Anger, fear and pain
2010 26 Dec
I like pain. I like submission. What do these things actually mean, though? I don’t like it when I stub my toe, for example, and there are quite a lot of authoritarian situations I don’t like either. My emotional reactions, in particular, can get really complicated. So I need more precise words than “I like pain” and “I like submission.”
This is not a new problem, and around the BDSM subculture there are more precise terms that are frequently used. But when I was first exploring BDSM and didn’t yet have access to the community, I started coming up with my own vocabulary for what I liked and what I didn’t like. The primary words I came up with — words that I still use a lot in my own head, and that I sometimes try to explain to my partners — were “clean” pain and “dirty” pain.
I think of some pain as “clean” because even if it’s intense, I usually … like it. (For lack of a better word.) This is the kind of pain I fantasize about when I’m really craving BDSM. There are certain places on my body that take pain more cleanly — my upper arms, most of my back, my thighs. There are certain types of pain that are inherently more clean — needles come to mind. Wide, deep, blunt bites are good too. Heavy whips made of weighty materials, like suede. Pulling my hair right above the nape of my neck.
On the other hand, I think of some pain as “dirty” because it’s … harder to take. I don’t think of it as dirty because I see it as scandalous or perverse — rather, dirty pain is complex and hard to process. I never fantasize about it. Pain where my bones are close to the surface of my skin, like my collarbone, is dirty. Pain on top of scars is dirty. Pinches and small, narrow bites are dirty. Pulling my hair anywhere besides the nape of my neck is dirty. Electric shocks are extremely dirty.
But this whole “clean” and “dirty” thing, it doesn’t make any sense outside my own body, my own head. It’s hard to explain it. It helps that the BDSM community tends to frame pain in terms of techniques and less-subjective adjectives, using words like “sharp” or “sting” or “thud”. (A lot of people think of “sharp” and “sting” as the same sensation. I usually separate them a bit more, but I’m not sure how many other people separate them.)
Franklin Veaux defines “thud” as “sensation of heavy, dull impact” and defines “sting” as “sensation of quick, sharp pain”. These words are most often applied to floggers (implements for hitting people, e.g.: “this is a thuddy flogger”), but sometimes the words are used for other things too. I’ve found that I generally prefer thuddy-type pain, for example, but it took me a long time to figure that out, because there are so many specific sharp sensations that I love.
Okay. Now for emotions. This is the really hard part.
A while back I got an anonymous comment on my coming-out story that I absolutely love. Here’s a quotation from the comment:
When it came to it, very little about the reality [of BDSM] matched my fantasies. Oh, sometimes what we did matched the way a real-life even can match a fantasy. There were moments that were … Transcendental.
But there were many more moments that … were deeply, deeply conflicted. I NEVER expected to feel that much … anger … toward someone dominating me and inflicting pain. I expected it to be a relief. I didn’t expect to wrestle with hatred.
He liked to slap my face. Everytime he did it I would feel this burst of pure hatred. At one point he asked if I liked it. I said, “No. I hate it. But I don’t want you to stop doing it.”
I can’t remember right now if any other “coming out” story I’ve ever read included such a visceral description of anger. Of course, I think the last time I read one I hadn’t experienced it myself. Maybe I never noticed it before, but noticed it this time because it resonated with me. But mostly I remember those stories mentioning fear, shame, worry, and embarrassment.
The events in my coming-out story took place years ago, and my feelings about BDSM are really different now. I remember that I was conflicted, furious, resentful. But at the same time, I have often thought that much of my anger and resentment was due to the fact that Richard — my first intense BDSM partner — was not emotionally available. I needed support that he didn’t give me. (To some extent because neither he nor I recognized how much support I needed.) And, of course, much of that anger was due to the fact that I couldn’t deal with BDSM. That I was fighting back against, was unable to take ownership of my sexuality.
As I settled my feelings, reconciled myself to my sexual identity — my emotional reactions became a whole different ball game. (It helped that I dated a string of men who were more emotionally available and assisted me with emotional processing, too.) It turned out that the rage that I had suspected was inextricable from BDSM was, in fact, entirely possible to separate. I entered a stage where I learned how to avoid that anger. To work around it. I learned to sink myself into fear and desperation, which I love, and which are easier to work with.
