Read the complete guide: BDSM for Beginners, the complete guide. Everything you need to know before you start.
A queening chair is a stool with a hole in the seat, which sounds too simple to get wrong. We got it wrong twice before we got it right, so this guide is written from the position of someone who has assembled, loaded, wobbled and rebuilt these in a workshop rather than someone who read three listings and formed an opinion.
If you are here because you are curious and you want to know what actually happens, what to check before you buy, and how the first session tends to go, that is exactly what is below.
What Is a Queening Chair?
A queening chair is a piece of furniture built so one person can sit or kneel on top while a partner lies underneath. The person on top controls position, movement and intensity. The person underneath gets to stop thinking about their neck and concentrate on what they are actually doing.
The name comes from the picture it paints, a queen on a throne with somebody rather grateful beneath it. That is the whole idea. Everything else is engineering in service of that.
Queening chair, rimming chair, face sitting chair
These are the same object with three different marketing names. Which word you use tends to depend on which activity you had in mind when you started searching. The furniture does not know the difference. If you want the version of this page written from the rimming angle, we have a full rimming chair comparison that goes deeper on brands.
What the design has to do
Open seat, stable legs, and enough clearance that the person below can lie flat with their head supported. That last part is where most designs quietly fail. A chair can look correct in a photo and still put the person underneath at an angle that turns pleasant into neck ache in about four minutes.
ASSTRONAUT PRO
Welded steel with the base reinforcement bar, firm headrest pillow included, swappable bicycle standard grips, adjustable height, packs flat under most beds.
The one we make. The pillow is the part beginners notice first, because it removes the need for a separate head sling and it is the difference between a comfortable half hour and a sore neck.
See the ASSTRONAUT PROWhat we changed between version one and the PRO
This section exists because almost nobody in this category shows you the frame. You get a styled photo, a number, and a request for your card details. Here is ours with the padding off.
Why this matters to a beginner. Confidence is most of the experience. If the person on top is thinking about whether the thing under them is going to move, they are not relaxing, and if they are not relaxing then neither is anyone else. A rigid base is a comfort feature disguised as a structural one.
How Queening Chairs Are Used
The basic setup
One partner sits or kneels on the seat. The other lies on their back underneath with their head supported, positioned under the opening. From there everything is a matter of preference. The person on top sets the pace, the pressure and how much contact there is.
Face sitting
The most common use, and the one most people arrive here for. The person on top lowers onto their partner and controls how much weight goes where. The psychological part carries a lot of the appeal, because you are quite literally sitting on somebody, and the chair takes the balancing problem out of it so that the dynamic is the only thing left to think about.
Rimming
Oral and anal contact, which the open seat makes possible without anybody folding themselves into a shape they will regret. The chair positions everything at a workable height and the person on top decides how close they get.
Oral sex
Works the same way regardless of anatomy. One person above, one below, and the person above running the show. The common thread in every message we get about this is that people are surprised how much longer they last in the position once nobody is holding themselves up on shaking arms.
Power exchange
Plenty of couples buy one of these for the dynamic more than the mechanics. The position does most of the work on its own. You do not need a script, a contract or a vocabulary to feel the difference between kneeling and being knelt over.
If it is your first time, you do not have to commit to anything intense. Start with ordinary oral, get used to the position, and let the rest arrive on its own if it wants to. The furniture makes the experience possible. It does not decide how far you take it.
What to check before you buy
Four things separate a chair you keep from a chair that lives in a cupboard. None of them appear in the headline specification.
| What to check | What good looks like | What it means if it is missing |
|---|---|---|
| Head support | A firm pillow included, sized for the opening | You will end up buying a head sling or stacking cushions, and the height will be wrong every time |
| Base structure | Legs tied together, not four uprights relying on the seat joints | Movement under load. Nothing dramatic, just enough wobble to ruin concentration |
| Grips | Standard bicycle sizing so they can be swapped for any grip you like | Proprietary handles you cannot replace once they wear or once you decide you hate them |
| Height | Adjustable, because bodies and floors differ | One fixed height that suits roughly one couple in three |
| Storage | Comes apart quickly and slides under a bed | A permanent piece of furniture in a room you may share with visitors |
On capacity, we list ours at over 350lb and the deluxe seat version at over 400lb. Other brands publish their own figures and we are not going to pretend we have tested theirs. Treat every number in this category, including ours, as a listed figure at the time of writing rather than a guarantee, and buy from someone who will tell you how the frame is put together.
Safety and Comfort Essentials
Weight, and who carries it
The person on top should keep some of their weight on their own legs and hands rather than resting everything on a face. This is not a rule handed down from anywhere official. It is simply how you make a session last longer than a few minutes. The chair exists so that supporting yourself is easy instead of exhausting.
Breathing and a way to signal
The person underneath needs to be able to breathe comfortably and needs a way to say stop that does not require speech, because speech is not always available in this position. A tap on the thigh works. A raised hand works. Agree on it before anything starts and it becomes invisible afterwards.
Head support, which is the part people underestimate
Almost every complaint we saw about early rimming and queening chairs came down to the neck of the person below. A folded towel collapses. A soft cushion sinks and puts you at the wrong angle. Firm foam at a fixed height solves it, and it is the single change that made the biggest difference to how long people actually stay in the position.
