Im still scared of these lol
The best way to describe the feeling is that it is prickly. It can feel tickly or prickly and it feels surprisingly intense, especially over sensitive areas where the skin is thinner or the nerves are closer to the surface. I don't think the pinwheel is outright painful. Sometimes it can actually feel nice, but what it does is provide a kind of torture...either tickly or pricking at the skin which makes you tense up and focus intently on its movements across the skin. Slower rolls of the wheel tend to feel more torturous. If you press down a little, you will leave a trail of tiny red dots across the skin, but we find it feels more intense when it is not pressed on and used lightly.
It is really a sensory play tool. Like ice and candle wax. I think you would have to press down a lot, to puncture the skin, but the best way to use it (I find) is not to apply any pressure and just let it roll slowly across the skin. I am sure everyone has felt holly, or some other prickly plant against their skin? Well the wheel feels like that, but a lot more intense because it continuously prickles at the skin and can sloooowly move across certain areas of the body and that really has the ability to make you wriggle and squeal. It is not outright painful...it is just....intense in a prickly tickly kind of way. The more sensitive the body part, the more intense it feels.
I love using the wheel on him because he hates it! :D With your partner tied down and subjected to this slow, torturous feeling, knowing they cannot avoid it also heightens the sensations and I think this is the power of the wheel...its like tickle torture or something similar!
mine has never left any sort of mark and the sensation is great when used with a violet wand