I experimented with different types of submissive play. One thing I’ve learned is that it’s almost impossible for me to feel submissive unless someone hurts me. (There have been exceptions, but they were definitely exceptional.) The BDSM community has lots of jargon for interpersonal emotional encounters, but those words usually describe actions or scenarios rather than feelings, like “public humiliation” or “domestic servitude” or “sexual slavery”. So I had to learn which emotions are associated with which actions, and that’s complicated too, though some things are just obvious. Some people really get off on public humiliation, for example, but that’s a strong and instinctive limit for me because it makes me extraordinarily angry. (There have been exceptions, but they were definitely exceptional.)
I got better at calling out my safeword when I had to. Yes, I think it’s hard to use a safeword, especially when you’re new … for all kinds of reasons: you don’t want to disappoint your partner, and sometimes it’s hard to realize that you need to safeword, because it’s very difficult to keep track of how you’re feeling in the moment …. But I also think that calling a safeword when you need to stop is a skill that you can get better at, much like other kinds of boundary-setting. So I became fairly practiced at calling my safeword when I needed to. If I started feeling very angry, I got good at halting the encounter, or shifting the emphasis to something else instead.
As I gained a more precise understanding of my physical reactions — clean pain and dirty pain — I figured out that there are differences in emotional reactions, too. Loosely speaking: clean pain makes me feel afraid and submissive, whereas dirty pain makes me mad. (Though this isn’t always true. I hate spanking, for example; it irritates me; but it’s pretty clean pain. And it might be worth noting how much I hate tickling … but that doesn’t hurt.)
If the dirty pain is hard or unexpected enough, I can’t seem to control lashing out. I fight back without even thinking about it (which often functions just fine as a way of renegotiating the encounter, in itself, without safewording). If it’s mild? I just get annoyed. But if it’s intense … I don’t just struggle, I attack. I leave marks on my partners.
I learned to avoid dirty pain, usually. I learned to circumvent anger, usually. I had once seen anger, and dirty pain, as maybe being an unavoidable cost of BDSM. I once suspected that I might never be able to have a BDSM relationship where I didn’t feel anger, where I didn’t feel pain that I didn’t want. I was wrong. Those things aren’t unavoidable costs. They can be worked around.
But now …. Yes, now! We’ve reached the part of the entry where Clarisse makes statements about her current self and potential future actions that may or may not be true and should be treated with caution, because she is an evolving and complicated human …!
Now that I’ve built up all these frameworks, I’ve had a few encounters lately where I felt … a lot of anger. Sometimes connected to dirty pain; sometimes not. And I didn’t stop. I watched how I was feeling and I dealt with it while it was happening, and it was … worth watching. It was hard to take, oh, it was so hard to take. But it was also intense and fascinating.
I’ve heard from a few other BDSM submissives that they like feeling anger during their encounters, that they need anger in order to get where they want to go.
If I follow the thread of anger, now ….
Where will it take me?
(If any other submissives/switches are reading this, I’d love to hear about how you process anger, and whether you developed words for pain before encountering the larger BDSM subculture.)
Tags: BDSM, communication, community, evolution, preferences, storytime
Magnificent post.
I can certainly understand your distinction between clean and dirty pain, and the idea of have subjective and personal definitions of experiences before discovering that there are actual words available to describe them! The divide between ‘clean, intense, but easy to process’ and ‘dirty, difficult to process, impure’ I think can also be widened to more experiences than just pain. For example, when anger gets muddled up with submission, this is a dirty experience, hard to process and therefore distasteful, in my (limited, I’ll willingly admit) experience. Either on its own is ‘clean’, and therefore much easier to handle, even if it is not always exactly pleasant. I would probably prefer to think of ‘pure’ and ‘impure’ sensations and experiences in some cases, rather than ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’, though all four are definitions I have used myself, not just in the context of BDSM, but in most spheres of life.
As for my personal definitions of pain, I would probably use the words ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ if I was pressed into using words. For me pain that is worked up to, and administered in certain places is warm, whereas pain I am not ready for, or in places, as you said, such as the collarbone, is cold. As to how I’ve understood your definitions, cold is always dirty, but warm is not necessarily clean.
Excellent post!
I don’t really talk to a lot of people about my love of submission. It’s implied sometimes. I’m a very open person and people close to me know I have an interest in sexual writing/ sex culture, I’ve talked a lot about sex positivity with people in my life. However actually explaining what I like, I almost never try,and I think it’s less about it being too personal as me feeling I can’t explain it.
