Do you like spanking? Do *I* like spanking?
September 7th, 2010 | Author: Zille
An awkward moment at Shadow Lane this past weekend: I was talking to some people, and made some unserious comment as to how much I wasn’t looking forward to a spanking (or something similar) and the person turned, concerned, to me and said, “But you do like to be spanked?!”
As with most awkward social situations, I made a joke* and rolled my eyes and said, “Oh, I’d hate to get spanked. That would just be terrible!” and this elicited minor chuckles and thankfully everyone moved on.
But it does bring me back yet again to my confusion with people in the scene who insist they hate spankings. (Apologies if you are one of the above – I’m not dissing you, just trying to wrap my head around this matter!) Why, if you hate to be spanked, are you at an expensive, weekend-long spanking party? (Or writing a spanking blog, or any other indication of a deep interest in all things spanking.)
When I first moved from BDSMville to the spankosphere, my attitude was the usual one you’d find in a dungeon: masochism is gooooood – in fact, the people who get the most “respect” in that scene are the serious pain sluts who could basically be skinned alive and would yet orgasm repeatedly during the process.
Imagine my confusion, upon entering the spankosphere, to come across people proclaiming loudly that they would do just anything to get out of the upcoming spanking – it was a complete and total paradigm shift, and, as you can see, I’m still not fully comprehending things.
At first I thought that it was just very extended roleplay – I mean, even BDSM folks can do scenes where they pretend, “Oh, don’t hit me with that mean old riding crop, anything but that!” So maybe, I wondered, the people who say they don’t like a spanking are just staying in that game all the time. Which is fine for them, but I would wish they’d wear a button, so I’d know what game we were all playing, the best to fit into any given spanko social situation. (I’m not sure what this button would say – suggestions welcome!)
But in the years since I’ve moved here (Years? When did that happen?) I’ve found some spanko neighbours who are as unabashedly enthusiastic as any whips-n-chains-er. So whatever reality some people are residing in, we aren’t all in the same one together. This is confusing for me – and I invariably get things wrong and joke about not wanting spankings with the happy masochists, and then boast about enjoying a recent thrashing with the no-ouchie-for-me folks. I do not like this. Being socially ept is hard enough for me as it is without people looking at me like I’ve sprouted eye-stalks off my forehead every time I talk about play.
After some conversations I’ve had since this most recent moment of social confusion, I think I may be altering my original notion about the “living the fantasy” concept. (So those of you who were just reading to the end of this entry so you could post irate rejoinders, please hold on to that thought….)
I think now that maybe this is all a matter of semantics. I think somewhere along the line, spanko bottoms decided that all masochists get delicious rushes of pleasure with every hit of the flogger or prick of the piercing needle.
Not so – as I found out the first time I ever played! I’d had these lovely fantasies of terrible things happening to me, and them all feeling better than my bestest orgasm – and then the nipple clamps went on (or whatever it was) and I suddenly decided they needed to come off right now, and never be put on again!
I was horribly disillusioned, come to it. Pain wasn’t supposed to hurt!
It really took me getting together with Mr. Defeu for me to learn that it was okay to have a scene where I hated – or at least really suffered through – every moment of the spanking (or other assorted play).
In the BDSM world, that’s a huge no-no. The goal is to alchemically transform the raw stuff of pain into shimmering golden threads of pleasure – and if you don’t, the bottom feels inferior and the Top feels they have failed their bottom, and everyone goes home unhappy.
I don’t think it was always like this in BDSM – I think this is a new development. I think the old leather-men who built up that community knew it hurt like the dickens, but pushed through because they needed to, there was nothing for it but to suffer for the eventual rewards. And, sometimes, when there was a blue moon in the second house of Uranus, there would be those moments where you flew from the endorphins, and it really was alchemical.
But I think the internet (and the mainstreaming of kinky erotica) are to blame for painting this picture that so many people buy into now, that you’ve got to be a proper pain-slut, or you might as well go home and be vanilla. Or, in the case of the spanko community, just disavow your desires whilst at the same time chasing them.
If you read the erotica of Anne Rice/Rampling/Roquelaure
Well, that’s just as realistic as what else you’ll read – i.e., the magical alchemy of masochism.
And hundreds of people’s enthusiastic blog posts and chat-room rendezvous have only solidified that fantasy into perceived reality.
It also possibly came in handy when we were all trying to explain ourselves to vanilla lovers and friends (and, if unlucky, family!) – that really, it may seem like we are doing mean and nasty stuff, but once the brain chemicals get into action, it’s the world’s best runner’s high combined with the thrill of victory and the magic of Christmas all rolled into one.
I think it’s time to undo this myth. The vanillas are coming along in fits and starts, and will do so no matter how we gild the spanking/BDSM lily. The only people we are fooling are ourselves.
