Where to Put Pads
The complete guide to pad placement for E-Stim
Where do I put the pads?
If that's why you're here, you're in the right place. Let's get into it.
Sticky pads are forgiving. They generally stay where you stick them, you can move them between sessions, and the adhesive does the conducting (don't add gel to a sticky pad, you'll kill it). Most people start with pads. All of our kits come with pads. Plenty of people stick with them - get it??
Where to put them: Keep below the waist
Look, here's the honest bit. If you're reading this, you're either getting started or after some new ideas. Either way, both pads below the waist is the sweet spot - loads of placements that work, and current that stays well clear of your heart.
Why the heart matters. It's an electrical organ. Tiny signals tell it when to beat, and current paths that cross the chest add a risk we'd rather not take. We've been making and selling E-Stim kit for over twenty years and we've not heard of anyone running into trouble from it - but that's partly because the people who play with E-Stim are, on the whole, sensible about where they put their electrodes. We'd like to keep that record clean.
Below the waist keeps the current path nowhere near the heart. Simple as that. It's not the only way to play, but it's the way we recommend to start.
Experienced players can try placements that involve the upper body. They do it with knowledge, specific techniques, and a real understanding of what the current path is doing. That's not this article. That's later, in the Advanced hub, once you've got enough miles on the clock to know why each technique exists.
For now: both pads, below the waist. Stuck on a placement? Ask yourself - are they both below my waist? If yes, you're fine and we can talk about whether it'll feel the way you want. If not, pick a different one.
Two things that matter more than placement
Before we get to where things go, two things matter more than where you put them. Get these wrong and the best placement in the world won't help.
Clean, dry, unbroken skin is everything. Pads need a flat, dry surface to grip properly. Body lotion, lube, sweat, sun cream, anything oily or wet and the pad won't stick or conduct cleanly. Wash and dry the area before you start. Hairy spots are tricky too: the pad won't sit flat, the contact will be patchy, and getting the pad off afterwards is going to take some hair with it - ask the cat! Trim the area first or pick somewhere smoother. Avoid any cuts, grazes, or healing skin altogether.
Look after your pads and they'll last. Sticky pads do wear out, but how long they last depends almost entirely on how you treat them between sessions. Always peel them off carefully and put them straight back on the plastic carrier sheet they came on. Keep that sheet clean and somewhere cool and dry and they won't pick up dust, lint, hair, or whatever else is floating around the bedside drawer or playbox. Look after them and they'll keep going. Leave them stuck to the duvet (or the cat) or knocking around loose, and they'll be ready for the bin much sooner than they should be.
When sensation feels weak, fresh pads are usually the answer before more power is. If your pads have seen a lot of action and the sensation isn't what it used to be, that's the first thing to check.
Right. Now placement.
The principle behind every placement decision
Every E-Stim circuit needs two points of contact. Current leaves one pad, travels through tissue, returns to the other. The path the current takes between those two pads is where you feel the sensation.
Once you understand that, every placement question answers itself.
You're not "putting a pad on a spot." You're choosing a path for current to travel between two points. The two pads define the start and end of that path.
A few things follow from this:
- The closer the two pads, the more focused the sensation. Two pads three inches apart on the inner thigh give you a tight, defined sensation. Two pads twelve inches apart give you a more diffuse sensation. Neither is better, they're different.
- Don't let the two pads touch each other. If they meet, the current jumps straight from one to the other across the surface, doesn't go through tissue, and you'll feel almost nothing. Keep them at least a couple of inches apart.
- One pad will probably feel stronger than the other. That's by design - our boxes, like many others, use asymmetric outputs (it's in the glossary if you want the technical version). It's not a fault and it's not your placement going wrong. If you want the stronger sensation on the other pad, just unplug the cable from the box, flip it round, and plug it back in the other way. Same kit, opposite feel.
Pad sizes and when to use each
We currently offer three sizes of self adhesive pad. all come in a pack of 4. Standard pads are the pads we supply with all of our E-Stim power boxes.
Standard pads are the workhorse. Most placements use these. Big enough to give a smooth spread of sensation, small enough to position precisely.