Thank you for your post, it resonates with a lot of my thoughts about pain. If I say “I like pain” I feel dishonest. Because there is a lot of pain I don’t like and avoid at any cost. A lot of this is new to me, I broke up with a very long term vanilla partner just over a year ago and although it was emotionally awful at the time it has left me free to explore parts of myself that I could before. I’m still separating what I want from what I think I want. Any time I have tried to talk about it with people I feel like they try to use a BDSM rhetoric that simplifies things into Dominant and Submissive. I’m submissive so I must like dot dot dot. When of course it’s much more personal then that.
@ J – I know what you mean. Even though the BDSM community – I mean the online community, as I haven’t had any experience with the RL one – casn be useful and informative, there does tend to be some, “You’re a Dominant, therefore x, you’re a subbie, therefore y.” I think sometimes it’s best to step back from that and think about it on a more subjective level. If you must have a label, find a label that fits you, not the other way around … If you’re having trouble explaining what you like, maybe try keeping a diary, sort of explain it to yourself in subjective language before you explain it to others?
@Romantic Dominant — Thank you. Was there anything you particularly liked?
@J and Ruth_Remains — I agree that there’s sometimes pressure in the BDSM community to act a certain way because that’s seen as submissive. I hate that. I think it can take a very long time to think one’s way around those assumptions. It always makes me angry when I encounter people who insist that being dominant or submissive automatically implies certain behaviors.
I like the journal idea! If there’s a community in your area, there may also be a submissive meetup group where you can meet and exchange ideas about how submission feels for each of you. Or you could start one ;).
I’ll be following to hear how you deal with and process that anger…. very interesting!
This is a lovely post, Clarisse, and it echoes something I have been thinking about a bit. I keep coming back to the idea that a recurring theme within BDSM–across all the many sub-genres of that acronym–is to eroticize mental dissonance as a part of sexuality. And I think that this is one of the wider gulfs between BDSM-as-such and the rest of the sexual landscape.
Pain is part of that: it hurts but you like it. “Liking” humiliation and anger are similar, as are the emotional states we suggest awkwardly with phrases like “I hate it, but I don’t want it to stop.” And I think this is true for dom(me)s as well, when I hear sentiments like “she cried so prettily” and the like.
The rest of the world tends to prefer their sex to be emotionally unambiguous. Everyone is supposed to crave every aspect of every moment of the interaction. And I think that is a very tricky divide to explain across.
This was really interesting. I also get angry when someone I’m playing with does something painful that I don’t like. (In my case, it’s pinching more than anything else. Ugh.) Within that, though, there’s good anger and bad anger, and that has to do with how well I know and trust the person, and what I perceive their intentions to be.
Usually, if it’s someone that I know pretty well, I can take on faith that the person is pinching me (for instance) because she wants to piss me off, or wants the dislike to be part of the emotional journey of the scene, or just wants me to know that she’s calling the shots. Then I feel complicit in it. I can also trust that it’s going to be followed by things that I do like, at least intermittently. I can scowl, I can curse elaborately, and I can feel legitimately angry, but I also know that I’m being taken care of, so it ultimately translates into a good feeling.
When I don’t know the other person as well, or if I’m just getting a sense (correctly or not) that she isn’t quite tuned in to what’s going on, I get bad angry. I start to wonder if the person is paying attention, if (in public) she’s just showing off, and if she listened to, or made an effort to remember my likes, dislikes, and boundaries. I start to feel like a prop. I start to feel foolish and unsafe. I get furious. I freeze up, stop enjoying myself, have to stop.
I haven’t done much dealing with the second reaction, except to restrict the pool of people that I’m okay playing with. It’s been working out for me, for now. Thanks for the entry!
I like it because
a) it is intelligent and lucidly written
b) the concept of clean and dirty pain is immensely interesting
c) it illuminates your thoughts perfectly
@Orlando — That’s an interesting idea about erotic dissonance.
The rest of the world tends to prefer their sex to be emotionally unambiguous. Everyone is supposed to crave every aspect of every moment of the interaction.
Hmm. But there are all kinds of tropes about mixed feelings, aren’t there? I would also say that I myself have pretty un-mixed feelings about many aspects of BDSM ….
