Just a few ?'s [if u dont mind]

[cellis]

A very good explaination. James.

How very nice to see you again. How is the vacation going?

 

[James Blandings]

A very good explaination. James.

How very nice to see you again. How is the vacation going?

I am having a wonderful time. I spent a little time visiting some friends up in Maine, then spent a few days in New York City, and then had a great adventure that I just posted about in a new thread.
I am going to be home for about a week, and then will head out again, to visit friends in Atlanta and New Orleans.
Early retirement is a very good thing!

 

[Sandia]

It might help if you define your meaning for Humiliation.

How do you think of it in terms of BDSM?

inquiring minds want to know
MLP

Here I was, slaving away with my dictionary and my thesaurus, and I look back and see that James just did a WAY better job than anything I was likely to come up with. <DELETE>

Thank you James.

sigh.

 

[Sandia]

My thoughts about humiliation.
Remember that we are talking about humiliation PLAY as part of a SSC BDSM situation. Deliberately hurting someone emotionally is not any different than hurting them physically, if anything, it is worse. Look at humiliation in BDSM in comparison to really making someone feel bad about themselves as being the same as the difference between an erotic spanking and really just beating someone up.
When humiliation play is done right, in a caring way, it will be very affirming after the scene ends, because it can be cathartic. The thing is to understand the person you are playing with so that you can know which buttons to push that will turn them on with erotic embarrassment, and which will just cause distress. For example, calling a fem sub a slut can be liberating for her, because it allows her to mentally play around with her own fantasies of sluttishness. On the other hand, calling her fat is likely only going to piss her off.
In a way, because you can play with issues safely, you diffuse them and being humiliated about something in scene becomes a reassurance that it is OK out of scene.

I guess the only thing I will add is that I would have said all of those things, spanking, etc., have elements of humiliation.

And I'd echo what James said; ie, there's an enormous difference between calling someone "my slut" in the heat of erotic play and calling her "fat."

Sandia.

 

[SpectreT]

My thoughts about humiliation.
Remember that we are talking about humiliation PLAY as part of a SSC BDSM situation. Deliberately hurting someone emotionally is not any different than hurting them physically, if anything, it is worse. Look at humiliation in BDSM in comparison to really making someone feel bad about themselves as being the same as the difference between an erotic spanking and really just beating someone up.
When humiliation play is done right, in a caring way, it will be very affirming after the scene ends, because it can be cathartic. The thing is to understand the person you are playing with so that you can know which buttons to push that will turn them on with erotic embarrassment, and which will just cause distress. For example, calling a fem sub a slut can be liberating for her, because it allows her to mentally play around with her own fantasies of sluttishness. On the other hand, calling her fat is likely only going to piss her off.
In a way, because you can play with issues safely, you diffuse them and being humiliated about something in scene becomes a reassurance that it is OK out of scene.

Ah. I see. I was explaining where the line is for me, where the playful becomes the damaging. not what Sandia was asking about at all. Silly me. <Shaking head> I'm gettin' pretty defensive, lately.

 

[Sandia]

Join the club. <smile>

 

[cymbidia]

Here I was, slaving away with my dictionary and my thesaurus, and I look back and see that James just did a WAY better job than anything I was likely to come up with.

Another wild dash away from revealing anything at all of your own thoughts on any of this stuff, Sandia? <smile>

 

[CarolineOh]

I guess the only thing I will add is that I would have said all of those things, spanking, etc., have elements of humiliation.

And I'd echo what James said; ie, there's an enormous difference between calling someone "my slut" in the heat of erotic play and calling her "fat."

Sandia.

I've been spanked and felt a touch of humiliation, and I've been spanked and just felt hot and sexy. It's about the context, not the activity itself.

 

[Snazzona]

Humilation

Humilation to me is something that makes me feel bad. But in order for me to be humilated it would have to be done in front of others. In other words, while in the *bedroom* he calls me slut and other various names. I find this to heighten my excitement therefore it doesn't seem like humilation to me. But if he were to call me that in front of others not only would I be humilated, I'd be mad. The same goes for spanking. So I don't think that humilation comes into play for us much. If he were to ask me to wear something that I would feel humilated in wearing I don't think I would wear it. I would come to some compromise that would be halfway humilating but not so much so that I would feel that way in public. If Iwere to do exactly as he asked it would end up not turning out as he would like because the entire time my mind would be on the fact that all he really wanted was to humilate me in front of others and it would not bode well for later if you know what I mean.

