Have You No Shame?

[Eager2TRYRU]

No shame for me. I wish I had starting exploring my sexuality in new ways much earlier that I did... which began about 4 years ago or so... but my relationship hadn't progressed to that level so... I wasn't quite ready to open myself up.

 

[Shankara20]

Thought of this thread when I saw this while I was surfing for porn today...

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m80ef53jzS1qzjg61o1_500.jpg
​

Oh, and my answer is, "Yes, if you do it correctly".

 

[cherylashi26]

Nope. I'm cool with everything I think and feel.

 

[rosco rathbone]

I was raised to believe that laying a hand on a female was about the worst thing a man could do.

So I feel quite a lot of delicious shame from my kinks.

 

[Athalia]

The trouble with shame is that it's not correctly distributed. Thare are people who feel shame over things they shouldn't be ashamed of (sexual preferences), and there are people who feel no shame about things they should be ashamed of (racism, bigotry, callousness).

In a ideal world, parents would be instructing their children in what to feel shame about and what not to feel shame about. It is entirely possible that we are slowly, slowly coming to that realization as a culture, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[kutsujuu]

I don't know. I think SOME shame can be a little bit delicious.

We have been taught that there are certain rules of decorum we should follow in society. Bending those rules can be just a wee bit exciting because they are taboo in nature.

We've been together for twelve years. We've pushed through a LOT of barriers in that time and broadened our horizons quite a bit. Yet, he still has the power to redden my cheeks (not THOSE cheeks...though he certainly does a good job of that too) by whispering the right words to me in a social setting. He takes great delight in it too.

On the other hand, I believe that being paralyzed by shame would be an unwelcome hindrance, it's still nice to have the occasional sensation of it. Maybe I'm the only one.

 

[IrisAlthea]

It's interesting that this thread revolves a lot around shame too:
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=821305

 

[xssve]

The trouble with shame is that it's not correctly distributed. Thare are people who feel shame over things they shouldn't be ashamed of (sexual preferences), and there are people who feel no shame about things they should be ashamed of (racism, bigotry, callousness).

In a ideal world, parents would be instructing their children in what to feel shame about and what not to feel shame about. It is entirely possible that we are slowly, slowly coming to that realization as a culture, but I'm not holding my breath.

Calvinism: it has to do with predispensationalism and pre-millenialism, theologically speaking, you notice when bible thumpers start talking about "morality" they are pretty much speaking exclusively about sex.

Morality, however, is not a thing, it's a metaword, it describes a thing: a specific morality construct, of which there is more than one.

In this case, Calvinist morality might be described as erotophobic, and there are few reasons for this - from a strictly ev-psych viewpoint, K strategy requires fairly strong social bonds in order to maintain a stable social environment to raise children in, and this creates a certain degree of tension between monagamous and poly social structures - they can be equally stable, but poly is often more a threat to mono than vice versa, given that mono constitutes a strict breeding monopoly.

Thus, some of this is "normal", i.e., people protecting their relative social "territory", though theology does add a political element that occasionally spills over into outright violence.

Anyway, the popular meme here is that if you (particularly women), have any kind of satisfying sexual experience, i.e., do anything but lie there and get injected with semen, they'll turn into insatiable sluts, abandon their husbands and children, get knocked up by another man, etc., etc.

Much of it has to do with male paternity assurances, and basically the same reason clitorodectomy is practiced in some cultures, the Calvinist guilt thing is basically a psychological clitorodectomy.

Truth is, and it's hardly a news flash, women don't turn into insatiable sluts and go out and cheat if they learn to enjoy sex, quite the opposite actually, there are probably more divorces and cheating form a lack of marital satisfaction than otherwise, which might seem obvious in hindsight, but it runs contrary to the meme, which has nothing to do with anything practical other than social/political control, and has nothing to do with creating a more stable social culture, it has to do with the hypothetical return of a hypothetical deity, it's not about anything human at all.

Beyond that, it becomes a complicated subject, I think the consensus is it started as a Jewish thing, adopted by the Christians, and has sort of reached a pathological nadir in Calvinism - i.e., the Jews were not particularly hung up about sex, that's more of a Christian thing, from Augustine, but he was more concerned about unbridled passion in general rather than sex specifically ("Lord give me chastity - just not yet") - i.e., even in Catholicism, lust is a venial sin, more easily forgivable than Pride, which is a cardinal sin.

Calvinism pretty much flips Christianity upside down completely, and in may ways it's the polar opposite - it's just that in spite of it being rather popular in America, probably dating from the Great Migration of Puritans around the time of the English Civil Wars, and where the Puritans rose and subsequently fell in Great Britain (turned out they weren't that popular after all), their remnants in America didn't get the word, and still dream of global hegemony.