Spanking hurts. It’s why humans have used it as punishment for probably as long as we’ve been living in social groupings together. It doesn’t necessarily follow that just because you are turned on by the idea, you have to love all the sensations/aspects of it.
To that extent, we all hate spankings! (At least, the receivers!) Unless it’s nothing more than a tender pattering of gentle love taps**, there are going to be some moments where you think, “What the hell did I sign up for?!”
But that is part of the thrill. Us humans are wired really eccentrically, and those things that helped us to survive attacks from cave bears and that tribe across the river now give us the strangest of cravings and urges. The thrill of fear and the rush from pain being the ones we’re talking about now.
I’d really like to see the BDSM world give up it’s golden myth of the perpetual masochist. This would create less confusion and feelings of unworthiness for newbies and long-time scene players alike. It would make things easier and less contrived, to boot!
And I’d also like to see spankees leave the denial in the scenes (where it can be fun and hot!), and own their confusing need for something that doesn’t actually feel very pleasant much of the time. Why can’t it at least be admitted that you have a love/hate relationship with spanking? No one would need to wear buttons then, because we’d all be on the same page on that one. Yes, they hurt in varying degrees from ouch-to-agony – but yes, we’re all looking to get (or give, but that’s another matter) them, and we’ll all walk around with a dopey glow in our eyes afterwards. (And those eyes may well be red-rimmed, but that doesn’t take away from the glow – just the opposite!)
So … would you all do that for me? I’d really like to be able to settle on one basic concept (allowing for our lovely myriad variations and sub-sets, of course) and be able to have a conversation with strangers without worrying that I’ll be upsetting their world view.
Although I’d at least just settle for everyone to assume I’m going to put my foot in my mouth and say, “Ah, that’s just that Zille for you! But we love her anyway!”
*It’s either make a joke or run away. I did some of that this past weekend at SL, too!
**And let’s have no nonsense about sensual spankings being inferior to mean nasty ones just because they actually do involve pleasure, thank you!
Images courtesy of the wonderful classic spanking film, Lisa Must Be Caned. If you haven’t seen this one, it’s really one you shouldn’t miss!
N.B. (Added 09-Oct-10) — A discussion over on The Punishment Book is not a direct answer to this matter, but well worth reading, as it looks at the top’s perspective on punishment, which is something neither the punisher nor punishee are supposed to “want,” yet of course we do because why would we do it, otherwise?
Shadow Lane Video Clips
Northern Spanking
I Feel Myself.com
Lovely treatise, Zille, on a topic that really needed to be addressed.
Ambiguous? Yes and No! But “paradoxical” is really a better descriptor for what’s going on here. But hey, that’s how people are.
I made the trip in the other direction from you, spanko to more general perv. I remember that very early in my play, I couldn’t ask for or say I liked spanking. (I could barely say the word “spanking,” but that’s another issue.) It annoyed someone I was playing with — she told me she needed to know her play partner liked it, wanted it, was turned on by it. But it was too early for me to say that. I was still having trouble admitting my pervitude to myself, and so even tho I quite clearly wanted to be spanked, I felt I had to temper my enthusiasm, even from myself. That was early, and things changed. Had I grown up in an environment that encouraged diversity in sexuality, it might have been different even back then. I don’t know if that lack of self-acceptance is at work to any degree in the people you’re talking about.
I think your post is interesting, and I wish I had time to write more now. In particular, I’m thinking about the spankos and (other) SM’ers who “like” it to hurt because they like to make it thru an ordeal.
Karl – Thanks! I think that “paradoxical” is just the right word. I was just saying last night to Mr. Defeu that it’s always very weird to find myself in the space, in a scene, where if he stops spanking me I’ll be horribly disappointed, but if he keeps on it’s really scary. In that moment, I have the need for him to stop and the need for him to continue occupying my brain jointly – and it’s very weird feeling two entirely conflicting desires like that!
I guess that, in microcosm, is what this is all about. Holding those two desires in your head at the same moment, but just all the time!
Hello Jan!
Lots of people from both the BDSM or spanko world have started out where you did — unable to even say the words to describe what you wanted/needed. I was the same way in high school – I knew I wanted more than vanilla sex from my boyfriends, but I just didn’t know how to ask for it, and it seemed like something that could get a person laughed at or otherwise disparaged.
I had a serious lack of self-esteem (and self-acceptance and self-assurance!) when I was that age – and if I had thought that spanking was what the cool kids did, I would have eagerly embraced it.
One does (or at least I do) have to wonder at a lack of self-acceptance in people who have, say, gotten up the courage to go to a spanking event, or start a spanking blog. I certainly understand having days where you doubt yourself, but it seems to me one really must be past such self-doubts to make it to a party at all!
Please feel free to come back and write more when you have more time! Or contact me with your thoughts and I’d be happy to do another post on this topic which you could be involved in!