Long pads let you cover more ground in one piece. Useful when you want a single pad along a longer area - running down the inner thigh, along the lower back, that kind of thing.
Micro pads work where space is tight. The perineum, anywhere you need a small, focused contact area. They're also handy if a standard pad would overlap onto somewhere you'd rather it didn't.
Match the size to the area. A big pad gives a more diffuse feel. A small pad gives something much more concentrated. Standard pads will get you through most placements, but if a session feels off and you can't work out why, sometimes the answer is the wrong size pad rather than the wrong place.
Placements that work
Every placement below has both pads below the waist. Each one explains where the current path goes and what it tends to feel like.
A note on "feels like." What follows is what these placements feel like to us - Wayne, Caz, the test team at E-Stim Systems, and of course feedback from the e-stim community. Your body might respond differently. Some people get nothing from a placement we'd describe as intense; some people find a placement we'd call mild surprisingly powerful. Communicating sensation through words on a screen is hard, and we're not allowed to make live porn videos, so words it is. Take our descriptions as a useful starting point, not a guarantee.
Try them in order if you're new - the first few are the gentlest places to start.
Inner thighs
One pad on each inner thigh, level with each other, an inch or two below the groin.
Current path goes across the upper inner thigh and through the perineum. Feels like a deep, broad pulse rather than anything sharp. This is what we'd recommend for a first-ever pad session - it's forgiving, it's interesting enough to give you a real sense of what E-Stim feels like, and it's hard to get wrong.
Lower back, side by side
Two pads on the lower back, an inch or two apart, just above where your spine meets your pelvis.
Current path goes across the lower back. Strong, distinctive sensation that isn't specifically erotic on its own but pairs well with whatever else is happening at the front. Surprisingly intense for a placement that doesn't go anywhere near the genitals. Good if you want to feel something significant without focusing the action there.
Buttocks, one each side
One pad on each buttock, roughly the same place on each side.
Current path goes across, through the muscle. Strong, deep sensation. We've found this can be more powerful than anywhere else we've tried. Good for partner play because the placement is easy for someone else to do for you. Wayne hates it.
Glans and shaft (penis owners)
One pad just under the head of the cock, one pad at the base.
Probably the most-asked-about pad placement, and it works - intense, quick to get going. Use micro pads or trim a standard pad to fit cleanly. Both pads stay on the shaft, which keeps everything well below the waist.
Either side of the labia (vulva owners)
One micro pad on each outer labium, kept clear of the inner tissues.
Strong, focused sensation. We've heard from women who find this placement intense enough to need very low power, so always start at zero and bring it up slowly.
Perineum and lower abdomen
One pad on the perineum, one on the lower abdomen above the pubic bone.
This often delivers an internal sensation even though both pads are on the outside, because of how the current flows. The lower abdomen pad is still well below the waist - your waist is roughly at navel height, and this placement keeps the upper pad below that.
Foot to foot
Two pads on the soles or the arches, one on each foot.
Current path runs up one leg, through the pelvis, down the other leg. The sensation depends on which mode and intensity you're running - anywhere from a tingling foot massage to a strong throbbing. Some people love this. Others find it weird. Worth trying.
Things that don't make pads work better
A few things people try that don't work the way they hope.
Sticking a pad onto a metal electrode. Tempting idea - bigger contact, more sensation, right? Not really. The pad is designed to make contact with skin, and the metal electrode already is an electrode. Stick a pad onto a stainless steel insertable and most of the pad isn't doing anything useful. You might feel something, but it's nothing like the proper contact you'd get with the pad on its own in a sensible spot. If you want the feel of a pad and the feel of metal, there are ways to do that but it is a different setup, not one Frankenstein creation.
Stacking pads to make one bigger pad. Same family of mistake. Two pads stuck on top of each other don't behave like a single bigger pad - the top one is doing nothing except increasing the cost. If you want a larger contact area, use a long pad. If you want two areas covered, use two pads in two places.
Pads stuck on top of clothing. Doesn't work. The pad has to be in direct skin contact. Underwear, tights, anything woven - all of it acts as an insulator.