 

[MLadyPain]

Terminology trip ups

BDSM has got to be the one area where agreed upon words mean completely different things to everybody LOL

I use the words "play" and "scene" interchangably (is that a word? is it spelled right? dunno lol) Same with "humiliation" and "icky stuff that makes me feel bad/stupid/horrid".

If I like it, its not "humiliation"... to me.

This is where communication, communication and communication come into play.

Still wants to here Sandia's personal definition of humiliation...
MLP

 

[CarolineOh]

OK, I just had one of those light bulb going off over my head moments.
Here is a quote from a post Mister Blandings wrote in his thread "My Recent Adventures"

"My master took me to a gay SM party. It was a back room type club. there was a long bar and near one end of the bar there was a metal pole from floor to ceiling. He ordered me to kneel in front of the pole with my back to it. He put cuffs on my wrists and chained them around the pole. Then he hung a sign around my neck that said "Blowjobs 5 cents", set a metal cup on the floor next to me and put a blindfold over my eyes. "

I read that and all of a sudden I viscerally understood the whole notion of erotic humiliation. Imagine how incredibly submissive one would feel in that situation, ordered to kneel and sexually service any anonymous man who passed by. But then, the kicker is this: "Blowjobs 5 cents". 5 cents. That's the key to it, I think, even if I still can't exactly describe why. Nobody would willingly give a blowjob for a nickel, and that makes the situation a bit absurd, so that it is clearly play. And yet, at the same time it is humiliating to think your best effort is worth so little. I don't know if I'm describing this in a way that makes sense. Maybe it's one of those things that either hits you the right way, or it doesn't. But I imagine myself in that situation, and can understand how I would feel absolutely humiliated and at the same time, incredibly turned on.

 

[cellis]

Oh yes, Caroline, it makes perfect sense to me. I had that same thought as I was reading James' story.

The humiliation... yet he also said that sound of coins hitting a cup still gives him a hard on today.

I try to think of situations Himself puts me... some I have yet to mention... where if I were in my right mind I would be incredibly humiliated, yet I am so sexualy excited that I have moved beyond the point of humiliation/or so excited by the prospect of being that position.... I wonder now if I am making any sense.

hmmm

 

[cymbidia]

Humiliation isn't something defined and definite like "flogging". We all know what that is, what it will feel like, sound like, make our butts and backs look like the next day. Heavy or light, rubber floggers or leather, slanted tips or knotted, flogging is flogging.

Humiliation isn't like that. It's deeply personal, deeply emotional, even very different from day to day, perhaps, for some of us. It can be anything from public verbal castigation to private uncomfy moments. It can change considerably over time. It can provide us with the most uncomfortable and potentially devastating moments in our lives as people and BDSM'ers and it can, too, be an avenue of growth.

I don't like to be on top of my dominant. Physically, i mean. At all. For any reason. Not for over the lap spankings, for example, or for sexual "ride 'em cowgirl" reasons or for any reasons at all ever. I just don't like it. I feel...exposed...ugly...on the edge of panic...utterly humiliated. There is no reason that i can remember, no horrible thing that happened to me when i up on top once upon a time, i just really don't like being there.

It's to the point where i'll not only balk but really try hard, desperately, almost with tears sometimes, to think how i can get out of doing it if i'm required to be there. I'm so freaky about it that i have it as a limit, a soft limit, yes, cuz it doesn't deserve hard status, but a limit nonetheless.

Most of the dominants i've had contact with through the years have kinda shrugged thier shoulders at it, considered it a peculiar quirk, and not bothered me overmuch about it when i demonstrated how really really really reluctant i was to play and have a good time while on top.

Wolf isn't buying it.
He's decided it's getting in the way of our interactions being what he wants them to be so he's talking me through it and making me do it.

It pisses me off.
It makes me kinda panic, every time.
It humiliates the shit out of me.
I don't like it.
But i'm doing it.
I have no real choice.

And every time, it's getting a teensy tiny itty bitty infintesimally easier, too.

But i don't like doing it.

It's humiliating for me.

It's not erotic.

