Cosmopolitan
By Cheryl Wischhover
Domina Elle is a former escort and current dominatrix who specializes in balloon fetish play. (Its practitioners are called “looners.”) She is also a sex workers’ rights advocate.
I like to call myself an adult play facilitator. The type of work I do is much broader than just BDSM or fetishistic type stuff. I specialize in helping people to open this part of their sexual selves, and be playful and creative. That’s one reason I love balloons. It’s a very friendly catalyst. It’s erotic and playful, and yet it’s not as scary as some of the other stuff when you start looking at BDSM.
For me specifically, balloons came out of my latex fetish. In general, looners are primarily men. Usually it started when they were kids and they got a hold of a balloon. It’s a soft, puffy, nice thing. Humans are very tactile and sensory-based. They, for whatever reason, found an erotic stimulation there. About seven years ago, I saw someone on stage live-playing with big latex balloons. He was putting one or two people inside the balloons. I already had a latex fetish, and when I saw that I realized, Wow, I can get inside a balloon and have that wonderful latex smell all around me?
Balloons can be used for so many different kinky activities. The big balloons can be used to put underneath [yourself during sex]. You don’t blow it up all the way. It’s kind of exciting and scary to be on top of it while you’re messing around. I love to fill a room with balloons. It’s not as easy as it sounds because it really does take a lot of balloons to fill a room — like, thousands of them.
When you go to BDSM dungeons, they tend to be really stuffy. People are really serious. I would take the balloons to these very serious dungeon environments. I thought, How can I get this whole room activated? Once people see a couple of people get in, they start lining up. Then you have everyone in the room cheering and excited because they know there’s a trick to getting in while the air is coming out.
It’s been such a fun experiment to challenge boundaries and see everyone get so excited. I’ve been trying to get as many people inside [a balloon] as I can. I’m stuck on 13 and a half. I’ve been stuck there for about a year. [The big balloons I use] are advertising balloons that are 72 inches when they are inflated. I buy a brand called Rifco, which is from Italy. They cost anywhere from $20 to $50 each. I usually buy them 10 at a time. You can get clear and different colors. It’s fun because the clear, everybody can see what’s going on inside, which I really like. Then you can do fun stuff with neon paint and confetti. The colored ones allow people to be shielded inside so nobody can see what’s happening in there. People feel more protected and in their own little world.
Part of the fun is walking up to someone I don’t know and saying to them, “Will you get inside my balloon?” Wrap your mind around that. They visualize this tiny little thing at first. I cut the nipple off the edge of the neck and that gives it a little bit more stretch. You have to wrestle to get in that little hole. It’s kind of a reverse birthing process. Most of the time, I’ll get people down to their underwear right there. Sometimes, at dungeons, everybody just gets naked in there. …