Emotional Masochism

(Overripe prose advisory.)

I’ve never been surprised that some people don’t enjoy humiliation and degradation play. We all have moments of YKINMK: your kink is not my kink. But I was surprised when a couple of hardcore masochists confessed themselves squicked by some of what Alexandra has subjected me to.

Physical and emotional masochism can be different and distinct. A masochist who glories in a brutal beating may find verbal abuse or eating from a pet food bowl intolerable. Some acts separate neatly that way. Others do blend the two: e.g., face slapping. When Alexandra’s tapped my testicles lightly with the toe of her boot there’s no pain but a feeling akin to shame (Makes no sense to me. I’ve given up trying to figure it out.)

Some acts are humbling without being humiliating: being collared and leashed. Though move that from my neck to my genitals and it edges into the latter.

Perhaps some people who are averse to emotional masochism - YKINMK aside - have vulnerabilities within that shouldn’t be violated. Many of have parts of our past we are in perpetual recovery from. While I’ve seen talk of therapeutic sadomasochism some people may not have egos that can handle the challenge. (And if anyone things that bottoms are necessarily lacking in self-respect let me assure you that I have enough self-esteem that I’d sell the surplus if only there were a way to put it on eBay.)

Who of us can count the permutations of the human heart?

In emotional S&M my inner voice is apt to be going “No no no!” and “Stop stop stop!” Being spat upon a half dozen times can leave you wanting to crawl out of your skin or under the floor.

Some of us with a need to surrender want to dig as far down as possible. To grovel, be it thankfully or fearfully. The ultimate goal of the slave trance is worship: ecstatic adoration. The craving for cruelty is part of the quest for the illusion of being helplessly owned.

In my case I know this is rooted in my prehistory: something from early childhood forever lost to conscious recollection. Given that I’m fond of myself there’s no mental illness in this. The danger would be in remaining ignorant. And I’ve long since made peace with the horror of my father.

Why would anyone want to recapture emotional states that must’ve been very painful to their young selves?

There isn’t a calculus that allows us to measure and describe the primal experiences of our earliest years. It is probably then that some of us become geniuses or masochists. Unmediated by concepts and words those moments take root in the soil from which the rest of our lives emerge.

Perhaps it is an artifact of evolution when rushes of adrenalin were part of survival responses that left us craving strong emotion. We seek it in art and popular culture. The pleasure in music that makes us soar. People also read suspense novels and watch horror movies because they want their heart to beat faster.

And what can offer us more potent surges than the experiences of our earliest days on earth? Why we might recreate those pains in ways that make us whole and satisfied is a mystery. They probably date from years when we didn’t have words or concepts for describing or perceiving them.

Fetishes tap into fundamental wants. For a brief time the spacetime contracts to ourself and our partner. We are in our own private universe. Momentarily life is the taste of her boots. Endorphins, dopamine - those swell biochemicals - lift us, if only transitorily, to paradise.

Anyway, this is my speculation du jour as to why nasty things Alexandra has done to me make me happy if only after the fact.

Some prior similarly themed entries:

• Notes on Humiliation I
• Notes on Humiliation II
• Healthy Humiliation & Degradation
• Erotic Humiliation
• Laughter & Humiliation … ?
• Emotional Masochism : Gender Bias?
• Humiliation Play : Share Your Pleasures