Pads on heavy hair, broken skin, or healing tissue. Covered in the skin section. Mentioning again because it's the most common reason a pad placement isn't working, and beginners often go hunting for a clever fix instead of the obvious one.
The diagnostic test if nothing seems to be working
If you've checked all the obvious things and a pad placement still isn't doing anything, here's a quick way to work out whether the kit's broken or the placement is. Stick both pads on the same arm, or hand, a few inches apart, not touching each other. Connect them up to a single channel. Turn the power up slowly.
Almost everyone feels something within the first quarter of the dial. If you get to halfway and you've felt nothing, you've either got a dead pad, a damaged cable, or a problem with the box. Time to look at the troubleshooting guide rather than the placement guide.
Keeping pads in place when you move
The medical tape trick. A small piece of medical tape over each corner of a pad will hold it in place much longer than the adhesive on its own. Use a tape designed for skin (Micropore or similar paper-based medical tape), NOT duct tape or anything strong-adhesive. The point is to anchor the corners without damaging your skin or the pad. Some also use so called VetWrap, but i've never been into mumification.
Watch the cable. Cable tug is the single biggest reason pads peel off. Route it so there's no pull on the pad — a small loop of slack near the pad means any cable movement gets absorbed there rather than transmitted to the adhesive. All pads use a 2mm/TENS cable - the one we supply as standard with our powerboxes. other units may vary.
Don't fight a dead pad. If a pad has lost its tackiness through age or use, taping it down won't fix the underlying problem. The conductive properties degrade as the gel dries out, so even if you mechanically hold a tired pad in place, the sensation will be poor. Replace it.
Pad lifespan, cleaning, replacement
Sticky pads are consumables, not lifetime equipment. They wear out.
Don't try to wash pads. The conductive gel is water-soluble, and washing destroys it. If a pad is dirty, replace it. You might be able to re invigorate the adhesive with a couple of drops of water, but generally by that time they are dead.
You'll know it's time to replace when:
- The pad isn't sticking properly even on clean dry skin
- The sensation feels patchy where it used to feel smooth
- The gel surface looks visibly dried out, cracked, or contaminated
- The pad is picking up enough hair, lint, or debris that you can't clean the surface back to gel
When in doubt, replace.
The mistakes we see most often
Twenty-plus years of customer questions tell us these are the things that go wrong most often with pads.
Trying to compensate for poor contact by turning the power up. A pad that isn't fully stuck down, a tired pad, oily skin between pad and tissue - all of these reduce the apparent intensity. The instinct is to crank the dial. The right move is to fix the contact. Higher power on bad contact creates hot spots, burning sensation, and sometimes actual blisters where current is concentrating in tiny patches of good contact instead of spreading through the proper full-pad contact.
Moving a pad and not pressing it back down properly. Lifting a pad and re-sticking it (between sessions, or just to reposition) often weakens the grip. Press it down across its whole surface every time, and check the edges aren't lifting before you start. If it won't stick at all, the pad's done - get a fresh one out.
Treating the level control as the only variable. The level is just one variable. Mode, feel, pad placement, pad freshness, contact quality, pad size, body position, hydration - all are also variables. People who only ever change the level control are working with one degree of freedom. Turning it up to 100% is loosing so much control. People who know all the variables are working with many. The level control gets you intensity. The other settings get you everything else.
One pad feels more intense than the other. This is by design and is due to the fact the output signals of most e-stim power units are asymmetrical - so if you want the power on the other pad, film the connections.
Where next
Experiment. E-Stim is supposed to be fun, and most of that fun is finding out what works for you. Hopefully this guide will start you on your way.
If you've got a question we haven't answered, drop us a line. Pad placement is the area where small details make a big difference, and the questions we get will often improve the next person's first session.
Written by Wayne and Caz, with input from the team in our Watford workshop. We design and manufacture E-Stim kit ourselves, and we use it. Twenty-plus years of running E-Stim Systems has taught us that pads are where most people start their E-Stim journey, and pad placement is the single thing that makes the difference between a first session that hooks someone for life and one that sends them away wondering what the fuss was about. We hope this has helped you.
