I haven’t thought that as editor of a fetish magazine I’ll become kind of sexual zoo director. 🙂 After having talked to human dogs, human cats and a lot of pigs today I’ll talk with Nighty, a pony player who is living in Berlin.
MasterMarc: Hi Nighty. Have you got your oats today or am I in dager that you want bite me? It is nice to have you here and to talk about pony play with you. For how long are you living your pony fetish and how have you started with it?
Nighty: Hey there and don’t worry, I normally don’t bite … well not often. Also I am going more for pizza and stuff like that than oats. Yeah, I know, probably not the most healthy diet, but I compensate quite a bit with sports. And well, speaking of Zoo director … just wait until you might talk to some more exotic species than a simple horse. Becoming a horse was more like a longer process for me, so it is difficult to find an exact date on when I started to get interested in this whole “Ponyplay” or “Horseplay” activities, but there was a distinct moment at a Petplay event I was invited to in 2008 where I could live out my inner horse for the first time. It was a fantastic experience that somehow made me feel complete finally and happened after I got invited to a small training session from a friend. He asked me if I would like to have a try and I couldn’t refulse of course, despite the fact that I was pretty shy about things getting real. All I had until then were some fantasies, but no real experience and I was pretty surprised to find out that ponyplay catered some completely different aspects of my personality than I had thought. This is about 8 hears ago now …
MasterMarc: Your inner horse … what is it? What are the desires you can satisfy by living out your inner horse and what kind of feelings are involved?
Nighty: For me (and I bet for many other people) a horse represents certain attributes like strength, elegance and partnership. When I dive into the role of “Nighty”, I project these attributes on me and see and feel myself from a different perspective. Things become more primal for me and I am diving into a different mindset. I call it a small vacation from myself … letting go of all the daily thoughts and responsibilities and getting to a state where I simply am and interact with my handler. It’s a relieving feeling, esspecially when we do stuff that you can do with a bio-horse as well like longing or ground work. Esspecially in ground work there is a very nice element of communication with your partner when practicing together. Of course there are also some kinky elements that are being satisfied. Horses are associated with leather (a kink of mine) and even if they are much stronger than humans, they are controlled and restricted by them which caters my love for bondage and restriction. It’s a different relationship though than between a master and his slave … as a horse you have a bit more and also a bit less freedom in some way.
MasterMarc: When do you have as horse more and when less freedom as a slave?
Nighty: An animal is normally allowed or forgiven certain behaviours and people treat me differently than for example a simple slave role. You forgive a real horse more things than you would forgive a human because “the horse doesn’t know better” so there is more freedom in certain things that I can do. E.g. I am not expected to be submissive as horses have their own mind as well. I can act up, I may not follow orders or nibble on the handler without being considered “disobedient”. I made the experience and have the impression that a pet is cherished and cared for more than you would do for a slave, but that’s just my personal interpretation as I honestly don’t have much experience with the slave role in BDSM.
At the same time I am less free because I am not supposed to speak and so am limited to gestures and noises when I want to communicate. I need to rely on my handler to interpret correctly and even if I am allowed to be a bit more disobedient or stubborn as a horse, there is an absolute limit on what I am allowed to do and in the end I am still the controlled and tamed beast.
MasterMarc: Can you tell us about the sexual aspects of pony play? How important is it for you and how much bdsm does it include?
Nighty: Well, in regard to the sexual aspects of ponyplay, things get a bit complicated on my side. There is a big part of ponyplay that is not sexual at all for me, but more something like a roleplay. I tend to see my horse role as some kind of small vacation from myself … allowing me to break out a bit from my day to day tasks and responsibilities and to focus on just being and interacting with my “owner” or “handler”. Actually when I am diving into the mindset, I see myself as a normal 4 legged horse and the things I do are the normal things you do with a normal bio horse as well (like ground work, cart pulling, etc …). This has absolutely nothing sexual neither for me nor my handler. On the other hand, I have quite a number of kinks around leather and rubber and esspecially the leather part goes along pretty well with being a horse. It’s a very erotic feeling to be bound and controlled in leather tack by my handler and I love the look of the skin tight spandex or rubber suits mimicking the fur and the leather harness surrounding the body and shaping it. That’s as far as it goes to me in regard to the sexual aspects of the play itself. There is some other context, when I do e.g. fetish photos where I add some additional bondage like restraints or chastity stuff but that is not really the ponyplay context for me, but just some plain fetish project.
