The rise of BDSM (14)

Outside of kink, some of us do martial arts while extreme sports are more popular than ever. We look for new ways for a danger and adrenalin fix, for me it's motorcycles.

I have a clear desk policy. It's the clear floor policy that's eluding me at the moment.

Despite being a 5ft1 girl, because I was a high grade I was put up against ANYONE - girls my age to fully-grown-40-year-old-brick-houses of men (good job I was agile and could give them a good run for their money!) I got a full force back kick in the stomach from a 2nd DAN black belt; punched in the face SO many times and on one occasion had to fight one handed and on one foot due to injuries sustained during the fight. It wasn't uncommon for people to start crying half way through the fighting either BUT it was an incredible test of the human spirit and that is an opportunity that rarely arises in every day life.

It was a challenge, and a tough challenge at that. Some people enjoy the thrill of being tested to their limits. I guess that can be linked to what you're asking?

P.S: I also broke someone's nose and caused a few injuries myself so don't go thinking I'm a pansy

Molly x

We are, when all is said and done, animals.

Animals in the wild feast and famine, and their lives are riven with danger. Obviously, we in our civilised lifestyle don't have these things, and although scientists say the difference between us and other animals is that we have opposable thumbs and brains the size of houses, we are still blessed with the need for adrenaline rush and so on.

This is, after all, why the safer cars are, the more tempted we are (supposedly) to drive like lunatics.

However, I believe when it comes to BDSM, the stimulus is somewhat different. I believe that we do what we do not because we want pain and discomfort, necessarily, but because we are dissatisfied with the insipid notes of vanilla. We do what we do because of our intelligence, not just our animal nature.

That's my excuse anyway. Look at it this way, if people want pain and discomfort, they can go on the underground. Besides, if that was the only reason, who'd be a Dom/me?

My Grandma had a pair of boots,
My Grandpa had some too:
They met some skinheads yesterday
And kicked them black and blue.
-
Salad is a dish best served cold.

Ring any bells ?

"Yeah I like Kinky stuff,dirty dark pervy stuff,weird sex.... An' Yerself ?"
Award Winning Switch.

I do however need to be near the edge of something, preferably something I don't know or haven't come across before. I find modern adrenaline 'pastimes' rather unexciting, a bit like fair ground rides.

Yes. I agree. For me as a(n aspiring) dom/spanker - it is certainly not at all about a DESIRE for pain; au contraire - but neither would I say that the pleasure lies, by any means at all, solely in INFLICTING pain either. Not for me, anyway. I have said a little about this in my post on the thread 'Why Do People Have Fetishes?' - not a simple answer to that one, in my case, as I have shared (or attempted to) in my post on that thread. As I have tried to explain there, the whole ritual(s) of it all is/are vital to the enjoyment of it all - for both of us, I would hope.

And, as I have also tried to explain there too, the element of pity plays a very important part in it. The 'poor sweetie' element is part of it too for me; very much so - as would be the kiss and heal and 'make up' (till the next time!) aftermath - but not before the sub has had her time of 'penitence' and reflection, and of mock 'shaming', 'disgrace' and exposure (as e.g. in a 'cornertime') - for her 'misdemeanour'. This would be for sure, for me, as much a vital part of the play 'punishment' or play 'discipline' as the actual inflicting of pain itself.

With greatest respect, I would say that the 'comfortable life' in the West syndrome (and, as the thread starter rightly points out, it is not so wonderfully comfortable for EVERYONE in the West anyway!) - is a red herring here. I say this much as I sympathise with, and try to help a little when I can, the homeless and the hungry; for I do that not out of any sense of guilt that I am more fortunate than they; rather, I would hope, as whatever kindness I can do for fellow human beings, where it is needed and where it will make a difference and be appreciated.

If you want to explore the psychology of masochism, there is much here into which one could dive very deep indeed, and still find no real answers; only opinions. There are many theories. I do know rather a lot (perhaps too much?) about the mind set of the true anorexic. Though never anorexic myself, I have personal reasons for caring so much about this and about its (usually female adolescent) victims. It has even been, on occasion, part of my work. I won't discuss here some of my own (very much at variance with the establishment, I would have to say) informed views about this.

Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) is often rightly regarded, with Anna Freud (daughter of Sigmund Freud) and her near contemporary Melanie Klein, as one of the original true 'Post-Freudians'. Unlike them, however, in the 1950's he continued to research the adult human mind, rather than, as others were doing, seeking to move the study of psychology more and more in the direction of child psychology and educational psychology. Lacan had a theory of what he called 'jouissance' - and, as part of this and the essential obverse of this, the curious pleasure and satisfaction some humans seem to derive from what should logically be thought of as self-destructive activities (to greater or lesser extent) and about what motivates some human minds to want to be less a person, be more a 'non-person', be more a void, a kind of 'emptiness' (to some greater or lesser extent); to be less ego (as Freud first called it); more deliberately self-sacrificing.

As I know from my own research thus far, quite a lot of this is relevant (though it is by no means the whole story) to the proper understanding of the anorexic mentality - a proper understanding, I will have to say, which is WOEFULLY lacking almost everywhere (even among so many alleged 'experts' and those who claim to 'cure' or 'treat' such eating disorders - but, in reality, often dismally fail in this in any permanent way at all).

As you may know, there are not a few anorexics who also self-harm, and many endure the most appalling destruction of their lives, in so many ways, both mental and emotional as well as physical. Many, indeed, endure chronic pains and discomforts (self-inflicted, and/or as a direct result of what they are and what they do to their bodies) about which the world in general knows, and cares, nothing.

I believe Lacan's theories of 'jouissance' (on which I have built and which I am researching in my own work) could well be of help here too in the BDSM community; that is, for those who wish to analyse it (some do not, of course!) - specifically, in seeking to understand why some people, male and female, gay straight or bisexual, and of almost every numerical age - enjoy being physically hurt.

Try reading, for example (if anyone is interested in this): 'The Ethics of Psychoanalysis' ... (A seminar given by Lacan over the years 1959-1960, in which he discusses this mechanism, as he sees it, in some detail). Also see his work on what he (and Freud too before him) called 'the pleasure principle'- and its counter and restraining, even negative/denial/seeking pleasure in denial of pleasure - the 'reality principle' - including work in which he critiques Freud, who first coined these terms: these ideas are best found in the "'Ecrits" - a selection of short pieces and excerpts from some of his more important writings, lectures and talks (though I warn: it is not light reading - not even in English translation!). Good luck!

- bluemagic

"When the bottom falls out of your world - Take 'Andrew's' (liver salts) and, instead ... Let the world fall out of your bottom. "

*CONSIDERING*

Yes. I'll go for that ...

*UPDATE* Model(s) for "how to" bondage photographs (and other bondage photographs) have now been found. Thank you to all who showed interest.

One of these is to become the sub. The most and ultimate form of being submissive is to allow the other person to inflict serious pain on you.