I just love how forthright and awesome you are.
I definitely remember being a confused virgin perv (er… let’s pretend that was a really long time ago…cough) and reading all these testimonies along the lines of Spanking Is Terrible — you know, except for That Part Where I Fantasize About It 24/7, Go To Parties, Write This Blog, etc. It was very triggering of my WTF mechanism. Like, solution — if you hate it, maybe don’t do it?
And then I also remember feeling unnerved when my first play experiences weren’t orgasmically thrilling. Rather, they were thrilling in that headrushy-endorphin flight way you write about. It was a bit unexpected, particularly as years of dedicated masturbation had set up a spanking = orgasm complex in my brain.
Anyway, I think you’re right that people should make a more reasonable appraisal of the word ‘masochist,’ and then stop hating. It doesn’t necessarily mean you want pain because it feels like orgasms, it means you want pain and it feels like pain.
Cripes. Now you’ve got me all craving some pain!
Graham – I just love how well-spoken and fabulous *you* are.
When you write, “Anyway, I think you’re right that people should make a more reasonable appraisal of the word ‘masochist,’ and then stop hating. It doesn’t necessarily mean you want pain because it feels like orgasms, it means you want pain and it feels like pain,” you basically make my verbose post obsolete.
Not that I mind, because you also give me wonderful back-up! Anyone who posts disagreeing with me, will, after your post, look a bit silly. Thank you! You got my back, heh!
I really really really love this post. It puts into words something I’d never even really put my finger on, even for myself!
It’s funny, in my experience, at the beginning, I really did want the pain…it didn’t feel like orgasams, but it made me very very high. I remember gong to my first spanking party very worried that I wouldn’t be spanked hard enough, that it wouldn’t be real. It makes me laugh now, but it was a bigger concern to me than my safety. After probably hundreds of very hard, very real spankings, that thrill and novelty of the “realness” has worn off somewhat. I don’t get high like that very often.
I found this painful and confusing for a long time, and I felt like my kink was gone. It took a long time to realize that there was more than the “spanking=rollercoaster wheeeeeeeeeeeeee”
I’m just now learning this: “it (is) okay to have a scene where I hated – or at least really suffered through – every moment of the spanking (or other assorted play).” Sometimes I remember it, and sometimes I don’t!
Caroline – I love your perspective on this!
And, heh, we all laugh at what our expectations/hopes for our first play (at party or privately — for me, I’d already done such stupid things privately that I had managed to learn a bit by the time I even got to public play!)
It took me a hella long (to use CA vernacular) time to really understand the “scene where it just hurts and that’s okay” thing. I angst-ed over it a great deal, which meant Mr. Defeu was very confused because I’d say I’d want one thing one minute, and another the next! I remember when I finally had the light bulb go off – it felt like I’d invented sliced bread!
I’ve been a much happier masochist ever since then – even in the middle of a painful paddling!
I love this post. Especially the expectation people who don’t identify as masochists have of people who do identify that way that spanking will be all pleasure all the time. You are correct that it isn’t that way for anyone!
I’ve had to go through a similar rejigging of my expectations to Caroline: when I started, I was so hungry for the enactment of my fantasies that I consumed pain voraciously, insatiably; and I threw myself so absolutely into an immersive D/s relationship that the constant energy of the power exchange fed into it and helped me stay in tune with the pain. But even then, there were times when it just hurt and submission involved overcoming my reluctance – and I remember angsting about that at the time, feeling like a “bad submissive” for not being able to turn my masochism on like a tap.
These days I’m better adjusted, I think, although I worry that Tom expects me to actively find pleasure in the sensations more often than is actually realistic. That said, I’m less good at putting up with spankings which I find difficult than I used to be, so perhaps he’s just reacting to that. We still haven’t found the equilibrium I was hoping for, as his health means that play is still off-limits for the foreseeable, and I don’t see my other play partners anywhere near as often (and spanking is a lesser part of their sexuality anyway). But this post has really helped clarify my own expectations of my own masochism, so thankyou for that. I definitely agree that relating to people about kink would be much easier if everyone was comfortable using the same language!
I think there is a distinction between people who never achieve that alchemical translation of sensation from pain to pleasure, and people who sometimes can. But I’ve known enough of the former who discovered the ability late in life, with a new partner and in a new context, to think that even that distinction is less hard-coded than a lot of people think.
Pandora, my lovely -
Thank you for that intimate and thoughtful reply.
I know that the spankings where I suffer the whole time with no masochistic-pleasure relief are not just hard on me, but on Mr. Defeu as well. He’s caught in this rough place between his sadistic enjoyment of my suffering, and his love for me and desire to see me have some pleasure as well. More often than not, he’ll slow down and give me a bit of pleasure spanking, or take a break to fuck me and make me come — and I’ll be all complaining, “But that niceness is taking away from my enjoyment of your sadism!”
