Did you cut or harm yourself?

[Richard49]

Some very intersting posts here
I am going to try and write these thoughts carefully
I get real tired of being misrepresented

Part of what I am hearing is anger that society does not
accept those of us in D/s as normal and mainstream

For me ..... I am just grateful that they no longer haul our ass off to jail for practicing who we are .......

Yes they will have to find negative pathologies to valde our being
and this is the real world .........

I am lucky...when the D/s part of my life comes up .... I do not have to deny ... but I am in a minorty........

IMHO we have to learn to accept each other
and we have to accept how the world choices
to see us

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Find me someone on the board who didn't come from a crappy family life or some sort of trauma. Ok, well...find me 5. If you can, them maybe you can calim that Secretary is an unfair portrayal. We should be happy that the characters were shown any respect at all, not be mad because they weren't portrayed as perfect people.

 

[InnerDarkness]

IMHO we have to learn to accept each other
and we have to accept how the world choices
to see us

I think this is the thing that I have truly enjoyed in my brief time here at Lit...that people have been very accepting of me and my ideas (those that I have shared) and make no effort to judge me.

I am finding that the BDSM lifestyle is so different for each person, and what makes my experience mine is that fact that I have built it in the manner that I have chosen...no one else. I like the free reign and the loose rules....I enjoy the opennes....

but what i DONT enjoy is the fact that it really doesnt seem to be so open and cherished outside of places like this. Which, is probably why I have explored so little about this part of myself.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[InnerDarkness]

Find me someone on the board who didn't come from a crappy family life or some sort of trauma. Ok, well...find me 5. If you can, them maybe you can calim that Secretary is an unfair portrayal. We should be happy that the characters were shown any respect at all, not be mad because they weren't portrayed as perfect people.

I think the presence of a "crappy family life" or other trauma is probably higher on most of our lists than cutting and self-mutiliation...I know it is for me.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

I think the presence of a "crappy family life" or other trauma is probably higher on most of our lists than cutting and self-mutiliation...I know it is for me.

Well, isn't cutting more dramatic, then? And doesn't a sort of serious mental illness clash beautifully with the later D/s relationship?

 

[InnerDarkness]

Well, isn't cutting more dramatic, then? And doesn't a sort of serious mental illness clash beautifully with the later D/s relationship?

Well, yes...cutting IS more dramatic. In my experience with the mental health field and working with college students...many people cut as a way of refocusing on THAT pain rather than whatever the overwhelming issues in their lives are. For some of them, it is easier to focus on that physical pain rather than trying to work through and understand some other deeper mental or emotional pain they are struggling with. Some, on the other hand just cut simply to feel at all. Just to have SOME kind of feeling...even if it is pain, and even if it is physical.

How serious mental illness plays into later D/s relationships...intriguing indeed...but perhaps even more dangerous to ponder if you ask me

 

[SexyChele]

Find me someone on the board who didn't come from a crappy family life or some sort of trauma. Ok, well...find me 5. If you can, them maybe you can calim that Secretary is an unfair portrayal. We should be happy that the characters were shown any respect at all, not be mad because they weren't portrayed as perfect people.

Okay - I'm one who didn't come from a crappy family life and any trauma I might have gone through in life happened after my introduction into BDSM. I guess you need 4 more, huh?

Johnny, I do not consider myself perfect. I doubt anyone does. But self-mutilation is considered to be a sign of some depth of mental illness. There is something going on in some one's head if they engage in this practice. Now, in the BDSM community, we hear "safe, sane, consentual." How can a person truly follow these guidelines if they are suffering from sort of mental illness? They would need to get themselves taken care of first, in my opinion. Otherwise, you have a higher possibility of people taking advantage of other people to the point of causing serious harm.

Do I have issues with people cutting themselves? Yes, I do. It's not a normal practice, and the person needs to find the underlying force that is causing them to do such a thing. In that regard, I feel more pity than anything else.

But, in regards to this movie: I fall into what the psychological community calls "normal". Anyone who sees this movie and knows what I do might now think that I must be as Lee Holloway is. I resent that. And I resent the idea that the screenwriter felt she had involve some sort of mental illness in the main character to make her "believable". Obviously, the screenwriter was a woman who has never engaged in the topic about which she was writing and could not identify with her characters or story. And it shows in the movie. Badly, I might add.

 

[Netzach]

You could have made both people in Secretary perfectly functional and happy and shiny.

That may be a great public service announcement for BDSM but it's shitty fiction and shitty narrative. People are interesting where they are flawed.