Quick way to cut through all this Roman bullshit, is to realize that in many ways, Western European basically a Celtic culture on which Roman value systems have been imposed, and while that is not altogether a bad thing, Celtic culture is quite a bit more democratic, sexual or otherwise, whereas Roman culture is feudal and militantly hierarchical - not even the Italians are necessarily all that Roman.

So yeah, fuck somebody up the ass, and give them an orgasm that makes 'em flop like a fish, you/re going to hell - throw a bunch of mentally ill women out into the street, that's just good business, it turns out to be a very cynical sort of "morality".

 

[xssve]

The real irony is that the oxytocin released during sex actually makes you a better person - being brought up in a strict religious environment is actually associated with higher rates of ASPD's, including pedophilia and psychopathy, probably the result of trying to live up to an inhuman standard.

 

[xssve]

I don't know. I think SOME shame can be a little bit delicious.

We have been taught that there are certain rules of decorum we should follow in society. Bending those rules can be just a wee bit exciting because they are taboo in nature.

We've been together for twelve years. We've pushed through a LOT of barriers in that time and broadened our horizons quite a bit. Yet, he still has the power to redden my cheeks (not THOSE cheeks...though he certainly does a good job of that too) by whispering the right words to me in a social setting. He takes great delight in it too.

On the other hand, I believe that being paralyzed by shame would be an unwelcome hindrance, it's still nice to have the occasional sensation of it. Maybe I'm the only one.

There is that - but I think that speaks more to discretion: i.e., there is an argument that it doesn't matter what you do as long as it's consensual and discreet, and that's pretty much where the law stands at the moment.

Problem with that being, if they push, you pretty much have to push back, so it goes.

Anyway, I'm fascinated by humiliation/objectification play, shame can be a very profound and powerful head trip for some people - it's a species of fear, and quite often the only way to overcome fear is to confront it, lest, as you say, it becomes paralyzing.

 

[Noor]

There is that - but I think that speaks more to discretion: i.e., there is an argument that it doesn't matter what you do as long as it's consensual and discreet, and that's pretty much where the law stands at the moment.

Problem with that being, if they push, you pretty much have to push back, so it goes.

Anyway, I'm fascinated by humiliation/objectification play, shame can be a very profound and powerful head trip for some people - it's a species of fear, and quite often the only way to overcome fear is to confront it, lest, as you say, it becomes paralyzing.

The drawback of overcoming that fear is that humiliation/objectification play then becomes dead boring.

 

[Noor]

The real irony is that the oxytocin released during sex actually makes you a better person - being brought up in a strict religious environment is actually associated with higher rates of ASPD's, including pedophilia and psychopathy, probably the result of trying to live up to an inhuman standard.

How does it make you a "better" person? For me, it makes me happier, healing faster, feeling better physically, mentally and emotionally, but I am not sure it makes me a better person.

It might actually make me a worse person depending on what extent I am willing to go to get an oxytocin fix, like married men?

Or in the case of an online porn addict, who stops paying attention to the rest of their lives?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Oxytocin and Vasopressin facilitiate interpersonal interaction. Vasopressin influences feelings of loyalty and connection-- I kid you not-- Oxytocin promotes trust and empathic response.

More information;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin

Of course it's totally possible to feel a connection and trust in something inanimate and unable to return those feelings. We do that all the time too.

 

[Noor]

Oxytocin and Vasopressin facilitiate interpersonal interaction. Vasopressin influences feelings of loyalty and connection-- I kid you not-- Oxytocin promotes trust and empathic response.

More information;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin

Of course it's totally possible to feel a connection and trust in something inanimate and unable to return those feelings. We do that all the time too.

"The inability to secrete oxytocin and feel empathy is linked to sociopathy, psychopathy, narcissism,[citation needed] and general manipulativeness.[2]"

That explains a lot.

 

[xssve]

The drawback of overcoming that fear is that humiliation/objectification play then becomes dead boring.

True, one may also exploit, it, although in this case, given we're talking about within BDSM here, controlled conditions are assumed - you must agree there is a great deal of difference between a consensual act under controlled conditions, and a non-consensual one.

 

[xssve]

Anyway, it occurred to me that shame and guilt are not the same thing, although we seem to be using them interchangeably - I think properly as naturally occurring emotions, guilt is when you're doing something you shouldn't be doing, something that harms someone, an ethical transgression.

Shame is more about a transgression of informal social controls, notable, but not particularly harmful acts, like pissing your drawers in public.

Inappropriate perhaps, but not illegal, and it doesn't really hurt anybody.

 

[Shankara20]

Anyway, it occurred to me that shame and guilt are not the same thing, although we seem to be using them interchangeably - I think properly as naturally occurring emotions, guilt is when you're doing something you shouldn't be doing, something that harms someone, an ethical transgression.