But i'm doing it because he's making me do it. I'm doing it because he cares enough to let me go sulky and snotty, then talk me through it...let me dodge and change the subject, then bring me back to it...let me get scared and shaky, then soothe my fears and anxieties. Then he makes me do it anyway.

Humiliation is different things to all of us. Sometimes we know why they're humiliating and sometimes we don't. Sometimes they are fun, erotic kinds of humilations and sometimes they're things of shaky misery. Sometimes they stay with us for a long long time and sometimes we abandon them on our own.

Sometimes our lives intersect with someone who won't allow us to remain humiliated by some of those places. That can be a good thing, i'm learning, even while it's feeling bad.

 

[WillowPuss]

Humiliation is different things to all of us. Sometimes we know why they're humiliating and sometimes we don't. Sometimes they are fun, erotic kinds of humilations and sometimes they're things of shaky misery. Sometimes they stay with us for a long long time and sometimes we abandon them on our own.

Sometimes our lives intersect with someone who won't allow us to remain humiliated by some of those places. That can be a good thing, i'm learning, even while it's feeling bad.

((((((((HUGS))))))))))))))
Good luck with that cym.

Every time I think I have got rid of the one thing that sends me into the 'shaky misery' humiliation space ... it will suddenly rear its ugly head and bite me! Hard!

Maybe, one day, I will get there.

 

[MzChrista]

I have experience as a pro Domme and I had a lot of guys want humiliation scenes. I think its a way to get rid of guilt without any penaltys. Like a guy thinks hes been a jerk to his wife or his employees or what have you, or he has a fantasy he thinks is BAD so he has a woman call him names and smack him around a few times and he feels like he paid for being a jerk without any real consequences.
In JBs example,thats sort of different. Nobody in our culture is SUPPOSED to want to suck a lot of strange cock,so if you do, its like you are sooooo bad, and everybody likes feeling like that sometimes I think.

 

[Sandia]

Re: Terminology trip ups

BDSM has got to be the one area where agreed upon words mean completely different things to everybody LOL

I use the words "play" and "scene" interchangably (is that a word? is it spelled right? dunno lol) Same with "humiliation" and "icky stuff that makes me feel bad/stupid/horrid".

If I like it, its not "humiliation"... to me.

This is where communication, communication and communication come into play.

Still wants to here Sandia's personal definition of humiliation...
MLP

Good humiliation is something that's erotic, exploitative, true, sensual, dirty, submissive, humbling, and fulfilling. Deeply fulfilling.

Bad humiliation is embarrassing, awkward, and unsexy. And mean. And insensitive. Done for the pleasure of the dom, perhaps, but without the knowledge - or not caring that - it is not sexy or fulfilling to the sub.

 

[Cirrus]

I had a moment of MY definition of humiliation this last weekend. I know I have a good body. Not perfect, not model quality, but good. No fat in disproportionate amounts anywhere, no ribs sticking out, nicely shaped breasts and an OK ass. But still, that's looking at it objectively...from the outside. I personally don't like what I see. Never have, most likely never will.

My Dom, however, thinks I'm the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Now any other woman would eat that up, but for me, it's humiliating. He had me blindfolded and had me stand up and strip slowly, and by slowly he meant SLOWLY GODDAMMIT!! .

I had my shirt off at the time, but still had my bra, underwear and pants on. I did what he asked, but I hated it. I couldn't see him looking at me but I could sure as hell feel it...his eyes, just ogling me, evaluating. He stood in front of me and I reached out to touch his wrist, I thought by touching him I wouldn't feel so vulnerable. He wouldn't allow it. I was nude, but that time, I felt naked.

But like cym, I don't have much of a choice. I could say no, of course, but why? It doesn't kill me to let him look at me, and while I don't enjoy it, it's not damaging either. But it is definitley humiliating.

 

[cellis]

Oh my goodness, Cirrus, you just rang a bell for me....

Everytime I hear his voice on the phone "I want you to listen very carefully.... go home and be naked with the toys waiting for me...." I stop breathing.

I hate it.

I hate being naked waiting.

I hate feeling vulnerable.

I hate how I look without my clothes.

I hate all of that.

Himself knows it. It is part of the play. He tells me how much he wants me to be confortable with how I look.

He constantly takes photos of me, and then chooses the ones I use here for AV's.

I hate it, but I do it.

Cym is right. It does get a little easier, but not much.