Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Kahlil Gibran
Pain is an intense physical sensation. It has evolved as a warning – the body’s way of telling you that you are in danger or something is wrong. That burns, this is broken, that is cut: you’d better do something about it, and fast! As well as more immediate dangers, pain is associated with chronic and acute illness: infection, dysfunction, cancer… Little wonder then that pain has ingrained negative associations. The fear of pain is deep within us all, which is why the threat of pain can make such an effective deterrent
This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and if I think of human beings I’ve known and of my own life, such as it is, I can’t recall any case of pain which didn’t, on the whole, enrich life.
Malcolm Muggeridge
But as an intense physical sensation separated from actual harm or illness, pain can be a liberating and enriching experience. Safe, sane SM is, I believe, a place to find out about yourself, to extend your experience of yourself. It’s a place to grow, to mature. It is also a place to play, to explore your psychology, dramatise your fantasies and face your demons.
I guess that if we think about it, we all know that we experience pain differently depending on context. Lying back in the dentist’s chair, your mouth wedged open, the slightest twinge becomes magnified in your mind. Playing a rough contact sport like rugby, with the adrenalin pumping and the focus on winning, you get kicked and mauled and thumped, and hardly notice until you see all the bruises in the bath after the game. SM Play can employ this phenomenon very effectively. A fast rough highly sexual encounter can be like contact sport, the rush of blood, an adrenalin surge and a rigid cock ensure the clamps squeezing your nipples or the belt raining blows on your ass are just aspects of a ferociously hot fuck. But tied up, naked, with a Top who knows how to heighten your sense of vulnerability and dramatise the threat of pain, then even the light scraping of you skin with the rough edge of a paddle will have you whimpering
Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.
anonymous
Of course, the body only needs so much pain to know it’s time for action. After that, pain just gets in the way. The wounded hunter fleeing the sabre-toothed tiger was not helped by debilitating pain. So the body produces adrenalin to speed his escape, and later endorphins are released to subdue the pain. Endorphins are the body’s own euphoric pain-killers, giving you a high which can be subtle or intense depending on the level of pain and the nature of your own physiology. Play SM games with a slow build up of intensity and you stimulate the endorphins to flow, raising your tolerance to pain as the pressure is increased. There can be great subtlety and finesse to SM when a Sadist plays the rate of increase of painful stimuli against his perception of the build up of endorphins in the masochist’s bloodstream. Too slow and the scene remains unsatisfyingly mellow. Too fast and the endorphin release is not adequate for what is being dished out. Get it right and the pain is always just around the limit of what is tolerable, sliding over the edge and back in an exquisite interplay of pain and pleasure.
Punishment is another matter. Here the Top must administer as much severe punishment as possible BEFORE the endorphins kick in, and then ensure the severity of the beating is such that the dulling effect of the body’s opiates does not undo the serious discomfort he is working on the bottom. If there is a pleasure to a punishment scene (and in my personal experience there is) it is shortly after it is over, when the combination of an almighty endorphin rush and the intense sense of personal achievement at having made it through meet that wonderful calm you feel after you’ve bawled your eyes out with not a shred of shame or self-consciousness.
Personality is born out of pain. It is the fire shut up in the flint.
J B Yeats
Crossing your pain barrier is at the heart of SM. It is a heightened experience. It lets you know you’re alive and not trapped in some anodyne prescription for an uncritical consumerised comfort zone. It’s a way of resisting the inevitable group-think that pain should be feared, because the fear of pain can reduce you to less than you really are
The speed of crossing over and the duration spent on the dark, far side of your pain threshold is what distinguishes SM play from punishment. But all SM should involve some time in the ecliptic void of your own pain, just beyond what you would choose to find tolerable. It’s here, I believe, you come face to face with yourself, your fear of pain and your need for comfort, and meet the wilder child of your true nature. And, through that, there is a maturing and growing self-confidence. I have always found experienced masochists to have an enormous inner stillness and composure when you meet them socially. They have nothing to prove and little to fear. They’ve been there, they’ve endured it and they have survived.
It is a tremendous turn-on to have a masochist’s trust, to push him through his limits and share the intimacy of the moment when he faces his demons.
I am Vanilla. I wanted to ask something though. I have NEVER tried ANY thing Kinky, Fetish, or BDSM, and don’t really ever intend to. But I have always felt I am not into BDSM because everything about it really just turns me off, freaks me out a bit, and I even find gross for my own tastes. A lot of BDSM repulses me (not in the judgmental, religious Conservative way) but for my own tastes personally. I don’t like PAIN like AT ALL.
