You may have heard about pony play before and have asked yourself: what on earth is that? And more importantly, is it for me? Do I want to try it? So how about we start to answer those questions, come and follow me along wink*. First, you need to understand the concept of pony play. This is a combination of role-play and BDSM where someone takes on the role of an equid, thus becoming a ponyboy or a ponygirl. This activity relies heavily on bondage, discipline and submission…as any other BDSM play wink*.
To understand ponyplay a bit better, you should know there are two general types of it. The first one is usually referred as “forced ponyplay” (obviously it is consensual, but it’s called forced to follow the role play fantasy), where the pony it’s still considered human but its trainer, handler or owner treats it and forces it to act like an animal. This type of play depends a lot on humiliation and degradation. The training techniques used are very hard and strict and have little to nothing to do with the other type of pony play I’ll mention below.
On the other hand, we have equine role-play. In this scene, the human actually “converts” into an equid, thus losing its human persona behind. In this type of play, humiliation does not play a part because the person is not a person anymore; it’s simply an animal. Think about it, because you don’t degrade a pet or an animal; and in any case, in real life your pet doesn’t feel humiliated for being a cat or a dog (yes, even as you constantly call him Mr.Sniffles wink*). The training techniques used in this one are not that severe and are alike to the ones used on real life equines.
As an appendix, I should mention therians. These are people who actually think of themselves as part animal, so for them pony play it’s not considered a fantasy or role play.
Both categories have lots of BDSM elements; by nature ponyplay resembles closely to the BDSM dynamic. It has a dominant partner who will command and guide a submissive partner and the bondage will vary from light, medium to heavy.
So, what’s the appeal? Well, probably the first aspect that attracts people is the power exchange. While that is the core part of any BDSM relationship, ponyplay has the added value of creating the illusion that someone has transformed into an animal, specifically and equid. Why an equid exactly? Well, no one can know for sure what exactly is the appeal of transforming into an equid and why an equid wins over other type of animal. It enters the category of “why we like the things we like” I guess. Other of the life bigger mysteries…
