|
Violet wands: (almost) Everything you need to know
by Violetwanda
(copyrighted 2003, reprinted by permission)
Years ago someone had written a basic web introduction to violet wands to give electrical play beginners a familiarization-level understanding of violetwands and their uses. But technology advances! What was true yesterday can quickly be out of date today. And new information continually develops. So this article was written to make the most up to date information available.
You may have seen Eclectic Electric violet wands on HBO's RealSex, or seen us in "Stuff" Magazine. We have been in business not only selling violet wands and equipment since 1997, but manufacturing it. We have done extensive research with the Violet Wand Guild to enable us to make safer toys to rigorous specifications. We have trained Guild Members in the construction and repair of violet wands so that more people in the fetish community will have access to repair and servicing. We blow our own electrodes out of a special medical grade glass with a specific electrical resistance so that you get the most amount of output at the highest safety. So we know the effort that the Violet Wand Guild makes to collate and present up to date facts, and give true and expert, advice and information.
To put it simply, violet wands are used by many people for sexual, erotic, sado-masochistic, BDSM, or kinky stimulation purposes. They are part of a broad range of electrical 'play' devices. Electricity in play is certainly not for everyone. Many of the same people who will embrace a single tail whip, won't even consider electricity. Largely, that's due to the dangers we know that electricity can present, and to our natural fears of things we don't understand. After all, electricity is edge play, can be heavy play, and there's almost a genetic-memory dread of that crackling, fizzing, sudden lightning bolt of an arcing spark that makes us want to lope back to the safety of our primal caves.
There are all types of electrical 'toys'; even vibrators constitute electrical toys! Some types of electrical toys act on your muscles to provide involuntary contractions which can lead to orgasm (stim boxes), or to pain (such as cattle prods.) Violet wands on the other hand, provide a stimulus to the skin and nerves. I think everything from 9 volt batteries to train transformers has been perverted to some extent in the past. It probably didn't take long after the advent of electricity for the more adventurous to start perverting it. Thank goodness we now have safer toys designed specifically for 'play'. We have a number of inventors to thank for electrical toys in general, and the development of the violet wand in particular. Among the most notable inventors contributing to the violet wand was Nikolas Tesla, who developed the basic electrical coil configurations used in today's violet wand. Tesla was the quintessential 'mad scientist', science was rapidly evolving, and a number of simultaneous discoveries led to the development of 'violet rays'. Take Tesla's disruptive discharge transformer coil configuration, and add it to the isolation of noble gases which glowed when excited by electricity, and the grand-daddy of the violet wand was born not long after Edison's incandescent lightbulbs.
These early devices (called violet rays) showed up before 1920 as miracle machines thought to cure every ill and disease with electrical energy. Some of the better early devices have some collectible/antique value. While you can still find some of them at flea markets and yard sales, great care has to be taken with them if you plan to actually use one of these old 'finds' for playing. You wouldn't use a 70 year old lamp without rewiring it, so it is extremely important to have any old violet ray device checked for safety before use and preferably rewired. Never use any old electrical device that shows signs of deterioration or corrosion in its wiring or electrical cords!
But even today, there are proponents who use violet ray devices for alternative medical therapies due to their high frequency electrical discharge. In fact, if you visit a full-service aesthetic spa or salon today, and ask for a high frequency facial, you'll receive a very mild treatment for its benefits in stimulating skin. Of course, the high frequency treatment you receive in a spa won't have anywhere near to the output you get from a 'violet wand' as the technologies have diverged from their shared beginnings 100 years ago. All three have the same basic technology, but not the same output, effect, intent, or end user. From their shared violet ray grandparents, we have today's mild beauty high frequency device, and its powerful kinky cousin...the violet wand.
Related technologies today are still used in plasma televisions, neon signs, and even stealth antennas! But of course, our main interest is violet wand technology and how it is used to erotically, or kinkily, stimulate a willing partner.
 |
Definitely NOT one of its vanilla-use cousins, a violet wand is engineered specifically for LENGTHY, INTENSE and safer kinky electrical play.