My question is: Do I NEED to try out any BDSM activities in order for me to have the right to consider myself full 100% Vanilla, and in order to say I don’t like BDSM, Kink, or Fetish? I ask because a lot of BDSM people tell me that I am judging a book by it’s cover that way, and that I don’t have the right to say I don’t like anything without at least having tried it out at least once. Is that true? Do I HAVE to feel OBLIGATED to trying out BDSM in any capacity even though I REALLY don’t want to, in order to properly say I don’t like it, and consider myself Vanilla? Just to shut everyone up, and prove something for everyone else despite my own disinterests, and aversions, and phobias to it?
Personally, I feel Vanilla vs BDSM is like Straight vs Gay, and a straight person doesn’t have to try gay sex EVER (not even ONCE) in order to know he is not gay, and is in fact straight. He just KNOWS. Is Vanilla vs BDSM a choice, or a born thing like being Gay?
This website I read online REALLY clicks with me: https://carasutra.com/2014/05/its-a-50-shades-world-of-kink-and-bdsm-but-im-happy-being-vanilla-thanks/ but I wanted to know, is that sight right? I ask because a lot of people on BDSMAdvice SubReddit on Reddit told me that nobody likes a boring relationship, and Vanilla never works out for anyone, and that’s why there’s WAY more breakups, and divorces from Vanilla couples than there ever is from BDSM couples, because no one from Vanilla are ever TRULY happy, and why all Vanilla relationships are doomed to fail eventually. They said it is inevitable. Also, they said that Vanilla is only a starting point to figure out what you are REALLY into, but a lot of people make the mistake of staying Vanilla forever.
They told me that Vanilla is not an authentic/valid way of being. That ALL Vanilla people are just people who are either ashamed of their Kinky side, or they are a dormant Kinster who just isn’t aware of it…yet. Does me being 100% Vanilla who is not even willing to try anything Kinky who only wants a 100% Vanilla partner, and would break up with anyone who revealed to me they were anything more than 100% Vanilla make me a selfish dick unworthy of a partner, or a bland, boring, mediocre prude? One comment on Reddit told me that BDSM is like a giant Buffet and that we Vanilla folks are only eating, and gorging ourselves on two foods out of the hundreds, and not showing any interest, or willingness to try out, and sample the rest of the Buffet, which is apparently inexcusable. Should I listen to any of them?
Hi Isaac
I’m not sure who you have been talking to, but I think that sounds like crappy advice you’re getting. BDSM is very much a small niche in the population. Kink (in the wider sense) is a larger demographic, but it’s hard to define what it actually is. If you like the lights on, or the scent of candles, or 1000 thread count sheets, is that a kink? Who defines it?
I think the only path to happiness is to recognise your own desires and be true to yourself. No-one else is you, so no-one can tell you what you desire.
Is a relationship without kinks “boring”? That sounds very reductive. Surely sex is much more about connection and intimacy than it is about variety. And even if it does need variety, it’s not like you need to use the same position every night. There are infinite variations in the bedroom that I (personally) wouldn’t categorise as kink.
It sounds like much the same ignorant argument that someone with no clue might put forward for an open relationship… “but, how can you restrict yourself to only one partner? There’s a buffet out there.” It makes no sense to me.
=) Marc
If that’s true what you said to that person, then why do you subtle patronize the non pain folk as being inferior and weaker to the pain folk?
“It’s a way of resisting the inevitable group-think that pain should be feared, because the fear of pain can reduce you to less than you really are”
Right there, you just said that people who hate and fear pain like I do is part of a “group-think”.
That tells me that you feel that people like us aren’t thinking for ourselves and just blindly following what others tell us.
And about reducing us to less than we really are, you’re essentially saying that only people who engage with pain deliberately are their true selves and people like us who shun pain ate lesser than our true selves and lesser than the Masochists.
“It’s here, I believe, you come face to face with yourself, your fear of pain and your need for comfort, and meet the wilder child of your true nature. And, through that, there is a maturing and growing self-confidence.”
And here you said again that people who don’t face their selves and their fear of pain and need for comfort.
That’s clearly written for us normal people, and not for the Masochists like you say it is, because they would not have that fear of pain and need for comfort.
And about our true nature and maturing and growing and self confidence, you’re basically saying that people who are not into pain and avoid it like the plague like I do are immature, and weak and insecure.
“I have always found experienced masochists to have an enormous inner stillness and composure when you meet them socially. They have nothing to prove and little to fear. They’ve been there, they’ve endured it and they have survived.”
And there’s more of the patronizing of the normal people who don’t like pain at all by acting like Masochists are all automatically better off than those who are not Masochists or that you guys have something that we will never be able to.
And those quotes you keep linking to in the article is all about people essentially calling us all weak and saying that pain is needed for EVERYONE and that a pain free world would suck and be boring!
But the truth of the mater is that pain is nothing more than an objective evil that only exists because we live in a cold mechanical universe who doesn’t give a flying rats ass fuck about us!