And my fiction doesn't always have to bolster my politics to be good.

I came from a highly dysfunctional family with a distinct message that I am powerless. Yes, that's part of why I'm a Top, and I admit that. Healthy, unhealthy, it's part of the background.

My sub was not a cutter, his self-torture was/is mostly conscious of its SM relavance, and not a stress management tool or an addiction as much as experiment.

 

[zanna]

In the good movie "Secretary", a young woman is initially shown leaving an institution where she was treated for a number problems, including cutting herself with various knives, blades, etc. Also piercing and burning, to some degree.

She, in the course of the movie 'comes out' as a bottom or perhaps 'sub', but a pretty willful one. She enjoys spankings especially, also humiliation, and certain kinds of rough sex.

Question: for those who are bottoms or subs, is there 'cutting' in your history? other self injury, e.g., piercing or burning? (Let's assume that it's done either to bring peace to oneself [=relieve extreme anxiety] and/or for erotic reasons.) I also mean something LESS than (other than) actual suicide attempt, e.g., by slitting your wrists.

Further, the movie shows that for this woman, submission takes the place of cutting, as perhaps a healthier alternative: i.e., she ends that injurious practice, in taking up erotic submission, e.g. the spankings etc. (Her 'master' tells her to stop cutting, and she does. She is ready to.) If you care to say, did you end your cutting or whatever as you undertook SM bottoming or subbing?

Corrected: Are the screenplay writers onto something--in your direct experience-- or have they unduly 'pathologized' those who submit?

Reference added: Secretary: The Screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson, Steven Shainberg (Paperback). Originally a short story, "Secretary" by M Gaitskill, in the collection Bad Behavior. James G 5 informs me that the cutting is not a part of Gaitskill's original story.


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Best,

J.

yes to both cutting and burning, although i can not say it was a frequent thing. When things got really bad in my teenage mind, i did. i was a loner type, never had any friends. i was always the weird one no one wanted to be with because they could not figure you out. i carry the scar in the middle of the top of my hand to this day where i put a cigarette out when i was 15. i remember sitting in the school parking lot and cutting into my arm with a dirty piece of glass i found on the ground. It just made sense at the time. i was hurting emotionally. Pain on the inside, pain on the outisde. If i could release it somehow, make it visible, i was more able to cope. i have not done that in several years, but perhaps there is a link in the relationship i have now and the things i did then. i really don't know. i can not say that i never feel a sense of release after an intense scene with Him, a sort of emotional cleansing. Often i do, and it is very similar to the feeling i used to get when cutting or burning myself.

 

[Richard49]

I wish I had someone
especially if it were R
to watch this movie with

I don't do restraurants or movies alone

 

[AnelizeDarkEyes]

Oh, and just to stay on topic - I have never been a "cutter". I've never engaged in any form of self-mutliation whatsoever. I don't understand it. I don't "get it".

But self-mutilation is considered to be a sign of some depth of mental illness. There is something going on in some one's head if they engage in this practice. Now, in the BDSM community, we hear "safe, sane, consentual." How can a person truly follow these guidelines if they are suffering from sort of mental illness? They would need to get themselves taken care of first, in my opinion. Otherwise, you have a higher possibility of people taking advantage of other people to the point of causing serious harm.

Do I have issues with people cutting themselves? Yes, I do. It's not a normal practice, and the person needs to find the underlying force that is causing them to do such a thing. In that regard, I feel more pity than anything else.

So, let me get this right? You "get it" now? Long hours of research perhaps? Spent some time talking to a couple of people who actually DO cut? Tried to EMPATHIZE with someone who walks that path instead of pitying them? I'd be interested in knowing. Because, frankly, Chele, you sound judgemental to me, both regarding cutters, and persons with brain disorders (many, if not most of those that are the so-called mentally ill tend to suffer from chemical imbalances of neurotransmitters in the brain, hence brain disorder)

But, in regards to this movie: I fall into what the psychological community calls "normal". Anyone who sees this movie and knows what I do might now think that I must be as Lee Holloway is. I resent that. And I resent the idea that the screenwriter felt she had involve some sort of mental illness in the main character to make her "believable". Obviously, the screenwriter was a woman who has never engaged in the topic about which she was writing and could not identify with her characters or story. And it shows in the movie. Badly, I might add.

