, horsemen and showmen and soldiers alike have been penalized because their horse wasn't figged.

The riding crop being allied to the ginger in ensuring your horse made a good showing, it was only a matter of time before we clever humans devised a way to put punishment and figging together for ourselves. We are told that schools in Victorian England, notorious for their harsh corporal punishment, caught on to the idea of figging humans. A stick of ginger and a few good cracks on the behind -- a great way to help wayward students experience an adjustment of the mind. Yes, ginger root in the butt smarts.

What does all this have to do with good sex? Well, some people swear by it. The burn of the ginger overloads the senses. Also there's the added feature that clenching the buttocks, such as a person might do to speed up their orgasm or during orgasm, causes the burning sensation to increase. So buttocks filled with ginger will tend to stay more relaxed. Relaxation puts off orgasm and prolongs foreplay. After a while (again, 10 minutes to half an hour or more, depending on the person), the burn of the ginger lessens and something more soothing sets in. This feeling, too, is going to vary from person to person. Some say it's a tingly warmth that spreads through the anal canal. Many report emotional changes in this aftermath of the ginger burn: feelings of well-being, of dreaminess, of warmth, of horniness. At this point, you're ready for love. You've got two things working together for you to make that heavy O, the first is that you put off your orgasm and gone for the big build-up -- this always contributes to the orgasmic geyser. The second thing is this mood, these warm sensations or at the very least, the release of tension in your butt muscles after the onslaught of the ginger. And what many people report, as a result is a big bursting, warm and tingly orgasm unlike any other.

So figging is something for the sex adventurer to try. If you like your lovemaking soft and hot-tubbish, this might not be at all for you. But if you're in the mood for thrashing sex, then figging could be the ticket.

How do you get your ginger? Go to the produce section of your market and find what they call a "hand" of ginger. Ginger is a root, after all, and so it looks like a stubby root with a bunch of fat tubers growing off it (called "fingers"). Cut off one of these fingers, peel it until you can see the slick covering of juice on the finger's pulp. It seems that a 4-inch or longer finger does the trick. You may have seen the way a butt plug flanges at the end. This is so the plug doesn't slip up into the asshole and get lost. You might want to replicate this shape with your ginger butt plug. Most expert figgers carve a sort of ring into the ginger finger (after the 4-inch mark -- save those 4 inches for the inside of the ass in question). What you're going for is to create a groove that the sphincter muscle can grab onto. The sphincter naturally closes in on this ring, so the ginger won't slip into the anal canal.

Of course, if it does get lost there, not to worry. It will usually work its way down and hang out with yesterday's dinner, and you can force it out by bearing down; or wait, and it should come out with your next dump.

Are there any other dangers to this odd-sounding practice? The worst problem that might come up is an allergic reaction to ginger. To avoid this, try ginger on other sensitive areas of your body before inserting it in your private holes. Under the armpit is probably the most sensitive and least committal place to use.

Otherwise -- besides the obvious burn -- ginger is a fairly harmless, all-natural kind of butt toy. If you try it, you can experiment with depth (how deep it is!), with the amount of time you leave it in, with reinsertion and prolonging the burn. Though the effect of the ginger has a cycle which ends with the ginger losing its bite, you can revive that bite simply by removing the ginger and running it under water. This not only freshens the burning ginger juices, it actually seems to make the ginger stronger than it was the first time around. So if you enjoyed that and don't quite feel you've reached your sensational limit, go for round two. Likewise if you are unsure about your tolerance for the burn and you want to start out with much less potent ginger, you can leave the ginger lying out for a week or more after you buy it. This will weaken its potency. Since every asshole has a different temperament, and everyone's internal chemistry reacts differently, go slowly, act cautiously, and then try all the variations you can think of.

On the receiving end, try clenching and unclenching buttocks; have your partner masturbate you or give you head or fuck you while the ginger is in place. Play with the nasty sensations and have a figging good time.

All this makes for some mild, erotic BDSM play. But dom/mes can ramp up the intensity for their subs by adding a touch of the old school (Victorian school, that is). Over time, the Victorians were able to work out a fine blend of punishments by mixing figging and caning. The softer version of this is figging and spanking or paddling. Adding corporal punishment on the buttocks to figging takes advantage of your ass's conflict of interests when its owner is being beaten while holding a piece of ginger up their butt. The beating makes the person want to flex and squeeze those cheeks, minimizing the pain of the beating. But the ginger makes them want to release all tension from their butt muscles so as to loosen the asshole's grip around the ginger and minimize the ginger's burn. Clench and burn or release and sting...decisions, decisions. A sub undergoing figging and paddling has this delightful quandary to deal with, plus the dual sensations of burn and sting, internal and external sensations. It's quite divine. The ginger runs its course after awhile and the warm afterglow helps the sub to enjoy the beating even more.

Many report that male subs are more compliant after the ginger has run its course inside them. Women claim it makes them horny. So when you play with ginger, be on the look-out for the ginger aftermath. Watch to see what form it takes in your subbie.

Even if a dom/me doesn't want to spank while figging, there's a great trick they can try: squeeze their sub's ass cheeks together. This will increase the burning sensations. Also place the ginger deeper. Or when the sub thinks they've had just about enough, refresh the ginger with water, and reinsert it. Let this turbo-burn work on them until they beg for mercy or at least lick your boots.

For especially bad subs, there are other places you can place the ginger. For guys, the urethra is a nasty burn tube. You'll need to cut a thin sliver for that treatment -- then watch him squirm. For women, the vagina, especially around the opening where the nerves are, works nicely. And if you're wicked or you and your partner like it rough and tough, try ginger DP, that's double penetration. Add some sexual stimulation to the DP and you may have masochistic bliss.

With this basic ginger primer, you and your partner are ready to experiment yourselves. Play with the nasty sensations and have a figging good time.