@Susan — Wow, that’s a really great breakdown in terms of the intentions behind the anger. Thanks — it clarifies some things for me.
@Romantic Dominant — Thank you. From what I can tell you’re pretty much 100% a dominant/sadist. Is it sometimes hard for you to relate to how your partners process things?
I think we all have problems with how our partners process things. I believe I am sensitive – and have good emotional intelligence – but you would have to ask Jenny
I’m replying to this late, because it really struck a chord with me — in fact, I’ll probably link it over to my boyfriend and dominant play partner, because we’ve been trying to untangle particularly what it is that leads to me safewording right in the middle of some scenes that up until then were really promising. Which, I’m bad at that, I’ll usually spend about 5 minutes less-responsive and considering it before I’ll say it, and sometimes I call a pause that ends up needing to be a stop.
What happens to me is there are a lot of situations that sound hot on paper, and then when I get into them — anything with wrestling/takedowns is a huge victim of this — I end up feeling trapped and cornered and scared and angry and that’s usually right about where we stop and cuddle and move on to television or something more vanilla.
This dynamic is new for me, because I entered the BDSM subculture headfirst and spent a wonderful summer at the dungeon nearly every week, playing with a group of friends. The play was very focused on D/S, bondage, and pain, and didn’t get as much into the mindfuck stuff or the sex. Also, all of the play was with women, which I wish didn’t matter as much as it does to me.
However, I’m now in a relationship with this man, and have the space to try some of my edgier fantasies — plus, he’s into the violence (distinct from dominance) and headgames too. And so now I’m tripping over the stumbling blocks in the vast wasteland of my subconscious and trying to figure out what, in practice, works and what doesn’t. Maybe I’ll try categorizing things, and we can discuss those in pursuit of greater awesome and fun.
Anonymouse, I have no problem with late comments — welcome! And indeed, thank you, because you’ve articulated something that I frequently have a problem with too:
Which, I’m bad at that, I’ll usually spend about 5 minutes less-responsive and considering it before I’ll say it, and sometimes I call a pause that ends up needing to be a stop.
I’ve gotten better at safewording, but the “knowing when to yellow” thing is still hard, and it’s so nice to know I’m not the only one. I mean, intellectually I already knew that, but it’s nice to get some more backup. Out of curiosity — are you using the “stoplight system” (red, yellow, green)? I described it in my safewords post.
We are. I’ve had “yellow” work best when there was a physical thing that was not quite right (bondage pinching in bad ways or something becoming too much to handle without screaming — damn the neighbors), or a clarification of a negotiation point was needed. For emotional stuff, it doesn’t help much at all. What usually happens is either a “yellow” that becomes a stop or a “red”, and then skip straight to aftercare and usually some nice sex afterwards. I feel so bad to have stopped the fun, though.
I’m not sure if getting to yellow faster would help me, or if there’s other stuff — maybe it would be good to yellow as soon as my brain starts spiraling down the safeword track.
I did some more navel-gazing last night, and I think I’m conflicted about my reactions to humiliation, fighting, and headgames, kind of like you were describing in your coming out post, just over different subsets of BDSM. I think what I might try is to back things way the hell up, and to try to re-separate out the acronym, because as there are more scenes that end up with me safewording, I get more anxious about play, which makes it harder to get into the space I need to be, so I safeword more…etc. And it’s not my partner’s fault, he’s a very caring, emotionally supportive, wonderful person, it’s just this kink thing is sometimes hard to muddle through.
Food for thought.
Anger has differing effects depending on the situation I am in at the time.
The “I want to whack you right back” feeling:
If I am teaching impact play, for example, I am mindful to stop before the top land one too many an awkward blow. A subjective reason may be instinctive self-preservation; at the time I could easily spin on a dime and relieve my student of the implement and wrap it around his own arse.
The same occurs in play/scenes with tops who do not seem to ‘connect’ with me or my reactions. It does have a lot to do with the top’s experience, expertise and attention as well as my mood and ability to process whatever pain is being applied. Stingy pain is harder to process for me for example so if the top is not experienced and listening to my voice and body, then I get angry very quickly. And I am sure that part of my getting angry is my personality and character; assertive, confident etc. Another aspect is definitely my confidence in their skills, their knowledge of me in play and as a person, and my level of trust in them. And then there are tops with whom I play simply for a bit of sensory fun, and others who get right inside my head. If the former venture outside ‘sensory fun’ then I am very likely to spit fire at them – and deservedly so because I choose my tops based on my needs; attempts at domination are not part of the deal. But the latter… that’s entirely different story.
