I won’t lie to you; sounding is not for the faint of heart. When it comes to the long and eclectic list of sexual fetishes, urethral sounding is one of the more risky and dangerous sexual activities out there, but that’s exactly why so many people love it! The taboo and thrill of penis sounding is in itself a turn-on for many guys and gals.
So, if you’ve seen pictures of stretched-out and tortured-looking penises on the sounding subreddit and you’re curious to find out more, look no further! Here we’ll give you an overview of urethral play, give you some safety tips for urethral sounding, look at the equipment used, and ask the internet: “what does cock sounding feel like?” Let’s go!
What is Sounding?
Simply put, sounding refers to putting things inside your urethra (i.e. your pee hole) for the purposes of sexual pleasure or male chastity. Urethral play is possible for both sexes, but it tends to be much safer and more pleasurable for men, so most sounding kits are geared toward male genitalia. There are many sensitive nerve endings inside your urethra and massaging them with sounding rods and toys can feel incredibly pleasurable if you do it correctly.
In fact, sounding is the only way that men can directly reach their prostate gland and touch it (with toys). You see, if you travel down the length of a man’s urethra, you’ll reach the prostate gland before you reach the bladder. Although we usually think of anal toys when we think about prostate play, these anal toys only stimulate the prostate through the walls of your rectum – penis sounding allows you to stimulate it DIRECTLY.
Don’t get me wrong… anal prostate milking is still intensely pleasurable. Urethral sounding just takes P-spot stimulation to the next level, though it’s very scary for some. If anal play frightens you then urethra play is probably out the question!
Now I should remind you that your bladder (where your pee comes from) is just beyond the prostate gland, so if you accidentally go too far, you can irritate your bladder and cause problems. I’ve even heard of people piercing their bladder if using thinner sounding rods, so don’t get carried away. The sounding rots in sounding kits come in different shapes and thickness, though most will be long with a slight curve to them.
Urethral sounding rods usually range from 3mm to 18mm. That’s the difference between a thin piece of wire and the width of someone’s finger, so it’s quite a bit jump! Most people start slightly above the minimum, around 5mm or 6mm, and then slowly work their way up the thicknesses over time. Remember that this is a very sensitive part of your anatomy – you don’t want to dive in at the deep end!
Some people actually enjoy the sexual thrill of stretching their urethra with thicker and thicker rods over time. However, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of doing it safely and over a long period of time (years).
Most sounding toys are made from stainless steel or silicone, though you might see some made from titanium too. Silicone sounding toys tend to be a little more flexible and have some “give” to them, while metal rods are much stiffer and heavier. All sounding kits are designed to be made from materials which are easy to clean – many enthusiasts boil their sounds in water to kill 100% of bacteria before/after use.
If you hadn’t guessed it already, urethral sounding requires TONS of lube on both the tip of the penis and all over the sounding rods themselves. However, you can’t just use any old lube – you require sterile surgical lube from a reputable medical supplier. If you use lube which isn’t suitable, you risk developing a UTI (urinary tract infection) or other medical problems.
You don’t wanna be pouring Gun Oil or Astroglide down your pee hole, believe me. If you get a colonoscopy, they don’t rub some Vaseline on the camera and hope for the best… they use surgical lube!
What Does Sounding Feel Like?
There are tons of sensitive nerve endings in the tip of the penis and down the length of the urethra, so it can be very pleasurable to stimulate these nerve endings with urethral sounds. Also, as we mentioned, you can directly stimulate the prostate internally with extreme sounding, so the potential for pleasure is astronomical and may be able to outdo traditional anal prostate milking orgasms.
Like all kinks, people associate urethral sounding with different things and derive pleasure from different aspects of it. Some people use it as a form of male chastity (more on that later) while others just want to have the most intense orgasm humanly possible. There’s a mixture of pain/pleasure and discomfort/comfort for a lot of people – everyone’s sounding experience is different. I wanted to get different people’s opinions on how sounding feels, so I stalked this Quora post and took some of my favorite quotes:
“Sounding feels like nothing else. It’s an intense sensation that can lead to mind blowing orgasms, or if done incorrectly, a trip to the ER.”
“It feels really interesting. I’ve only done it to myself, with a set of curved sounds. Filling the urethra is intense, and the sound feels cold and heavy. Moving up through sizes can be painful, sometimes it just won’t work so you have to find an in-between size and just wait. I don’t like going all the way down, it feels too dangerous.”