This is just the most basic technique (Direct). -There are hundreds-
|
Sometimes erroneously called a neon wand, ultraviolet wand or a violent wand, the violet wand is truly an intense erotic toy used in bdsm electrical play. It is capable of achieving a wide range of sensations from lush fizzing that feels like champagne bubbles bursting on your skin, all the way up to sharp shocks. It does have something for everyone, whether you like pleasureably erotic sensations or intense pain. These different ranges of sensations are dependent upon the combinations you use of violetwand settings, electrodes, techniques and other accessories, and can be almost unlimited in the number of possible combinations. In fact, even glass electrodes will have different feelings, and we make them to provide all those different types of sensations. Add in other conductive toys plus all the techniques, and you will indeed, have a toy that will never feel the same way twice.
You can do ANY scene play with a violet wand. Flogging, caning, cupping, needles and piercings, fireplay, branding, whipping, and now I hear...paddling...are all possible with a violet wand. It is NOT just its own electrical play, but you can add intensity to all your regular types of play. No serious sado-masochist or disciplinarian is without a violet wand.
Ordinary household electricity is a low frequency alternating current (120 Volts, 60 Hz in the USA) and is hazardous to come into direct contact with. It is important to know this for safety factors, as one leg of a violetwand circuit is connected to household mains current. This is the reason you would not want to use an old violet ray whose wiring is in unknown condition. A fault in a violet ray with old wiring can delivery household current directly to your subject, which can be deadly.
The Violet Wand "transforms" the high voltage household current by a two-stage process with a magnetic resonator and then a capacitor (known in combination as a Tesla coil) into a very low watt, low amperage, and high frequency charge that has little affect on the human body. The vacuum annealed, heat treated glass electrodes are filled with argon (and sometimes other gas) under low pressure, that creates the purple glow when it is excited by electricity. The glass electrodes also effectively isolate the charge within. What comes off the end of the glass electrodes is Electromagentic Energy which behaves similarly to direct current electricity that jumps to an uncharged source. The net electrical charge you receive from a glass violet wand electrode is similar to static electricity that you receive a shock from when walking across a carpeted floor. The difference is that violet wands produce a continuous stream of electrical discharge rather than a single static spark. [Static electricity as defined as "electromagnetic energy that is low current and high voltage", and thus similar to the electromagnetic discharge of a violet wand.]
It has been reported in other commonly quoted web articles that wands produce ultraviolet light which can burn skin. This is -mostly- wrong. From our extensive research and development, we now know that the amount of ultraviolet light is produced only at the point of spark as part of the full spectrum of light produced by the spark, and the UV is almost too small to measure under normal conditions. Thus any unintentional burns recevied are a result of the 50,000 volts...an electrical burn rather than a UV burn. Too many of those articles out there contain similar outdated or erroneous information. That is simply the result of repeating what one has read somewhere else, and not coming to a source such as the Violet Wand Guild who does the research and maintains correct and up to date information.
Other old information that you'll see tells you never to insert glass electrodes into orifices. Certainly, do not insert fragile, 70 year old vintage electrodes made of annealed glass internally! But --today's-- violet wand electrodes are specifically manufactured for kinky play, and made of non-UV producing quartz glass that is very difficult to break and can be safely inserted when following proper precautions. Outdated information again. That's the problem with the web; once posted it stays up for years past its useful life.
Thankfully, you've come to the right place instead of to those outdated articles...you've come straight to the experts. Inside this website of the Violet Wand Guild you will find the researchers, the developers, the testers, the users, the masters and yes, even the makers. A community of support which will help you get the most from your violet wand. And you'll even find be able to buy any type of violetwand you can imagine, plus all the most up to date electrodes and accessories. With a violet wand, you will never be bored, and with this Guild and its community, you will never be without the facts.
If you see this article or its wording anywhere else on the web, it was stolen. The Violet Wand Resource Network uses Copyscape to detect any copying of its language, including with wording changes, and will take any and all necessary steps to protect the intellectual property of all members of its community.
|