Shame is more about a transgression of informal social controls, notable, but not particularly harmful acts, like pissing your drawers in public.

Inappropriate perhaps, but not illegal, and it doesn't really hurt anybody.

Guilt = I have done something bad.

Shame = I am something bad.

 

[Netzach]

Anyway, it occurred to me that shame and guilt are not the same thing, although we seem to be using them interchangeably - I think properly as naturally occurring emotions, guilt is when you're doing something you shouldn't be doing, something that harms someone, an ethical transgression.

Shame is more about a transgression of informal social controls, notable, but not particularly harmful acts, like pissing your drawers in public.

Inappropriate perhaps, but not illegal, and it doesn't really hurt anybody.

I think these shoes are on the other feet.

There are multitudes walking around with the burden of unearned guilt. Or pointless guilt. Guilt doesn't move us into a more equitable culture, or keep people from taking stuff out of the cookie jar. Guilt it between a person and himself, IOW it's completely introspective. Guilt + Penis = my kink.

Shame is between a person and everyone else, for real.

Appropriately laid shame keeps people from taking stuff out of the cookie jar. But no one has any, and no one seems to understand how to enforce any kind of ethical lines where it matters.

 

[Noor]

Guilt = I have done something bad.

Shame = I am something bad.

That explains it, I am always good

but when I am bad, I am better?

 

[bisexualsmoker]

------------

I feel some shame. Probably because
some people I know,family and
such don't agree with my sexuality
and lifestyle. I keep moving further away from them though.

 

[xssve]

I think these shoes are on the other feet.

There are multitudes walking around with the burden of unearned guilt. Or pointless guilt. Guilt doesn't move us into a more equitable culture, or keep people from taking stuff out of the cookie jar. Guilt it between a person and himself, IOW it's completely introspective. Guilt + Penis = my kink.

Shame is between a person and everyone else, for real.

Appropriately laid shame keeps people from taking stuff out of the cookie jar. But no one has any, and no one seems to understand how to enforce any kind of ethical lines where it matters.

All very true, guilt and shame are natural emotions, we have the capacity for them, clearly they must have some utility, but they are also easily manipulated, and thus, are commonly used as tools of social control, i.e., they can become a learned, Pavlovian response to any stimuli - no stimuli at all in fact - enough people telling you should be ashamed and you might, even if there is no particular reason given.

Obviously, it has nothing to do with ethics, it's become such a learned response that people are shamed and guilty about all the wrong things most of the time.

To wit: a man kissing a man is the epitome of shamefulness, but dropping hundreds of tons of depleted uranium into heavily populated urban areas on the flimsiest of pretexts is patriotic.

What one is supposed to be ashamed of or guilty about appears to be no reliable indicator of ethical priorities to say the least, any detectable correlation is tenuous to the point of nonexistence.

 

[xssve]

I would agree that guilt is an internally self-generated emotion, one has crossed ones own boundaries, while shame is more of a projection, an external assignment - "you should be ashamed"!

 

[FurryFury]

I have less shame now than I ever have. I've worked on it and I'm glad I have. That being said, I have found that shame can be a nice edgy spice too, at least for me.

 

[rosco rathbone]

have you no shame lol

WOMAN HAVE YOU NO SHAME now go get the strop.

 

[Chiara_searches]

Ah, what you need to remind such feminists is that one of the main standpoints of feminism is the belief that every woman is an expert oin their own life and has the right to decide what is right for them, not be told what is right by others. After all, that was one of the points feminism was borne from, women being told by men who they should be, what they should do, and how they should feel...changing the gender of the one doing the telling does not make it any less oppressive, nor right.

Catalina

As a card carrying feminist (i.e. one who holds a BA in Women's Studies), I absolutely agree with Catalina. It was difficult to stomach those feminists who asserted this is how you "show your commitment" when, in fact, they were simply perpetuating that which they claimed to hate: other's telling them how to think and be.

But to answer the original question: yes, shame is a component of my current makeup. It is why I am extremely careful about admitting to nearly anyone my preferences. I was raised in a religiously conservative home, and at a young age (11-12 years old) I found hidden vanilla erotica and because it was hidden, I "learned" that sex was shameful. I think shame was a small (very small) part of why I was sexually unfulfilled in my prior marriage; I was too ashamed to admit even a portion of my desires to my ex.

Luckily, I'm now with someone that doesn't make me feel shame for my desires. Do we do everything I fantasize about now? No, but I'm not sure I really want to do all that my brain thinks about. Still, when I tell him my thoughts, I am never made to feel bad about them. It's amazing to be free of shame and close enough to someone that they want to know those things.