Paul Crowley (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ciphergoth) wrote2001-06-12 11:56 pm
ciphergoth) wrote2001-06-12 11:56 pm
"How can you possibly enjoy hurting someone you love?"
Sparkyrie says...Face to face, I know how to do this explanation, I've done it many, many times. To the blinking cursor in the "reply" box... I'm at a loss.
Re: don't be scaredYou mean you were there? I certainly haven't been in any kind of similar situation, so maybe that's why I find it so hard to understand. But - *why* do people enjoy being hurt? What is it about pain that has this incredible effect, and how can pain lead to love and happiness? If someone wants to hurt the people they love physically, does that mean they'd enjoy hurting them emotionally as well? How can you possibly enjoy hurting someone you love?
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gothslut? You write about these things so beautifully, maybe you could explain?
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The simple answer - the one that made sense to me when I first stared out - is the endorphin rush. You're not getting off on the pain, you're getting off on your body's reaction to the pain.
This makes sense. It's certainly why some people do it, but it's not the whole story.
Some people actively enjoy the sensation of pain. Others enjoy the submission aspect of it - of giving yousrself up to someone else, and trusting them at a very deep level to hurt you just as much as you want to be hurt. Some people like exploring their limits and boundaries.
I enjoy hurting people I love because I know they enjoy being hurt. For me, it really is that simple. I'm amazed I can do it, because if you'd asked me 18 months ago, I'd have said 'no way'.
I've never thought of myself as much of a pain junkie myself, but a couple of months ago I got flogged very close to my limit. I was sobbing and shaking, but strangely elated, and when my lover held me after the scene, I felt closer to her than I've even felt before.
I can't explain it precisely, because it's incredibly personal. It feel different with both my partners - in fact I'd probably have difficulty explaining to one exactly what I feel when I'm doing a scene with the other. It won't feel the same for you, even if you find you like it.
All I can say is that 18 months ago I was saying almost exactly what you are saying now. Then I tried it, slowly, cautiously, then faster and more eagerly, until it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
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I think a lot of people, or perhaps everyone, have a very deep-seated attraction to fear and pain, and even death. BDSM for me is partly a way of exploring those feelings, and it's a fairly controlled way of doing so. And it's actually made me less of a physical coward, because I know I can take pain and deal with it.
And to make a slightly different point, the knowledge that someone who loves you can cause you pain and enjoy it, and make you enjoy it, is a mindfuck on so many levels, and mindfucks can be nice...
(Of course, someone who doesn't love you can also achieve those things, and that's possibly even more of a mindfuck.)
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And of course, even in romantic comedies, some of the enjoyment comes from vicariously feeling the downs as well as the ups of the principal character as they cope with the various tribulations the film throws at them. It's very hard to imagine interesting fiction in which there is no conflict and no difficulty and everything goes right, except possibly porn, and perhaps not even there.
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It is difficult to describe. I don't enjoy pain for the endorphins, I have a low threshold and don't think I've ever had an endorphin rush simply because I don't think a beating I've had has ever taken me that far before my threshold stopped me. When I am beaten it's about the destruction and humiliation of me as a person and the forceible reconstruction of me as a slave, a thing, an object.
Sex is performance. Theatre, if you will. Often a very small audience¹. Just as a play can be improvised, without costumes or props and on a soft romantic theme, so too can it be a horror story with props, costumes, delicious thrills and a sense of danger.
- M xx
¹ though not always. >:o)no subject
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For me, another part is stripping away the shield. It can be difficult to be yourself sometimes, even if you want to be. Pain, humiliation and other BDSM activities help us strip away the face we present to the world every day and get through to something deeper. There's nothing measured about screaming in pain.
It was very clear to me that you asked the question honestly and I thought you deserved a decent answer!
What you asked was "why do people want to hurt their lovers?", and what we've answered is "why do people want their lovers to hurt them?". I hope it's clear how answering the second goes some way towards answering the first!
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The idea of stripping pretences is very interesting too. Actually I've now thought of another idea. I've often thought that many "normal" relationships are about a kind of sadism on an emotional level: say one person adores the other, but the adoration is returned only half-heartedly. In that case, the second person possesses complete power over the first - they know their partner will never leave them, and they enjoy that security, but they also enjoy the dominance of being independent of their partner, whilst he/she is completely dependent on them. And in a way, they get off on their partner's insecurity and jealousy/possessiveness, whilst their partner somehow revels in the opportunity to be hurt, to receive less than what they give, to be strung around the other person's finger...I've actually had a relationship like that, where I was the weak, dependent one, and although it was horrible, somehow a part of me almost *wanted* to find out that my partner had done another hurtful thing, cheated on me, or whatever...
So maybe all of us have some kind of instinct that attracts us towards pain in some way.
Are you at Cambridge by the way? From reading Elise's journal, it sounds like I'm going to have some pretty unbelievable experiences when I get there!! (*If* I get there, that is, 'cause I'm not too confident about how my A-levels are going, but...)
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I often found myself explaining to an ex of mine (who is a filthy perv) why I liked slamdancing, which is sort of the opposite side of the question; she enjoyed pain and endorphins in a sexual context, and found that the most helpful way to understand why I enjoyed them in an asexual context.