But, in the end, I think the fact that I can let go enough with him to be able to enjoy — or at least explore! — the pain-only spaces, is because I know he cares that much about me.
I agree totally that some people manage to pull off the magical transformation moments, and some do not. But I think they are both masochists — masochism meaning — whoa! I just went to copy the dictionary definition, and I think I’ve found our problem! Good ol’ Merriam-Webster does what I think is the right one:
1 : a sexual perversion characterized by pleasure in being subjected to pain or humiliation especially by a love object — compare sadism
2 : pleasure in being abused or dominated : a taste for suffering
The main point being that the pleasure does not come from the pain, but by being subjected to it. This is what I meant in my article – that no matter whether you can have some moments of alchemy or not, the masochist needs to undergo pain as part of their sexual and/or emotional fulfillment.
BUT … if you type in “define:masochism” into google, a whole bunch of other definitions pop up, including ones that specifically imply that actual sexual pleasure comes directly from pain. So I’m (in part) blaming the wrong people — although I won’t make an apology to Anne Rice because the Beauty trilogy is just ridiculous!
I think, if we look back to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus In Furs, that we will find that Merriam-Webster is quite right — Severin never finds real sexual release from pain itself, but instead craves pain and humiliation so much that he gets a psychological pleasure from receiving it.
So, there we go! We just need a new word for our masochistic alchemists, and we’ll be all set!
Zille, this is a very interesting post and a very elaborate discussion here in the comment section. I have to admit that for me as someone who isn’t a native speaker the comments and arguments are even sometimes quite difficult to understand and follow. Nonetheless I wanted to add some more thoughts to the discussion. But my comment became so long that I’ve decided to write a post about the topic soon, and to make my comment here a bit shorter.
To my mind, there are different possible reasons why some spankos say that they love being spanked while others insist on hating it. As already mentioned in the discussion it might have to do with issues some people have with their kink (either pretending that it is completely non-sexual and just a matter of domestic discipline or denying that there is a rather raw and painful part because that seems odd to them). It can also be just a misunderstanding because people mean different things when talking about whether they love or hate being spanked (the whole scenario, the pain, the fantasy…). But I think that partly the statements also reflect different desires and fantasies connected with spanking. Just some examples: In lighter or medium-hard scenarios I can enjoy the pain itself because it goes along with arousal and therefore doesn’t hurt in a way that I don’t like. People who are only into these kind of scenarios might say that they like being spanked. Others only like very severe and dark scenarios where the spanking is just painful, but the fantasies going along with it or the feeling of having survived they have afterwards is what they are really seeking. Those people might say that they hate being spanked, but they need it in order to get the things they like. And not everyone is into the thought of being subjected to pain (at least it’s not everyone’s focus, or not in the same way as it works for others). I, for example, often prefer at least semi-consensual scenarios where a situation arises in which I agree to being spanked or sometimes even ask for it.
And I think there is much more variety like that. That’s why to my mind forcing everyone to admit that he or she has a love/hate relationship with spanking might to a certain point mean to neglect and reduce the variety that exists in our scene. I’m completely okay with people telling me that they either love or hate being spanked, as long as they finally get something out of it (no matter what it is and where it comes from) and as long as they don’t try to tell me that only their kink is right and my kink is wrong, just because my kink is different…
Kaelah –
As someone who has been really, truly punished – with the goal of me having such an unpleasant experience that I never wish to repeat my offense, I can most certainly understand the DD point of view. Hell, I’ve had punishments “scheduled” — and by the time they happened, I was physically sick with fear! Not fun!
And as someone who has violence-and-rape fantasies, I understand doing scenes where you just basically try to survive — how intense and scary they are, and basically playing with fire.
However, I think that maybe you did miss something in what I and the others have written, undoubtedly due to the difficulty of translating in your head from one language to another — I know my own German is so weak that if you wrote in your native tongue, I would take several days to work through only one post, with a German-English dictionary in hand!
The point I’m trying to make that is if someone really, honest-to-goodness HATES spanking, they ought not to be doing it — and I think it unlikely that anyone who really HATES spanking would bother to make a spanking blog, even if they are DD or really into “dark scenes.” (And, mind you, even the lightest players I know have a really nasty dark fantasy or two in them somewhere!)
The point is, as you say, they get something out of it. You don’t have to call it a “love/hate relationship” if you don’t like (that was only an example, anyway, not actual terminology I was actually suggesting everyone must use), and I am not trying to stifle the lovely variety of kinky desires our community has — but I don’t think that admitting you get something out of spanking is really going to reduce the variety in our scene, nor is it me telling people that I’m right and they are wrong.