“Intense. Very, very intense. Not painful, exactly, though I wouldn't quite call it pleasurable either. It's an intense feeling, though, no doubt about it.”
“The feeling is amazing. Seeing the rod disappear inside my dick. Then [an escort] jerks me off ever so slowly while massaging my prostate. When I come the rod gets pushed out halfway by my sperm. Then she pulls it out and all the juive [sic] runs out. Do not try this at home. Best to have it done by a trained professional!”
“My wife says that there is a spot on the back of her clitoris (in her urethra) that works as an orgasm 10X multiplier. She loves it to the point where an orgasm without a finger in her urethra is a special request rather than the norm.”
The psychological excitement and taboo thrill of urethral insertion is also an experience that many men and women enjoy. If you ever watch urethral sounding porn, you’ll notice that a lot of the time, a dominant woman sounds the penis of a tied-up man (NSFW!). Due to its nature as an extreme fetish, sounding is often associated with BDSM, torture scenes, and fem-doms. However, you’ll sometimes see men being sounded in a medical setting too (NSFW!).
Urethral sounding actually has medical origins – it is sometimes used by doctors to locate obstructions in the urethral tract. In the 19th century, it was used as a treatment for kidney stones, but now we tend to use sound-waves (not related!) to break up the stones or remove them surgically.
Urethral Sounding Equipment
Although sounding rods are the most well-known cock sounding tools, there are actually 3 different main types of equipment used for urethral insertion.
Penis plugs
Penis plugs are used for shallow insertion into the urethral opening, concentrating most of the sensations in and around the head of the penis. Penis plugs don’t tend to be longer than 1-2 inches in terms of insertable length, and they usually come with a T-bar or O-ring on the top of them to stop them from over-inserting and getting lost in the urethral tract.
Penis plugs can be made from silicone or metal and come in various sizes/thicknesses too. Some are also hollow throughout so that you can ejaculate or pee through them during your urethral play session or as you go about your everyday life while wearing a plug.
Sperm stoppers
Male chastity devices and fetish toys are becoming quite popular these days, and sperm stoppers are slightly more extreme male chastity devices that make for a change from your run-of-the-mill cock cages. These fetish toys attach onto your cock externally and then place an attached metal ball inside the end of your urethra at the tip of your cock.
Sperm stoppers are said to stimulate the end of your cock, with many male subs enjoying the psychological torture of not being able to cum. As the name suggests, sperm stoppers are designed to stop men from ejaculating, though it may still be physically possible for guys to cum while wearing one. As with many kinks, it’s all about the psychology and the idea of it.
Urethral sounds
Urethral sounds are the long rods that we most commonly associate with urethral play. They usually come in stainless steel and have a distinctive shape which helps them to slide down the urethral opening more easily. They can technically be used by men or women, although a woman’s urethra is much shorter than a man’s, so she would only have to go a very small distance down to experience pleasure whereas a man would often need to go further (i.e. down the length of his cock).
These rods are used for deep play, helping men to reach the base of their cock and their inner prostate gland. Most urethral rods are quite weighty, as this helps them to glide in with the force of gravity rather than be forced down the hole. The Hegar Urethral Sounding Kit is one of the best known sounding kits available to buy, not to be confused with the sounds of Sammy Hagar from Van Halen.
How to Use Urethral Sounding Kits
Penis plugs and sperm stoppers are fairly straightforward to use – this video from LoveHoney goes into a bit more detail. However, when we’re deep-diving toward the bladder and prostate gland, there are many steps along the way. Here’s an overview of how to use urethral sounding kits safely and pleasurably.
Of course, if at any point you feel pain beyond a mild discomfort, you should stop sounding immediately. Don’t risk damaged tissue or a UTI by chasing the orgasm dragon!
1. Clean stuff!
Whether you’re using sounding rods or a beginner’s penis plug, make sure that your hands and equipment are 100% clean! Many boil their rods in water to kill bacteria and then allow them to cool before a urethral play session.
2. Lube up
Use a high-quality surgical lube from a reputable medical supplier. Apply it LIBERALLY to the sounding rod/plug and around the head of your penis.
When I say LIBERALLY, I’m talking Bernie Sanders level.
3. Get a semi
Get a semi-erect penis (easier said than done, I know) and hold it in your hand, gently pulling the sides of the urethra apart to make the pee-hole more prominent.