And so it is our job to become Hedonists which is to eradicate as much pain as possible and to embrace only as much pleasure and positivity as possible.
The eradication of all pain and suffering forever would be Utopia and Paradise and that should be everyone’s goal to a more Ethical and Moral future!
People’s philosophical acceptance, embracing and even enjoyment of pain is nothing more than Stock Holm Syndrome.
The Universe abuses us so much with pain that certain people develop Stock Holm Syndrome and start identifying with the pain and being deluded into thinking it’s good when it’s actually more just like an abusive partner in a toxic relationship and is nothing but pure evil that should and needs to be eradicated by any means necessary!
“But all SM should involve some time in the ecliptic void of your own pain, just beyond what you would choose to find tolerable.”
But why? Why can’t there be a pain free version of SM?
After reading an article like this, this terrifies me of even wanting to join BDSM and Kink and Fetishes.
Like, if pain has all these benefits and is healing, and therapeutic, and etc, then is it mandatory for BDSM? Is there any such thing as Pain-Free-BDSM?
Am I missing out on some deeper fulfillment by not liking pain and wanting nothing to do with it? Only getting one half of the equation by sticking with positivity, sunshine and rainbows and not daring to venture into the darkness? Something Spiritual that I can’t access without pain?
Essentially, I have High Functioning Autism/Asperger’s, and I am also HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) and any and all forms of physical pain in any way, shape or form is a HARD limit for me! I don’t like ANY pain AT ALL!!!
For me, and maybe this is unrealistic and impossible, but my fantasy DOM is one who is very loving, gentle, and caring and positive and light hearted and is more like a mother figure to me rather than a queen straight out of the depths of Hell!
I hope that wasn’t offensive to you at all.
“It sounds like much the same ignorant argument that someone with no clue might put forward for an open relationship… “but, how can you restrict yourself to only one partner? There’s a buffet out there.” It makes no sense to me.”
When you said that, were you directing that at me, or at the people who are shaming my Vanilla-Ness?
So is it okay to be a No Pain whatsoever kind of person despite this article talking about the need for pain in order to advance, grow, and expand?
Hi Isaac…
No offence to you, you’re fine. I meant the comment directed at people shaming your vanilla-ness.
Although the article talks about pain as a way to explore ourself, that’s only the case for those who find some kind of doorway to knowledge in pain. Not everyone does. Actually, I think only a small percentage of people do.
The article talks about it in relation to sadomasochistic play, so it comes with the assumption that that’s something you are engaging in (assumably because you enjoy it). It’s written for the Sadist or the masochist.
=) Marc
Okay. Thanks.
The reason why I asked all of that is because I was speaking to SadoMasochists who admitted to being the minority just like you say yourself, but it was that very reason why they also saw themselves as being part of some sort of “Elite Group” They told me that BDSM people, SadoMasochists, and just generally anyone who is a member of the alternative paths, and life styles are superior, and of a higher path than those who are of the Vanilla, hate pain like I do, and are members of the main stream, average, and normal paths, and life styles.
They said that we are of an inferior spirituality, and life then they are. They told me that Society, and Community is always bad, and that the majority, and main stream, average, and normal is always wrong, and that the minority, superior, and weird is always right.
Basically that they are part of some “Exclusive Elite”. They said it is our fault though for being inferior to them though because we “choose” it for ourselves. That they want to convert us, and me into their life style, because they told me that they want to eventually exterminate all of the Vanilla, and normal in the world, and have BDSM pretty much become the norm, and take over everything.
On the spirituality part of it, they told me that The Light is weakness, patheticness, and cowardice, while The Darkness is strength, power, and courage.
And finally, the last thing is that apparently I, and the rest of mainstream society is on what they call “The Right Hand Path” whereas They, and the rest of the alternative is on what they call “The Left Hand Path” Apparently the “Left Hand Path” is superior while “The Right Hand Path” is inferior. I have no idea what that even is. I AM right handed, but I doubt that is what they are referring to.
After reading an article like this, this terrifies me of even wanting to join BDSM and Kink and Fetishes.
Like, if pain has all these benefits and is healing, and therapeutic, and etc, then is it mandatory for BDSM? Is there any such thing as Pain-Free-BDSM?
Am I missing out on some deeper fulfillment by not liking pain and wanting nothing to do with it? Only getting one half of the equation by sticking with positivity, sunshine and rainbows and not daring to venture into the darkness? Something Spiritual that I can’t access without pain?
Essentially, I have High Functioning Autism/Asperger’s, and I am also HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) and any and all forms of physical pain in any way, shape or form is a HARD limit for me! I don’t like ANY pain AT ALL!!!
For me, and maybe this is unrealistic and impossible, but my fantasy DOM is one who is very loving, gentle, and caring and positive and light hearted and is more like a mother figure to me rather than a queen straight out of the depths of Hell!