Let’s look over any scenario which includes activities that we lump together under the term, “spanking.” Why are people doing them? Because they’ve been thinking about doing these things before they did them, and they’ll be replaying them again in their heads afterwards — or thinking up new things to try!
Imagine if you say you hate spanking, so your partner says, “Well, goodness, I won’t spank you, then!” (Which, if you really mean it, your partner darn well better do, or it’s abuse!) Is that a win for you? No, because you went looking for a partner who was into spanking in the first place, because you are.
Take spanking out of it, and what are you left with? Not to deride the joys of humiliation and subjugation and bondage and dress-up and all that good stuff — but I’m not talking about people who identify as being purely submissive or purely into bondage — I’m talking about people who identify as spankos. If they take nothing home from a spanking, perhaps it’s time to find another term of self-identification?
Perhaps I discussed pain too much in what I wrote — that is simply because I’ve never really heard anyone complain about the other aspects of a spanking. You hear lots of people making a noise about the pains of a spanking (especially while it’s in progress!) but you have to look long and hard to find someone saying, “Gosh, that part where I get put over a knee is sooo humiliating, I HATE that!” They might talk about HOW humiliating it is, but I’ve never come across anyone who didn’t appreciate the hotness value of that humiliation. (Or whatever.)
So, it’s not just pain — which, actually, if you read what I wrote again, was exactly my point.
To rephrase myself: Some people enjoy the pain, sometimes. The rest of us mere mortals have plenty of times where we grit our teeth (or kick and scream!) and get through the spanking. Why? Because we realize that we get something out of it which we could not get WITHOUT the spanking.
That’s what I meant by, “Love/Hate Relationship” — NOT that “Sometimes I love the pain, other times I hate it,” but more along the lines of, “Godddamn, but that spanking stuff hurts! But I just can’t do without it! It’s a funny old world, and it doesn’t make sense to me, but I’m going with it!”
What I mean by “love” is that we love the thing of which spanking is an essential element — so no matter how we may feel directly about a spanking, the “getting of it” is what we must have in order to get the things we like, the things we need — be it the feeling of survival, or submission, or just simple arousal.
All us people who call ourselves spankos (or spankers, or lovers of discipline, etc.) are “into the thought of being subjected to pain” — in the sense that they think about it (and fantasize about it, and many masturbate to the idea, even those who say they “hate” it), and have sought out situations where it happens to them.
What I want is to change the definition of “masochist” to re-include even the people who suffer every second and feel dread when the cane is picked up; to re-include the people who right now have to try and stand out from masochists by saying they “hate” pain. To quote myself, “The main point being that the pleasure does not come from the pain, but by being subjected to it.”
So, really, I don’t actually think you were disagreeing with me, Kaelah — and I’d hate to disagree with a Klingon, anyway! I know who would win, and it wouldn’t be the human! — but simply that I focused on one aspect, and you focused on another. Fair enough, and, happily, in the end we agree that we are both okay “as long as they finally get something out of it.”
@ Zille:
I guess that shortening my “essay” on the topic made it sound like I thought that our points of view were completely contradictory. That’s definitely not the case! I know that I picked up a lot of points you had already made in the discussion. I just wanted to add one more thought, though. What I wanted to bring out was the thought that people saying: “I really hate being spanked.” and others insisting on loving every minute of it might on the one hand be a bit too extreme (because all of them get something positive out of it) but on the other hand it might somehow also be quite useful because it reflects different kind of preferences, fantasies and play.
And I can imagine that there are people who are spankos (at least I wouldn’t want to say that they aren’t allowed to call themselves real spankos in this case), but are only into light play where the pain is so low that they can enjoy the spanking and the light pain itself. Maybe these people really can’t understand the “sometimes spankings just hurt” part?! And others who always play very hard might say that they hate being spanked because the positive outcome for them doesn’t come from the spanking itself but from the fantasy, the aftermath or whatever. I understand that you were talking about people who pretend not to get anything out of it whatsoever. Of course I agree with you that this is very strange and that they shouldn’t do it then! What I just wanted to point out is that to my mind most people don’t mean it that way and that they refer only to their different preferences and fantasies when they insist on loving or hating to be spanked (when for example asked about it at a party like you’ve described). I’ve never met anyone who pretended to get absolutely nothing out of it so far. But obviously you did and I agree with you that those people should ask themselves why they are doing it then!
Hmm, I hope that made my point a bit clearer? These kinds of discussions are really difficult in a foreign language…
Kaelah my dear,
Hrm. Not really clearer, more muddy actually! I’m wondering if we are meaning such different things by one word or another that we’ll never get this sorted out — particularly since I can’t figure out which words are actually the ones causing the problem!