In regards to this movie: what makes people think this movie was conceived as a commercial for BDSM? So the screenwriter did what she did, and you resent it. Big deal. IMO, at the end of the day, it's still just a FILM, not a commercial for BDSM, not a "Introduction to MY life" story, or any of that. It's a vehicle for discussion, but just that...a vehicle. Again, just my opinion, but I find it interesting that you would worry about how people would see YOU after seeing it, especially since you are so OBVIOUSLY normal.

People all over this country deal with NOT being normal everyday, with grace, integrity, and strength of character. I applaud them.

~anelize, "who believes there's no such thing as normal"

 

[lark sparrow]

Although the movie did create a question in many people's minds about the possible connection between cutting and submission or participation in BDSM, I think it's also important to recall that the overall message was positive towards BDSM and submission. It's "hollywood" - the silver screen is full of drama and magic and the unlikely.

I don't know enough about cutting to comment, but just like anything else, I am sure there are degrees and numerous factors. Anyone viewing the film one has a couple of choices - to wonder if there is a connection between cutting/self-injury and BDSM and question, or to assume that either everyone is the way this fictional film portrayed one individual and/or the screenwriter is saying that people involved in BDSM are sick.

We can get resentful and angry because the character was flawed in a shocking taboo way, or we can look at it as the screenwriter actually taking an even bigger chance - not only creating a screenplay for a mainstream movie about BDSM, but also deciding not to be politically correct. If the movie was about faith, and the woman was cutting herself but then she found God and stopped, no one would say - well that's a terrible message, all believers don't start off as cutters!

Could it add to the bad rap BDSM carries? Yes, it could, but I think we have to look at the entire storyline which was overall extremely positive, particularly compared to the usual hollywood portrayal. I don't know what the screenwriter had in mind. I would assume they did some research and understand that cutting/self-injury and being institutionalized is not a standard practice among submissives. I would assume that they also realize that not every Dominant is an attorney who terrorizes his employees. Note that this did not upset people.

Okay, we as a community have some reason to be paranoid, but in a sense not only did the film challenge vanilla goers by giving a positive view of BDSM, but it challenged us as a community. Yep, not every single person who discovers BDSM is and always has been happy, healthy and wise beyond belief. Go figure, human afterall.

 

[s'lara]

i am not presently nor have i been a cutter in the past. a nod to those who honestly came forward with their own experiences with cutting AND the emotional motivation behind their cutting.

i have a problem.

i am struggling to hold my tongue without lashing out at a particular post on this string and finding it hard to do. i will remind myself that this board is about the freedom to express personal opinions no matter how ignorantly embedded in the world of the uninformed.

 

[zanna]

Okay - I'm one who didn't come from a crappy family life and any trauma I might have gone through in life happened after my introduction into BDSM. I guess you need 4 more, huh?

Johnny, I do not consider myself perfect. I doubt anyone does. But self-mutilation is considered to be a sign of some depth of mental illness. There is something going on in some one's head if they engage in this practice. Now, in the BDSM community, we hear "safe, sane, consentual." How can a person truly follow these guidelines if they are suffering from sort of mental illness? They would need to get themselves taken care of first, in my opinion. Otherwise, you have a higher possibility of people taking advantage of other people to the point of causing serious harm.

Do I have issues with people cutting themselves? Yes, I do. It's not a normal practice, and the person needs to find the underlying force that is causing them to do such a thing. In that regard, I feel more pity than anything else.

But, in regards to this movie: I fall into what the psychological community calls "normal". Anyone who sees this movie and knows what I do might now think that I must be as Lee Holloway is. I resent that. And I resent the idea that the screenwriter felt she had involve some sort of mental illness in the main character to make her "believable". Obviously, the screenwriter was a woman who has never engaged in the topic about which she was writing and could not identify with her characters or story. And it shows in the movie. Badly, I might add.

i would struggle greatly with the idea of posting to a BDSM board, engaging in BDSM relationships, and yet trying to define what is "normal" behavior, who may be mentally/emotionally/physically unstable and perhaps pose a danger to others who breathe the safe, sane, and consensual idea. That is a bit beyond ironic.

Cutting one's self is abnormal and indeed a sign if mental illness. Lying still while another cuts you or does any other of a vast variety of pain inducing practices, however, is a sign of a happy, healthy, normal person...and therefore acceptable? i am not sure i understand that thought. It seems a bit of a double standard.

i realize that not everyone is like me, and there are some in this whole BDSM rainbow (nice word, MissTaken) who do not like pain at all. For some, it is simply the need to be controlled, humiliated, or service. i enjoy all of those things and my masochism, too. i would never be judgmental of someone. It simply is not my place until i have perhaps been in *their* place. i respect another's freedom to be different than me in opinions, ideas, and practices.

your concern is the way this movie may encouarge people to view you/BDSM and you are somewhat angered by this misconception. You do not wish to be lump labeled yet are just as quick to stamp a label on something you do not understand or consider healthy, i.e., a person who engages in self-mutilation. Can you really blame, then, those vanilla persons who label you and BDSM?