Hygiene
Shower or a wipe beforehand if rimming is on the agenda. Nobody has ever regretted this. The seat pad and pillow on ours wipe clean, which we mention because the alternative is fabric you have to launder, and a piece of furniture that requires a laundry cycle after every use is a piece of furniture that gets used less.
Where you put it
Flat floor, decent footing, nothing sharp within flailing distance. Carpet is fine and arguably better. Give the person underneath room to slide out sideways without performing a manoeuvre.
Your First Time: A Beginner's Approach
Talk first, briefly
Not a summit. Five minutes covering what each of you is curious about, what is off the table, and how you will signal. That conversation is easier before anybody is undressed and it makes the whole thing better.
Set the height before you need it
Adjust the chair with both of you dressed and calm. Have the person below lie down and check the angle at their neck. Two minutes of setup here saves the interruption later, and interruptions are the enemy of a first attempt.
Start light
Contact first, weight second, everything else third. The person on top should hover before they settle. Check in once, early, and then stop asking every thirty seconds, because a running commentary is its own kind of mood killer.
Expect it to be slightly awkward
It usually is, for about the first minute. Everyone climbs on a piece of furniture for the first time looking faintly like they are boarding a horse. This passes. The people who report the best first experiences are the ones who laughed at the beginning instead of trying to be smooth.
Afterwards
Stay in the room. Talk about what worked. This is partly the nice human thing to do and partly research, because the second session is always better when somebody actually said out loud what they liked.
ASSTRONAUT PRO
Firm headrest pillow included, adjustable height, assembles in minutes, delivered discreetly.
The ASSTRONAUT PRO, honestly
We make one of these, so treat this section accordingly. Here is what it does and does not do.
What it does well
- The reinforcement bar. The base is tied together rather than relying on the upper joints, which is the whole reason the PRO exists.
- The pillow is included. Firm faux leather, wipes clean, removes the need for a separate head sling. Most people do not realise they need this until the first session.
- It is version three. Two revisions of things we were not happy with sit behind this one, and the circled welds above are the receipts.
- Adjustable height, which matters more than it sounds like it should once two people of different heights are involved.
- Standard bicycle grips, so you can swap them for anything you prefer or replace them years from now.
- It looks like furniture. Subjective, but we aimed for sleek rather than dungeon, and quite a lot of people tell us that is why they chose it.
- Light enough to move, quick to assemble, and it stores flat under most beds. That combination is what decides whether it gets used or resented.
- Always delivered discreetly. Plain outer packaging, nothing on the box. We cannot speak for other brands. We can speak for ours.
- Available on Amazon and here, so in most places it arrives in two or three days.
- One month return window if you decide it is not for you.
Where it does not win
It does not look dramatically different from other chairs in a listing photo, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If you put six of these side by side on a screen, ours will not obviously stand out. The case for it is the frame, the pillow and the fact that we will show you both. That case is only visible once you look past the first photo, which is most of why this page has nine of them.
What is coming
A deluxe version with a larger padded seat is in development at the time of writing. If that is what you want, reach out and we will put you on the pre order list rather than sell you the wrong one now.
ASSTRONAUT PRO
Reinforced welded steel base, firm headrest pillow, adjustable height, packs flat.
See the ASSTRONAUT PRO
Chairs and seating
The rest of the seating range, including the pieces that pair with a queening setup.
See the collectionIf you arrived comparing a specific brand, we have longer pieces on the XR Brands queening chair alternative and the Fort Troff rimming chair alternative.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a queening chair used for?
Face sitting, rimming and oral sex, where one partner sits or kneels on the chair and the other lies underneath. The chair handles positioning and stability so the person on top controls movement and intensity without having to hold themselves up. Plenty of people also use one for power exchange, where the position itself is the point.
Is a queening chair the same as a rimming chair?
Yes. Same furniture, different name. Queening chair emphasises the face sitting use and rimming chair emphasises the other one. Which term you use tends to come down to what you had in mind when you started looking.
Is the ASSTRONAUT PRO good for beginners?
It is the version we would hand a beginner, mainly because the firm headrest pillow is included. The most common first time problem is the neck of the person underneath, and a pillow at a fixed height solves it before it happens. Adjustable height and a rigid base cover the other two things beginners tend to get caught out by.
How do I use a queening chair for the first time?
Agree a stop signal, set the height with both of you dressed, then start with contact before weight. Have the person underneath lie down and check the angle at their neck before anything else happens. Expect the first minute to feel slightly ridiculous. That is normal and it passes.
Can the person underneath breathe properly?
Yes, provided the person on top keeps some of their weight on their own legs and hands and does not apply continuous pressure without breaks. Agree a tap signal beforehand so stopping never depends on being able to speak.
Is it discreet, and how does it store?
Ours ships in plain outer packaging with nothing on the box, every time. It comes apart quickly and stores flat, and it fits under most beds. That last part matters more than people expect, because the chairs that live in a cupboard are the chairs that stop getting used.
How much weight does it hold?
Ours is listed at over 350lb, and the deluxe padded seat version at over 400lb. Those are the listed figures at the time of writing and we are not guaranteeing anyone else's numbers, including competitors who publish their own. If a capacity figure matters to you, ask the seller how the base is constructed rather than reading the number on its own.
Can I change the grips?
Yes. The handles are sized to standard bicycle grip dimensions on purpose, so any bicycle grip fits. Buy whatever you like the feel of and swap them in about a minute.