The people who play so lightly that they never really feel spanking as “pain” in my experience usually call themselves “adventurous,” whilst still identifying as vanilla (or just “not kinky, really”). I have nothing against them (a nice gentle spank now and again is a lovely thing) and I personally see no reason not to include them as spankos — it is usually they themselves who don’t join our camp. I wouldn’t go so far as to lump them in with masochists, of course, as they aren’t actually playing around with pain, per se!
I’m not sure what they have to do with things, however, because I’ve never met any of them at a spanking party, nor seen any who have blogs — usually because, as I say, they don’t tend to self-identify as spankos. At any rate, the people who only go in for the love-taps are the last people I’d expect to say “hate” spanking, because in their experience spankings are lovely sensual things which would inspire no negative emotion. They might say they don’t like hard spanking, but that is a really a very different thing from saying they don’t like spanking, period!
On the other hand are the extreme players you mention next. But if nothing comes from the spanking itself for them … well, in my experience people don’t tend to include in their play things that do nothing for them!
Take for instance my friend Kaya (), who will tell you straight up she isn’t a masochist. She means by that that she doesn’t enjoy even a moment of pain during play. But she will also quite readily tell you that she needs her Master S to do those things to her — and if you read her blog, she gets quite antsy when he isn’t beating her regularly.
And I’ll tell you readily enough that I myself don’t like being paddled — I have never had the paddle strike me and feel less than miserable agony. However, I will actually say I have a love/hate relationship with the damned paddle, because even though it’s an awful thing that I hate, it’s because it is the awful thing that I hate that I acutally fantasize about it.
If the experience of being paddled didn’t get me something, anything, you can bet your popo that I’d not be having paddling in my life!!!
This is where the crux of our misunderstanding seems to be. I honestly don’t think that there are people who engage in spanking or other forms of masochism for whom that pain is not a vital element in getting where they need to go. I’ve known some people in the BDSM and fetish scenes who honest to goodness don’t get anything from pain — so they find forms of play that don’t involve pain at all, like “service submissives” who clean houses and get off one being ordered around and doing manual labour (I wish there were more of these people, and they’d come clean my house!) or people who just do bondage, or just dress up in latex, or any of an infinite variety of kinky things.
If I am right, then people who engage in spanking always do get something out of it.
Even if it is “just the fantasy,” well, they have the fantasy beforehand and get off from it. Then they live through it and suffer and get it done with, no pleasure involved. But then, afterwards, they replay it and get off on it in memory. To me, that IS getting something from spanking, and still falls under the “love/hate” category.
Even if it is “just the aftermath” — be it the rush of endorphins, or the feeling of survival, or whatever it is … well, that STILL IS getting something from spanking, and still falls under the “love/hate” category.
Mind you, I don’t insist that these people exemplified above actually have to call themselves masochists — they can call themselves snufulupuguses (snufulupugii?) for all I care. I don’t insist that anyone call themselves anything.
But I will still mentally include them with masochists simply in that there is something they get from pain that is just as vital as what someone who can orgasm from pain gets. (It’s just much less quantifiable and easy to see.)
Now, we’ve gotten really off track from my original point, which was that there are people in the spanko scene who make statements about “hating” spanking. In every single case I can think of, those people do actually get something from spanking, and none of them are the “fluffy bunny” types, nor are they the really hardcore sort either. They simply are alienated from the idea that they do actually get something from spanking, probably because the term “masochist” has been hijacked to mean something other than it originally did, and they are trying to make themselves stand out from the people who happily call themselves masochists, because they really think they are different. But we are all spankos, and that means we all have a commonality which is we need spanking in our lives. That in no way negates our myriad variations. And nor does asking people to drop the fantasy that they get nothing from spanking when not in a scene in any way impose anything unreasonable on them. It just says we’re all at the same starting point — where anyone goes from there is up to them!
In far more exciting news, did you know that Klingon opera is no being performed on our planet?! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/10/the_first_all_klingon_opera_on_earth/
“Because we realize that we get something out of it which we could not get WITHOUT the spanking.”
Hmmm. Answering the question of exactly what this is could be a whole blog post. I shall take it away and chew on it, as I haven’t blogged in about 8 million years. I expect the answer will boil down to “any number of things” or something like that but it’ll be fun to write.
Hmm, Zille,
this indeed seems to be a difficult topic. I actually think our opinions aren’t very different. I was just asking myself some further questions. Maybe that made it look like I had a very different point of view. But I just wanted to figure out whether there are really so many strange people out there who are in our scene, but believe that they don’t get anything out of being spanked, or whether there could be other reasons for people to say that they just love or just hate being spanked. I wanted to figure out
1. whether it could be possible that anyone who is a spanko really has a pure “love relationship” or “hate relationship” with spanking and
2. whether, even if 1 weren’t possible, a comment like “I absolutely love / hate being spanked” could mean something else than “I don’t want to admit that it hurts / I get anything out of it”
That was the basic idea for my comment.
