Fetishes: V (Verbal Abuse)

Verbal abuse: yes.

In the D/s sketches I wrote for Alexandra I usually gave the Domina a mostly ironic, mocking manner.

During the years of fantasizing about BDSM rarely could I imagine what my owner might say.

That my imagination flinched from giving words to the one that had power over me is a testimony to the power harsh words have over me.

My father seemed to live in the key of D major: major dissatisfaction with his family.

All I remember of him is frequent flashes of anger. Not just at me. My mother was often abused for such crimes as having made meatloaf when he’d hoped for fried chicken.

My childhood was colored by unanticipatable bursts of verbal violence. There was no way to know when a seemingly innocent act would leave him cursing me. I grew up a timid, inward-dwelling boy. The focus on my inner life I appreciate. Stripping away timidity took years of conscious work.

I hated him until the day he died. Retroactively I’ve come to realize that even though he was physically strong enough to lift the back of 1960s car or bend steel bolts with his hands in his heart he was a weak, cowardly man.

My response to verbal abuse in D/s is a testimony to the power of our sexuality to embrace seemingly immiscible elements of our past.

When Alexandra angrily rebukes me for being slow or hesitating or tells me I’m worthless I cringe. My instinct is to grovel at her feet hoping to placate her.

For me verbal abuse embraces the same contradictions as punishment (possibly because the two often accompany each other).

I feel like a helpless little boy, a contemptible slave. I don’t like it. Not at all. While it is happening. The joy emerges later when the emotions are recollected in tranquility. I’m purged of quotidian cares. Everyday life is sharpened with pleasure.

I’m glad she’s used it sparingly so far. Naturally another part of me craves to have her stay that way one night for a very long time: a safe sort of edge play that might take me to an ecstatic space. Something awful from my childhood has been transformed by the horrible-beautiful power of emotional masochism and surrender.