4. Begin urethral insertion
Gently place an appropriately sized rod at your hole and slowly insert it. DO NOT push it or force it downwards – allow gravity to do its job and naturally pull the rod into your penis. Make sure that the rod is not too thin and not too thick for your penis.
5. Gentle wiggles
Once the rod stops moving from gravity alone, try gently wiggling it to see if it goes down any further. Depending on the shape of your cock and the rod, it might go down further on its own.
6. Explore!
Depending on what kind of stimulation you’re going for, you might find that you want to go deeper or shallower. You might also want to remove the sounding rod and reapply some more lube to make the experience more comfortable, or perhaps you want to try moving up or down slightly in rod thickness.
7. Find what works for you
If you’re looking to go deep and find the prostate, feel free to start trying. On the other hand, if you’re looking to stimulate the sensitive nerve endings in your urethra itself, then moving a well-lubed rod up and down your cock will provide plenty of stimulation to enjoy. It’s all about finding what works for you!
Safety Advice and Tips for Urethral Play
Safety, safety, and did I mention… safety? When you’re sticking things inside your pee-hole and potentially getting close to your bladder, you shouldn’t just be “winging it”.
-Don’t use sounding rods that are too thin. If you use rods that are too thin and you go down deep toward your prostate, there’s a chance that the rod could puncture your bladder. It’s hard for me to even write that sentence without squirming in my chair.
-Don’t use sounding rods that are too thick either! Using too-thick rods can stretch and tear your urethra in ways that hurt… a lot.
-Burning at the tip of the urethra after urinating is actually quite normal after your first few times of being sounded. Most guys report that this goes away after being sounded around 5 times, but keep an eye on it if it continues. Excessive urethra pain should not occur after a while.
-Don’t do cock sounding too often. There are no real guidelines on how often you should sound, but I wouldn’t personally do it any more than once a week. The urethra doesn’t have the same stretch and adaptability as other parts of the body – it won’t “get used to” repeated sounding very well.
-Women don’t need to go far. If a woman wants to use sounding rods, she can, but she doesn’t need to go as deep down as a man does. A woman's urethra is only 1.5 inches long while a man’s is usually 7-8 inches long due to the length of the penis.
-There can never be enough lube. The urethra is not self-lubricating, so use tons of surgical lube from a reputable medical supplier.
-There can never be enough hygiene. I’m quite a clean person naturally, but if I’m sticking rods down my penis, then my hands, penis, sounding rods and bedroom are going to be cleaner than an operating theater, you can bet on that. There are many places to find urethral sound cleaning tips, but boiling for 8-10 minutes and then leaving to cool down and air dry is apt for most equipment.
-Don’t have anything in your ass. Even if you’re a fan of anal play and wearing butt plugs, do not have anything inside your ass while being sounded. This is because an anal toy could disrupt your natural anatomy and press against a section of your urethra, throwing all sorts of unwanted variables into the mix.
Cum-clusion
I won’t lie – when I first came across urethral sounding, I was absolutely horrified. “Cock stuffing?? Urethral insertion?? None of this sounds very sexy at all!” I used to think. There’s still a part of me that clenches up when I think about sounding, but isn’t that the fun of it? If you’re a fan of urethral play, you probably get off on the fact that it’s so taboo and risky.
If done properly, urethral sounding can be a really unique and interesting way to stimulate the prostate and greatly enhance the male sexual experience. If not done properly, it can end in tears, urethra pain, and a trip to the ER.
If you’re looking for a well-priced beginner's sounding kit, I would recommend the Hegar Urethral Sounding Kit. It’s very affordable, comes with a free carry case, and features 8 stainless steel rods which range from 3mm to 18mm in thickness. It’s quite possibly the only sounding kit that you’d ever need to buy. Happy sounding!
How long does it usually take for a break after doing a sounding?
I would like to order sonmding rods and penis chastity
This is fucking epic I really want to start sounding right now, the feel of a rod in my dick would be better than sucking my own cock or a homemade pb&j sandwich MMM.
See the issue is, it’s not natural to shove things up your cock, just like it isn’t natural to shove a baseball bat down your throat. So when you end up in the ER, don’t bitch about it.
How did sounding get it’s name?
I don’t actually know tbh! I’d be interested to find out why.
A really good article. I pratice sounding for years and I still like it. 100% truth J.C.
I put a sound in my cock, touching my prostate. I put a dildo vibrator on the part of the sound outside my cock. I am not hard, the vibrations spreading toward my prostate are fine. Then I able to squirt many times, and finally to discharge sperm.