When I wrote about the people who don’t get anything out of the spanking itself, but like the fantasy, aftermath and so on, I meant of course that they can’t really hate the whole thing. I’m totally with you concerning that point. So, my idea was, that some of them might say that they hate being spanked when you ask them, because they’re just talking about the pain, but when you ask further they’re going to tell you that the don’t like being spanked, but they like the aftermath or whatever. The question behind it was: Could it be that one just has to ask twice or just more exactly to make these people admit that they actually have a love/hate relationship with spanking? Is it just about semantics? I just hoped that this might explain at least some of the “I really hate being spanked” comments made at parties… But obviously with some of the people you met it is different and they pretend not to get anything out of it, even if one asks further. And I’m totally with you here, that can’t be true, because if they really got nothing out of it, they wouldn’t play at all.
I’m really curious, Zille, are there many people out there who completely deny that they get anything out of being spanked? I haven’t ever read a blog of someone like that and, since I haven’t been to many parties, I also never met someone who pretended not to get anything out of it.
And concerning those who are only into light play: I didn’t mean that these people pretend to hate spanking! I was just thinking about the other faction, the ones who say that they just love to be spanked. I was asking myself: Couldn’t it be that there are people who play in a range (for me this could also be medium-hard play, because often I enjoy the pain then, too) that allows them to have a pure “love relationship” with spanking and doesn’t go to a point where it turns into the mixture of love and hatred? Could that explain some of the “I really love being spanked” comments?
So, in conclusion, my result was:
1. I think that it is at least theoretically possible to meet someone who pretends not to have a love/hate-relationship with spanking because he or she plays in a range where the pain is still not so bad that it feels just awful. So, I can imagine that there might be people in our scene who have a pure “love relationship” with spanking. What I can’t understand, though, are people who pretend to hate being spanked and to get absolutely nothing out of it, because like you said, they must have at least a love/hate relationship with spanking, otherwise they wouldn’t do it. So, I can’t imagine that there are people in our scene who have a pure “hate relationship” with spanking.
2. So, I could just explain some of the “I hate being spanked” comments with semantics which means that someone is just talking about the pain and not about the spanking as a whole. But then asking more precisely should make these people admit that they get something out of it, otherwise they are obviously lying to themselves.
Hmm, if this still doesn’t make any sense to you, let me assure you that my point of view isn’t completely contrary to yours, but that we’re obviously thinking about different aspects of the topic and the thoughts don’t seem to fit together.
Oh, and I didn’t know about the Klingon opera, thanks for mentioning it!
AHHH! Okay, Kaelah, now I totally get where you are coming from! (And about time, too, as we have now both written a novel each about this topic!) [grins]
Yes, there are very strange people in our scene! But, most people, no matter how weird, do actually fall on either the “I love spanking,” or “I love/hate spanking” side of the spectrum. I don’t think I have actually bumped across anyone who really says and means they hate spanking — the closest I’ve found was some somewhat self-deluded DD-types who like to tell themselves they only do *anything* because it’s what their HOH wants them to do. We can safely leave them aside, because they are actually living in their own fantasy world and won’t come out of it no matter what logic and reason is presented to them.
The people I refer to in the original post are people whom, I think, really are the “love/hate” types. But, as you point out, we have a real problem with the semantics of this whole mess, and so these people tend to have this attitude of, “Oh no! Don’t spank me! I just hate it when that happens!” all the time.
I think this is for two reasons. The first is that “not liking spanking” is good during a scene, whether you are pretending for the sake of the storyline or whether you are actually being punished and not enjoying a moment of it. And these women (they all tend to be women, in my experience) just carry that out into the rest of their interactions, even be they standing around at a spanking party casually talking with people.
The second reason is tied in with the problem of the idea of masochism being one certain thing (the ability to get actual pleasure from pain in the moment) and not a wide range of things (including going into a spanking knowing that you will only suffer, but that the net yield will include satisfaction.) I think if it was clear that masochism included the latter, more people would not feel the need to set themselves apart by saying they “hate” spanking.
So I think that by misusing the idea that they “hate” spanking, the people who say such things either are just basically remaining in a role-play scenario all the time, or are just trying to explain that for them, spanking only ever hurts, despite the fact that they need it.
And because the issue is merely a problem of semantics, that’s why I was making an appeal that we change the semantics. Because I don’t and can’t live in the role-play place 24/7 — it makes it hard to talk openly and honestly about spanking when you are pretending it’s awful and you hate it, and anyway, my role-play games don’t always include hating spanking! In fact, most spankos I know include different styles and types of play within their lives, so having their ability to discuss and share their likes and experiences limited by the fact that some people want to live in a very exclusive role-play world is not a good thing.
And, it is the thing which confused me when I first got into the spanking world, and came across it!
