Candles in your birthday cake? Try sitting on it instead, you never know what pleasures you may unearth. Perhaps even a sploshing fetish.

Sploshing, AKA Wet and Messy play (WAM), is the participation in covering or being covered with any number of goo-ey, oozy substances. Its gloriously kinky and be served up in a variety of ways: in the form of a playful sensory exploration, where you and your play partner can use your tongues, fingers, faces and erogenous zones to experiment with different tastes, textures and temperatures; or as part of a humiliation scene where a domme incites worship from her sub. WAM can be so much more than that scene in American Pie. In fact many sploshers are stimulated visually and texturally by the experience, rather than through penetration. Sploshing can go as far as your imagination goes.

However, as any purveyor of a sploshing fetish will know, the cliche pairing of melted chocolate and whipped cream are best left on the dessert trolley. Either swap them out for dairy-free options, or we recommend trying out a tower of vegan profiteroles a la Scarlett May in her Q&A with Hazel. There is plenty of room to get inventive: from baked beans to jelly, or even slime and beer.

For those harbouring a sweet tooth, cake batter is always a fun treat to include. Or custard, as KLE member Hazel recounts: “I’ve only ever had one sploshing session pre-Covid times, but I still remember it fondly. It started off pretty playful, and quite tentative, having a lot of fun pouring custard over each other on the plastic wrapped bed in the hotel room.”

Hazel explains how after moving to the wet room, things seemed to progress into a kinkier scene as she and her date relaxed: “My date expressed a desire to submit and before I knew it the custard was being licked off my toes, and I was shoving profiteroles into his mouth, like a profiterole ball gag, and smushing them on his head. It was a lot of fun.”

Fellow KLE member Edie recalls her custard-filled experience: “Loading dust sheets, cartons of custard, cans of vegan cream and jars of sweet sauces into my suitcase certainly made for a different kind of booking prep experience. An overly helpful doorman tried to assist me with carrying my heavy case up the stairs to the hotel, probably wondering why it felt like I was smuggling in bars of gold.”

“I was so grateful for a sizeable bathroom with easy to clean marble surfaces,” Edie says. “Once the dust sheets were taped down, it was time to make human desserts out of ourselves. The sensation of these textures on our bodies was truly unique, and at the pinnacle, the custard made for a surprisingly well received lubricant to assist my gliding hands.”

Hazel also makes a point of noting that spontaneity is not a friend of sploshing. Its alternative term –  ‘Wet and Messy’ – speaks for itself. It does tend to get very wet… And very messy. Preparation prior to a WAM session is key to feeling relaxed enough to enjoy it to the fullest. We recommend keeping plenty of wet wipes in-reach for any sore eyes and be sure to have bin liners and cleaning supplies at the ready.

“Luckily I had spoken to a few colleagues beforehand so I knew to make sure to account for time to not only prep but for the clean-up afterwards too. I spent about an hour wrapping the entire room in plastic sheeting and taping it down firmly. While there’s a lot of fun to be had, it’s definitely not a kinky experience you can whip up in an instant.” Hazel notes.

WAM is a kink that could be thought of as almost anarchic in nature. It’s about seeing something pristine like a row of cakes – buttercreamed to smooth perfection Wayne Thiebaud style – and feeling compelled to sit your bare bottom on them, feeling the sponge give way underneath the weight. Or spending hours lovingly curating a spread of food fit for a baroque still life painting.