Zille Defeu’s Fetish Fantasies

The kinky community site, Fetlife has some really good things going for it. One of the best is that members are encouraged to keep blogs within the site, and you can stumble across some real gems simply by browsing people’s profiles! The following article comes from a very nice fellow, a serious fan of the birch rod, who is kindly allowing me to republish his work here, so that it can help those (who are possibly not members of Fetlife) who are curious about how to go about making a birch rod.

This is a fairly light type of birch, and so is ideal for a beginner or a first time introduction to the birch, or if you simply want to administer (or receive) a gentler birching.

The first step is to take a pair of secateurs (pruning shears) and find a birch tree, or better still a copse or woods. You will need to cut about 20 individual switches, each about 27 inches long. They should be fairly straight and typically be no more than 1/2 inch or 6 mm at the point where you cut them and will ideally have several side branches that are as long or nearly as long as the main shoot.

Try to find switches like these, that, when pinched, will provide several threads within the final birch

If possible I like to take these from a number of trees, think of it if you like as “sustainable BDSM.” I live in an area where birch trees are so common as to almost be ‘tree weeds’ so I can afford the luxury of only taking one switch from any individual tree.

The next step is to trim all the side shoots and branches from the lower 15 inches of the switches. Also trim any ‘nobbles’ or short stubs from the lower parts of the stems. When you have done this, you should be able to comfortably pick the switches up in the palm of your hand and they should feel ‘right’. If you can’t hold the birch comfortably in your hand and get a good grip, then simply try removing a few switches until you can.

Also, at this point you should remove most of any leaves. Do this by gently grasping each switch at the bottom and running your hand along its length to ‘catch’ any leaves you want to remove (you may want to wear a gardening glove to do this). How many you remove and how many you leave is really a matter of personal taste and aesthetics – it is your birch, so it it should look like how you want it to!

Your birch is now ready for binding.

Binding is simply a matter of tying the switches together to bind them into a the finished birch. You can use virtually anything for this that comes to hand, I myself tend to use gardening ‘twist ties’ as these are easy to tighten and remove and re-apply if necessary.

With a spray birch I would normally tie the birch in three places, near the end of the handle, about six inches up it and, most importantly, about 15 inches along its length.

The first two simply provide the handle of the birch. Try to tie these quite tightly so there isn’t too much movement at that end of the birch, you will want to achieve a firm, solid handle that won’t be wriggling around when it is taken in hand to be used. Positioning them about two and six inches along the handle will simply space them to comfortably suit most peoples hand. If the birch feels too big in the hand, remove a few switches until it does feel ‘right in the hand’ – you won’t be able to use it effectively if the handle is too big so that it can’t be gripped properly.

The third tie is probably the most important, for this is the one that gathers the twigs into an effective spray birch. You are aiming for the point along the handle and degree tightness that will pull and bind the tips of the switches into an effective bundle. Too tight and too far up and you will end up bunching the tips and with a birch that is too narrow to be effective. Too narrow or too far down that handle and the switches will spread too wide to be effective.

Positioning this tie is a matter of trial and error until you end up with a birch that a) looks and b) feels that part – pick it up and take a trial swipe with it – you will know when the weight and balance feels right. Personally I tie the ‘twist-tie’ loosely just below the ‘bloom’ of branches and then slide it along the birch so it ‘gathers’ the branches until they have the right look and feel to them, and with a spread of about six inches at the heart of the business end of the birch, so that each stroke will ‘kiss’ a sizeable part of the recipients backside.

You should then have a spray birch that looks something like this:

Next, trim the birch to length by trimming the tips of the birch so they are roughly the same length – just trimming two or three inches off the longest ones should be sufficient to achieve this.

As a final touch, you could wrap some tape or material around the bottom few inches of the handle. Duck tape is quite effective, if not terribly pretty, or you could try self-adhesive bondage tape if you have any available. Alternatively, if you want a nice look and feel you could go for a thin over-grip of the type that can be purchased for the bats / racquets that are used in any number of stick based sports.

And, voila, there you have your spray birch.

Birch Care and Use

Ideally a spray birch should be made as near as practical to the time when it is to be used so as to maximise is freshness (even better if you have the poor victim go out and prepare the instrument of their own downfall immediately beforehand – that will focus their mind for sure!).

If however it needs to be kept for more than a few days before use then I suggest it is stood with the ends of the birch stood in water, so as to retain the moisture and freshness for as long as possible (in much the same way as we put flowers in water). I reckon a spray birch can be kept for between one and two weeks in this way, but there is no doubt in my mind that ‘the fresher the better’ for this type of birch.

Finally a few points to note about the use of a spray birch:

1) Twig-fest. A spray birch will disintegrate quite badly on use (that should provide some measure of consolation for the subbie whose backside it has warmed!) – it is essentially a one use toy; in doing so it will in all probability generate a host of little twigs. So either administer a spray birching outdoors or have a dustpan and brush to hand and be ready to clear up afterwards!

2) Marking and Speckles. You need to be aware that a spray birching will leave some marks behind (no pun intended), and probably for a few days. How long obviously depends on the severity of the birching, but I assume you would be using a spray birch to administer a light to medium birching (there are better choices of birch if you want to apply a harder punishment) and, therefore, that the marks would look something like this – a mix of thin, light wealds and ‘speckles’. Broadly, the wealds occur where ‘shoots’ will have fallen and the speckles where ‘nobbles’ will have fallen. In my experience the wealds tend to disappear quite quickly, but the speckles will tend to hang around for a few days.

3) Wrap-around. One of the disadvantages of using a spray birch is that the thin branches are prone to wrap-around. Wrap-around is common phenomenon also with floggers and whips, and occurs when the middle section of the birch falls on the buttock, but the tips do not, and instead follow-on and wrap round the curve of the buttocks, landing instead on the sides of the backside and (for reasons of physics that I shan’t go into here) usually with a far sharper and more painful blow than was intended, and also one that is more likely to leave marks to boot. The best way to avoid wrap-around is: a.) to use slow steady stokes and b.) to be ‘tip conscious’ by taking care that the tips of the birch land on the flat of the buttocks each and every time.

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