I wonder if it is a very American thing, and if possibly you just haven’t even seen any of it in action. If you haven’t, of course my post would have made no sense to you. And I can assure you you haven’t missed anything!
It’s really a very superficial thing more of an overlying attitude, which, if you questioned deeper, would most likely lead you to find the “love-hate” truth underlying it. But, having come from a world in which the attitude towards pain was that was wonderful and every masochist should enjoy every minute of it, to enter a world with such a different attitude confused me. But I have found that the people who I’ve made friends with, who are honest with themselves and others, do readily accept the “love/hate” thing. So I was just railing against that overlying attitude, and asking people to examine themselves so that they can be more comfortable living with the underlying truths, whatever they discover those truths to be!
Caroline wrote: “Answering the question of exactly what this is could be a whole blog post. I shall take it away and chew on it, as I haven’t blogged in about 8 million years. I expect the answer will boil down to “any number of things” or something like that but it’ll be fun to write.”
Caroline — Yes, these are meaty things that require a lot of mental mastication! I hope you have fun writing about it, and I know I’ll have fun reading it!
Phew, I’m glad that I obviously finally managed to express myself in a less confusing way!
Hmm, I’m not sure whether the “I really hate spanking” thing is a typical American problem. It could be, but maybe I just haven’t met any people who belong to that faction, yet, because I’m usually only communicating with bloggers and blog readers and have only been at one party so far…
Zille
This is one reason that I’ll do no more than admit to liking pain. A good friend of mine who is also a licensed hypnotherapist explained to me the concept of inversion. He said for a segment of society, some where between the infliction of pain and the brain it turns into pleasure.
So, with this in mind it’s totally possible to hate spankings, but adore the end result. This of course is just MHO, and as such is subject to decenting opinion!
Built2please — Yes, I agree it’s “it’s totally possible to hate spankings, but adore the end result.”
The thing is … to get to the end result, you need to go through the spanking. To my mind, the definition of a masochist is someone who *needs* pain, not necessarily *likes* pain. Since you need the pain to get to the end result (be that endorphins, emotional state, bruising, etc.) I would say that anyone who desires getting to that end state is indeed a masochist.
I’m not saying anyone has to use a label that doesn’t seem to fit their own special selves, but it *would* help if we could all agree on some basic terminology! And it seems a nice thing that people could reclaim “masochist” if they wanted to, and not think they had to actually *like* pain to do so!
I totally agree with you on the label front. It’s all good and well that the BDSM community isn’t really into labels, but it would make basic understanding amongst ourselves much more easy.
Zille,
First of all, this has been one of the most insightful forum threads I’ve had the privilege to peruse, and I’d like to show some appreciation to you and all of the other contributors. I must agree that this is a matter of semantics, and at least by my (newly formed) definition; when feeling pain is a catalyst in a person’s erotically fulfilling experience, it is an act of masochism. As I was reading the argument for a sub’s distinction from masochism, and how it’s based on feeding off of the subjugation rather than the pain itself, I kept being reminded of a scenario in a Northern Spanking/Shadowlane colabo flick called London Derrieres. Specifically, there’s a scene where two poor girls are being punished with spankings at first, and then tickling, switching back and forth for what seems like forever. This creates an interesting and relevant contrast, as the girls are switching between two completely different somatic responses, one being pain, and the other being… whatever that overwhelming feeling that come from inescapable tickling is (another great topic for semantics). Point is, a bottom is being subjected to something other than pain, in the same context as receiving a spanking, and while having a similar reaction, there is a clear distinction between the two. Seems like an ‘exception that proves the rule’ of sorts, IMHO.
“In the BDSM world, that’s a huge no-no. The goal is to alchemically transform the raw stuff of pain into shimmering golden threads of pleasure – and if you don’t, the bottom feels inferior and the Top feels they have failed their bottom, and everyone goes home unhappy.”
I have to say, this couldn’t be further from my experience, and I think honestly a little to black and white to be accurate.
In my experience there is no expectation at all for one to “enjoy” pain, if one is submissive rather than masochistic. At least not for pain’s sake. My personal kink is from taking pain that I don’t enjoy because it pleases my Master, which makes me super happy. I think the reason that it feels so amazing to submit is because it’s really hard, but also because I don’t get a choice; what he wants is what I want when we’re in a scene. Regardless of how hard/nasty/difficult that is for me. Yes it hurts, sometimes it really, really hurts. But they joy of taking it for him is what makes it pleasurable.
Maybe the confusion here comes between different categories. Submissive, bottom and masochist quite possibly all look the same from the outside. It’s what’s going on in your head that makes the difference. The “I hate being spanked (oh no don’t stop)” thing is something that I would more typically associate with bottoms rather than submissive. That said, it’s not like that I haven’t found myself doing it playfully- though it’s something I find myself somewhat ashamed of- it seems a little silly to me.