MasterMarc: But are you more sexual in fetish projects and what kind of sexuality are you living than?
Nighty: Well, it depends a bit what “sexual” means for you. Of course there are a lot of erotic and sexual aspects attached to the whole ponyplay setting for me. First of all it’s all part of a power loss scenario where the powerfull beast gets tamed and has to follow orders from a much weaker person. The horse is bound and despite having a certain degree of freedom, it is controlled and is not free. In addition there are a number of bondage aspects that can play a role. … Physical sex (so intercourse) can also be involved, yes, but it depends very strongly on the setting. I actually have different pony play related scenarios that I find interesting and not all of them are sexual for me.
MasterMarc: Can you give us a little insight what kind of pony action you like to do? How do we have to imagine it and can you also tell us about your feelings and sensations during this pony action?
Nighty: I generally prefer to do stuff a trainer does with a real horse and my preference here is dressage or ground work. This means that I am walking in front of the trainer as the horse and he or she steers me using long reins, trying to make me walk certain figures or change paces and such. Things you can see as well if you ever visited a stable. The fun aspect for me here is, that my trainer and me don’t use any voice while practicing so it’s a lot of try and error. The challenge is that I try to understand her rein commands and interpret them correctly … even more difficult when blindfolded. When doing this, I actually feel quite liberated … It allows me to shut down a bit and stop thinking. Just listening to commands and reacting instead of acting. It’s a lot of concentration work and it actually can really feel like working, esspecially of sport components are involved. If you ever have pulled a cart for a few miles or have been longed for one and a half hours you might know what I mean.
MasterMarc: I know that if human dogs are comming together there is also a hierarchy in the group. Do pony players also have sexual interaction with other ponies and is there a hierarchy too?
Nighty: I have never really participated in any sexual interaction while in my pony role, but I know that at least a lot of sexual fantasies and of course also sexual plays in a ponyplay context do exist. There definitely are some breeding fantasies around in regard to horse mating but to be honest, it’s not my cup of tea. In regard to playing with other human horses I haven’t even had the chance yet to play in any kind of herd environment where e.g. multiple horses (e.g. stallions) had to discuss some kind of internal hierarchy. I think this would be something interesting to experience though but I would need to feel really comfortable among the other ponies and handlers. Of course when playing together with my owner there definitely is a hierarchy between the horse and the handler and it’s definitely clear who has the last word.
MasterMarc: You are also coaching pony players at workshops. Can you explain us, what do you do and how such a workshop look like?
Nighty: Well actually what I do during my workshops is to provide a safe environment for interested people to test and try some ponyplay related stuff. Think of it as a big room filled with ponyplay gear friends of mine and myself bring and where there is enough space to assemble a sulky. The most difficult part actually is to get the people started and relaxed enough to try out stuff, So I normally beginn with some silly interaction games at the beginning so people warm up a bit. After that, I have some friends who kindly volunteer to show and tell about different aspects of ponyplay. I had one couple for example who gave a short presentation about horse behaviour and handling bio-horses, while another friend helped to show some gear and someone else was giving an introduction into pony dressage. So it is not really a fully organized event but more of an idle gathering with lots of friendly people showing each other pony play stuff. Once the crowd has started with exploring on their own, there is nothing else needed. My job simply is to get everyone into that “Yeah, I want to try out some stuff” mindset.
MasterMarc: Do you think that pet players can also have action with other types of human animals? And what do you think that all petplayers have in common?
Nighty: Well of course there can be interaction with other human animals. I once got chased around by a human dog and it actually was pretty fun but to be honest, I hardly experience these kinds of cross species interactions though and it seems that at least in the community I am active in, lots of interaction is focused on couples playing more or less for themselves. I know for example that this is completely different in most of the gay dogplay community where it is much more common to play together in bigger groups. I haven’t found out yet, why this is different with ponyplay but my impression is that gay ponyplay constellations are quite rare and most of the couples I know are classic heterosexual compositions. Maybe this plays a role, What I think that all petplayers have in common is, that their play is centered around interaction. I have not yet experienced a petplayer, who is content with “just” being the pet. Every human pet I witnessed needed to have some kind of play or interaction or communication with either other pets or the handler so I assume that it is not that rewarding to simply be the pet on your own. There is always a counterpart required.
Visit Nighty’s Tumblr.