This implies the thought that there are certain acceptable standards of what is "normal" in a community that already lives on the fringes. Most here already feel an outcast beyond their own front door or at the very least, unable to truly be themselves 24/7. We should be careful not to recreate that within the community by implying what is normal and acceptable in the one place people hope to be free.

It is worth noting that most in the vanilla world "pity" U/us, and further, believe that "there is something going on in some one's head if they engage in this practice." Be careful that we do not perpetuate the very ideas here we come here to get away from.

 

[Pure]

Zanna said,

[attempting to put the apparent position of certain other posters' into words, e.g., (perhaps?) Sexy Chele and John Mayberry]


Cutting one's self is abnormal and indeed a sign if mental illness. Lying still while another cuts you or does any other of a vast variety of pain inducing practices, however, is a sign of a happy, healthy, normal person...and therefore acceptable? i am not sure i understand that thought. It seems a bit of a double standard.

Nicely put, Zanna.

On the face of it, the position you summarize is incoherent. To the extent that it's advocated, the posters have inadequately thought-out stances. In effect they want to make the usual judgements of mainstream authorities about others' mental problems, then exempt or privilege their own practices as non-pathological, harmless 'kink'.

 

[Pure]

.

 

[MissTaken]

Find me someone on the board who didn't come from a crappy family life or some sort of trauma. Ok, well...find me 5. If you can, them maybe you can calim that Secretary is an unfair portrayal. We should be happy that the characters were shown any respect at all, not be mad because they weren't portrayed as perfect people.

True enough, to some degree.

But first, does a crappy family life have to include trauma?
Does it have to impact our sexuality as adults?
If you post the question on the General Board, "Who has suffered no trauma or familial issues that could be classified as 'dysfunctional?" how many posters are going to come forward and claim such a thing.

Our background doesn't hvae to impact who we are now, if we DEAL with it.

There are BDSMers and non BDSMers for whom cutting was an issue who have dealt with whatever led to cutting. Cutting doesn't have to be a precursor to anything, nor does it have to impact anything about how people live their lives today.

Everyone has "issues", it is how they deal with them that makes the difference.

I agree that portraying the gal in a squeaky clean light would have made for a dull story line. Oh well.

 

[SexyChele]

Obviously I have touched on more than a few nerves within this thread. I do not have the time or energy to engage in some meaningless argument on a porn board.

Therefore, my apologies to those who feel I may have insulted them. That was never my intent.

And with that, I shall bow out...

 

[James G 5]

Find me someone on the board who didn't come from a crappy family life or some sort of trauma. Ok, well...find me 5. If you can, them maybe you can calim that Secretary is an unfair portrayal. We should be happy that the characters were shown any respect at all, not be mad because they weren't portrayed as perfect people.

Yup
I would ALSO like to point out that Spader's charachter was just coming out of a bad, possibly emotionally abusive, relationship & he had issues of his own
He thought his Dominant urges were sick, disgusting, wrong, and fought against them
He had more than his own share of self-loathing, he just didn't express it physcially like the female charachter

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

And the best part of that movie is that it shows that, at least for some people, BDSM is a perfectly healthy lifestyle chioce, and it is in REPRESSING that urge that people have problems...at least that is the way I saw it.

 

[lektra]

I haven't had a chance to see the movie yet, it is always out when I go to rent it. I find it interesting when D/s relationships are portrayed as deviant and sick or unhealthy. No matter what kind of relationship people are in, a percentage of all of them are probably unhealthy, why pick on ours? I think because its easy to pick on something that you don't understand and it's safer to attack marginal communities. OOps my little soapbox.....

I've been following the discussion on cutting and would like to add that there are different kinds of cutting for different reasons. Some people like to cut for esthetic reasons, others cut as a coping mechanism (I don't think this is in and of itself a sign of mental illness, and people have lots of different kinds of coping mechanisms).

 

[MissTaken]

And the best part of that movie is that it shows that, at least for some people, BDSM is a perfectly healthy lifestyle chioce, and it is in REPRESSING that urge that people have problems...at least that is the way I saw it.

Good point!