Getting inside my head:
If a top has ability to get inside my head then anger is a sweet, sweet thing.
There is nothing better than a capable top finding and pressing my buttons. That’s because I am a very dominant woman outside of power exchange. I enjoy being challenged; being taken down a peg or two; and it takes the Dominant’s intelligence and will to get past the obstinate bits. My anger in these instances is like a flame being suddenly fueled by accelerant. I tend to become stubborn and attempt to wrest back a modicum of control in these instances. If the top handles it correctly then it unlocks doors.
But there is one other type of anger for me; the anger that is my key to submission.
No quarter:
Frustration builds to anger that is pure as the fire of Hell’s furnaces. It involves the unwavering, unforgiving control that compels me to surrender power. It is visceral and primitive. It is often a form of emotional masochism in which I have the need to feel every psychological cut and nuance. This is where the dichotomy enters. I am not one to enjoy pain for pain’s sake because for me it is about using pain to provide that contrast with pleasure. But just as one might seek that fine line between pleasure and pain, I find my nirvana in TPE with a caring sadist; someone I fear; someone who will quite happily both love and hurt me to my limit; someone who will take pleasure at my internal struggle and give me no psychological quarter.
The angrier I get in these circumstances, the deeper my submission when it comes…
Physical pain and emotional anguish is the road. Submission the destination. For me, anger is the vehicle and fear quite happily comes for the ride.
Thank you for the post.
Catherine
Catherine, thanks for the thoughtful comment.
I am astoundingly late to find this post, and I’m not sure how I missed it before, but I just have to comment because I recently started thinking over a lot of this.
I’ve been realizing lately that sometimes there are very intense limits to pain I can take, and sometimes there are barely any, but I have a hard time safewording because I want to be in the “no-or-very-few limits” zone. I’m working on it, but it’s still hard because of the whole not wanting to disappoint my partner thing. Currently, because I have a very hard time talking during a scene (see: the floaty sensation of subspace), I’ve taken to asking for a pen and paper and writing what I need to say. But this is separate from what I want to comment about in this post.
Anger has developed into the most fascinating emotion to me during a scene, other than that of complete acceptance. I know those are opposites, and maybe that’s why I’m so fascinated with them both. For me, there are two types of anger that I can experience: the interesting “good” kind and the scary “bad” kind.
The bad kind happens in situations where I should have safeworded but either didn’t or couldn’t. I’ve experienced the peak of how bad it can get once, and I never want to again. I had tried to communicate (via body language and sounds) that I needed things to stop, but my “partner” just laughed. I went into a temper that I don’t get often, and as you so aptly worded it, attacked. Left marks. It was very animalistic, and left me feeling shaken, vulnerable, defensive, and worn out. It was scary, and I hope it never happens again. The only other remnants of bad anger that still happen aren’t really true anger, but more annoyances that I could fix if I just talked about it.
Then there’s good anger, though, which I’ve recently experienced and liked. It tends to occur in situations where I definitely do like what’s happening, and would not safeword, but the intensity of the experiences sets something off. It’s a sort of anger coupled with fear. I feel like the prey facing a predator, and my fight or flight urges come to the forefront. I have an overwhelming craving to fight my partner, physically, and sometimes do. It’s not that I really want to win, or get away, or hurt them, just that I have the urge to feel that moment. It ties, I suppose, into possibly rape fantasies (a whole other complicated can of worms), and a desire to exhibit my strength but ultimately give in to the other person. I really love this anger and these sensations. I like when my thoughts stop and my instincts take over and I thrash, because then the top really shows me their power, so to speak. They can really put me in my place because I’ve tried to get back at them and lost.
It’s complicated though, because where is the line between the two? The separator, I would say, is communication, a close relationship, respecting actual limits, and knowing that even when they “put me in my place” it isn’t with any sense of actual cruelty, but with an mutual participation in the scene or dynamics.
I’m not sure if any of that makes sense, but the discussion around this topic is so fascinating.
That sounds interesting. I still don’t have such a clear breakdown of anger during S&M myself — it’s something to think about.