30 Days of Submission – Day 29: Pain and Humiliation

Is pain or humiliation (spankings for example) a part of your submission? What is your relationship to it? Do you embrace it as a part of your submission, tolerate it as necessary or have some other type of relationship with it?

There is this common misconception that dominance and submission is all about sadism and masochism. Whenever you see a depiction of BDSM or D/s in movies or the media, it is all about the whips. the leather and the chains. So when I agreed to a D/s connection for the first time, that was what I expected too. And it is not like my real life experiences had taught me anything different. The kink events and dungeons I was at during the 90s, were all about sadism and masochism. As an outsider, that is what you see it as: a connection that is about pleasure from pain. But once you get to talk to people about their relationships and kinks, you realize that that is just a stereotype!

BDSM and D/s are first and foremost about control and a power exchange. Might it be that you are submissive or dominant, top or bottom. In some way or another, the balance is not one of equal power. The power exchange doesn’t need to be necessarily sexual. You can derive pleasure of the mind from being submissive and obedient, same as you can be one with yourself when you are in control of another person and they obey to your commands. There are many different ways in which a power exchange can work without any sexual connotations at all.

I realized that when I began dating my current Master. The first things we did with each other, even if sexual, had nothing to do with sadism and masochism. They were all about control. He calls me his puppet which sort of is a reflection of that: he has total control over me (well, in the best of worlds, that is. If you’d ask him, he’d roll his eyes and laugh). It was the first experience of the power exchange that was so very overwhelming beautiful to me. I could suddenly let go, I could float, and feel safe. I was more myself than I had ever been. That specific experience with submission was not about sex, or pain, or humiliation. It was about connection.

I do think that pain and humiliation play a huge part in many D/s dynamics because of two factors: the need for punishment to reinforce the power exchange, and the sexual aspect. However strongly you feel that you are a submissive, you will eventually mess up. For me, as a brat, that is pretty much an every day thing. It is part of who I am. I try to push. And yes, I get punished. And I need that sort of punishment to be reminded of my role. I don’t love it. But I appreciate it. I think a D/s dynamic without a certain threat of punishment is rare. And it does reinforce the roles and the power exchange: As a submissive you respect the dynamics and take what is administered, and as a Dominant, you show your dominance and your commitment to the connection.

Most punishment is in some way or another about pain or humiliation. Those are the things that most people abhor, and they very often bring the point across pretty well. A spanking, a caning, a few minutes standing naked in the corner or being forced to write the same thing over and over. Pain and humiliation are tools to re-establish the roles in the dynamic. It is of course important that all this happens with consent from all parties involved, because otherwise it would be abuse.

And not every submissive enjoys receiving punishment. But they take the pain or the humiliation because they consented to being shown their place when they have failed in their role. The same can be said about Dominants, really. Not all Dominants enjoy having to punish someone, they’d rather have obedience without all that fuzz. But without strictness and discipline, a D/s dynamics is difficult to uphold. Soft Dominants are of course more prone to a caring and tender approach, and they might not go to the lengths a Disciplinarian would go to.

I get punished quite a lot. But it is often playful punishment for my playful brattiness. Which brings me to the second role that pain and humiliation can have: it can be sexual. As I said before, not everyone in D/s or BDSM connections are masochists or sadists. So pain never becomes the pleasurable sexual experience for them. Instead, it becomes a necessary evil in the toolbox to main the D/s dynamic.

For me personally though, pain and humiliation are sexual and my biggest kinks. You could say that that sort of makes me more of a stereotypical submissive. But it is important to mention that I only enjoy those in combination with a power exchange. I want to be the one being controlled, hurt, humiliated and used, because my Dominant chooses to do so. I wouldn’t want to be a bottom topping to get my needs met. So while those are my kinks, they don’t really stand alone. On the other hand, pain being administered to you, and being humiliated, both already put you in a sort of submissive or powerless position anyway.

So I am a masochist and a degradee, and it is in the framework of the D/s dynamic that I can live out those two kinks. They make me feel more submissive, and my submission makes them more likely to happen for me. Pain and humiliation are not about a play between a Dominant and a submissive per se though. They are about a sadist-masochist and a degrader-degradee connection. It is because my Master is sadist, that my masochist side gets tickled.

For me, there is almost nothing more submissive than to offer my mind and body, and consent to having my Dominant play with me in whatever way they please. If pain and humiliation is involved in that, the better for me! But if not, and it is more about control and being taught obedience, then that is great too. Because that is always at the core of my sexual interactions: the power exchange and giving up control. Pain and humiliation are great additions to that, but they are not the necessary part. Our D/s connection is.

I am doing the 30 Days of Submission meme/challenge (and finishing it a year late. But better late than never!). If you are interested in doing it too, check out this link which has all the questions ready to be used!

You can check my other posts of the series here.