 

[SexyChele]

Maybe you can specify the main diffs of story and screenplay?? {This does ring a bell as far as some other movies, I can't recall the names, where changes in the 'mental status' department were made to make the story 'believable', which may be simply 'palatable.'}

I know I stated last evening that I was bowing out of this thread, but I managed to find the short story the movie was based on. Pure, I was going to PM this information to you, but thought there might be others interested as well. The book that contains the short story is, from what I understand, no longer in print. However, there is an online version of the story available for reading. Secretary will take you to the story written by Mary Gaitskill.

Main differences between story and screenplay? Many. The main character (who is Deby, not Lee) does appear to have some sort of inability to relate well with others, but it comes across as something a lot of young women (late teens/early 20s) have. Sort of a shyness and being much more of an introvert. Her character seems to be searching for something - but what that something is, we never find out. There is no history of cutting, puncturing, or burning mentioned anywhere in the story. There is a mention at the conclusion of the story that she once had seen a psychiatrist, but it seems to either have been for a short period of time or for only one visit.

Her sister is not married in the story. In fact, her sister lives at home and seems very remote. The entire family seems remote, in fact.

The father seems fairly average - neither very bad nor very good. There is no mention of him being an alcoholic. Also, he never leaves the home, and he is never hospitalized.

The mother is the only character in the family that seems truer to the movie. She is a bit overbearing and somewhat overprotective. She seems "fussy".

The attorney is completely undeveloped. Short of getting a very brief description of his character's looks, we are not introduced into anything that remotely concerns his background. There is nothing in the story to explain his behavior, nor does there seem to be any desire to so. Simply put? He is described as an "asshole." Pretty apt description. Oh, and there is no "ex" who comes storming into the office while he hides.

The paralegal makes one appearance in the story and the encounter between her and the secretary takes place after the masturbation scene. (Attorney on the secretary) Although the secretary does masturbate in the ladies restroom, the paralegal is not in the next stall listening in rapt attention. Though she does suspect something is amiss when the secretary leaves the office.

The character of Peter does not exist in the story at all. Nor his parents. (Naturally) Possibly explains the awkwardness of his existance in the movie? Not sure.

The ending is totally and completely different. NOTE - SPOILER! If you don't want to know how the story ends, read no farther.




























In the story, the secretary goes home after the masturbation scene (attorney on secretary), where she tries to explore her feelings. They are jumbled, and when the next day arrives she does not go to work. She doesn't call in and the attorney doesn't call her. There is disappointment expressed that the attorney doesn't call. After 4 days without calling in, her father expresses concern that she is taking so much time off. She tells her family she has quit. She tells her family the attorney was an asshole.

She eventually receives her final check from the attorney for more than he owes, with a note of apology and asking her not to say anything to anyone. She contemplates tearing it up or sending it back, but decides to keep the money.

Later, her father shows her a newpaper article where the attorney is running for mayor. A short time later she receives a call from a local newspaper asking for background info on her former boss. The newspaper reporter does not believe he is fit to run for public office. She feels the same. She keeps her silence.

The end. No romance. No wedding. No 24/7. No mention of a yoke. No crawling. No taking out papers with her mouth. The only thing mentioned is spanking and one masturbation scene. No transformation of shy, inhibited girl to confident woman.

 

[s'lara]

Once again, i find myself struggling to hold my tongue.

 

[Pure]

Thanks SC, for the link to "Secretary". I'm sure it's available at Amazon, used, if it's out of print.

Having read it quickly, it strikes me that the situation is like a number of short stories, say Poe's 'Pit and the Pendulum'. The story is really a glimpse or episode; hence the movie requires major additions; it has to embroider, create backstory, characters etc. The movie did use a lot of the story dialogue.

Without going into summary and details, in the story: it's less clear that she's 'come out' as any kind of pervert, though she has been more assertive with Mom. It's less clear that she's been 'reached' in an interpersonal sense, though her fires are stoked and she fluffsit a lot, for a time. She seems very detached, clinical, e.g. in his masturbation episode. And of course there's no breakthrough to happy coupledom.

It's a transient, though sexually stimulating episode, in a pretty dull life. In some of Gaitskill's other stories there's the same structure. In a 'normal setting,' suddently there's weirdness, some mental 'breakthroughs', but life resumes its course.

In terms of bdsm. Well the story shows she 'has it in her', just as one might have a fling on a cruise ship. There's a period of turn on, but no 'transformation'. And from 'has it in her' we _don't_ see "Oh wow I have the neat, buried kinky side that I'm gonna hafta look into a lot more (or share if I can find a more suitable partner)."