Pain tolerance in Doms/tops/sadists

[s_red830]

As an adult I have also used pain, achieved through very intense workouts, as a way to cope with stress or mental anguish. When dealing with extreme grief, physical pain keeps me from going out of my fucking mind.

I gotcha on that one. Distractions keep me going sometimes... I'm personally a fan of working my ass off so I can't think of anything else.

But to the topic on hand... do you consider yourself a masochist at all?

 

[JMohegan]

But to the topic on hand... do you consider yourself a masochist at all?

No, I do not find pain erotic.

Over the years, I have bottomed occasionally for the specific purpose of testing a new toy, tool, or technique. But I have never enjoyed the experience, and only do it to be a responsible partner.

The absence of control kills it for me. I really, really *hate* not being in control in this type of exchange.

 

[s_red830]

No, I do not find pain erotic.

Over the years, I have bottomed occasionally for the specific purpose of testing a new toy, tool, or technique. But I have never enjoyed the experience, and only do it to be a responsible partner.

The absence of control kills it for me. I really, really *hate* not being in control in this type of exchange.

I totally understand. Same here.

 

[Aeroil]

Eh... I think pain's easy to deal with if you get into the right mindset... I can melt handfuls of ice by just holding them for about an hour, until it feels like there's a bloody knife stabbing into my palm, and only be intrigued.

Then again, maybe melting ice in your hand doesn't hurt at all and I'm just a huge panzy.

 

[SpectreT]

Eh... I think pain's easy to deal with if you get into the right mindset... I can melt handfuls of ice by just holding them for about an hour, until it feels like there's a bloody knife stabbing into my palm, and only be intrigued.

Then again, maybe melting ice in your hand doesn't hurt at all and I'm just a huge panzy.

Heh. This post reminded me of a sort of "Test of Will" that a friend and I had. We each held an end of a huge icicle we'd broken off of his roof. He was quivering and gritting his teeth seconds into it, and had to let go near a minute. I just stood there until the damn thing melted through my fingers. It did hurt, but the rest of our interpersonal dynamic is him leading and me following; I'll be damned if I'll ever take a backseat to him in a strength or endurance contest of any sort.

 

[Netzach]

Ice sucks. When someone put it on me, mistakenly, I told them they could now respect my safeword and save their own life or continue on at grave risk.

 

[neonflux]

IME no way!

I've met a number of the "you could beat me dead and I'd die with a smile" masos in my life, people with whom *I* have to decide when the scene ends and it's never enough...

When I bottom, I resemble this remark, LOL.

one boy, ever that I've played with and maybe one or two in my social circles. The vast majority VAST majority are women, I'd say I've played with about four and know of about a dozen.

Hmmm, F can block pain out if he is prepared but overall he does not like your everyday pain or pain of any kind. I do wonder though about how pain is handled by various people given women have 2 1/2 times more pain receptors. Does it mean male subs can often on average take more extreme pain play simply because it doesn't impact on the senses as much as in a female? How would the pain receptors be in terms of TG? It is fascinating and open to lots of varients as I have found myself during particular times, most especially emotional.

The turn in this thread prompted me to start researching pain and gender - one recent study found that men and women respond to pain from different parts of the brain - men from the limbic system which makes them want to take action - crucial to "protecting the tribe" in our hunting/gathering days, women from the parts of the brain governing emotion - again crucial to "protecting our young" during our hunting/gathering days. LINK:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031105064626.htm

Their supposition as to the evolutionary origins of this behavior make sense to me - look at a group of chimps under threat of attack... I would imagine since hormones seem to have an impact on brain development of both trans and gay/lesbian folk, one might see variations in this response (only, of course, a conjecture). Also wonder if you would see changes when people transitioning begin taking hormones...

Anyway, got me to thinking about why there seem to be more women subs/switches, not just on this board but also in public play spaces - please, don't attack, just what it feels like! While some of this must have to do with social conditioning around gender, couldn't this difference in brain function also contribute?

If pain translates into emotion in women, wouldn't this lead to pain more likely being pleasurable to women than to men? This certainly plays out with my kink partner - he much more enjoys the D/s experience when I Top; for me it's the opposite, I am a supreme masochist...

For those of you who have a lot of experience Topping and have played with both men and women, what have you observed? Has it been similar to what Netzach has seen? Are the majority of women who bottom for you more able to withstand and enjoy pain when compared to the men?

Interesting... ~ Neon

 

[Bredon]

Neon--

What has become of good old social conditioning?
Girls when they get hurt usually get encouraged to cry, not to hit someone, with boys, they get severely punished when the cry instead of hitting someone-- as the synapses in the brain get er-- word? connected during the first years of life from the experience that we make-- well--- you get the picture--

I do think that woman learn to enjoy pain while men learn to enjoy hurting. That's my POV. Even though I'd have more than enough reason to believe in hormonal stuff I still think it's a political backlash that everybody is so keen on connecting everything to biology-- it came with conservativism and the new gender separation wave since about 2000--
I talked to a biologist today, (he's no human biologist) he believes that the pain receptors get "installed" from the experience of pain--it is well-known that the more pain you have suffered the more sensitive to pain you get. That is actually connected to the "installation" of the pain receptors-- they don't go away after you have made the pain experince-- and I believe that most women have made intense pain experiences in their lives (at the very least from menstrution or childbirth, but also from violence of course).

No offence, my dear, honestly

Bredon

 

[Netzach]

Neon--

What has become of good old social conditioning?

Indeed, although guys are supposed to suck up a lot, right? Not puss out? Whereas I think with women for the longest time whatever we felt was more or less discounted to the point where the idea of us even being rational human creatures is kind of a novelty.

Honestly, I know more female subs who are in it to please the other, come what may, and more male subs who are in it because it's what they want from life. I don't find that necessarily a problem - I enjoy the challenge of working with a male and his programming of "entitlement" but that's what I notice.

 

[Shankara20]

Are the majority of women who bottom for you more able to withstand and enjoy pain when compared to the men?

Interesting... ~ Neon

yes, yes, yes...

and as an observer - watching some women Top other women with a cane can make me break out in a cold sweat...

 

[Ebonyfire]

Masochists

The biggest masochist I have seen is a man. And I watched him get beaten with a bullship for at least an hour. I posted the experience in this forum a few years ago. When it was over, his back looked like minced burger meat. He had an hard on the whole time BTW.

Eb

 

[Ebonyfire]

Doms/tops/sadists: How is your pain tolerance?

As for my pain tolerance, I had my daughter 26 years ago via natural childbirth, no drugs after 19 hours of back labor while watching TV.

Need I say more?

Eb

 

[neonflux]

Neon--

What has become of good old social conditioning?
Girls when they get hurt usually get encouraged to cry, not to hit someone, with boys, they get severely punished when the cry instead of hitting someone-- as the synapses in the brain get er-- word? connected during the first years of life from the experience that we make-- well--- you get the picture--

I do think that woman learn to enjoy pain while men learn to enjoy hurting. That's my POV. Even though I'd have more than enough reason to believe in hormonal stuff I still think it's a political backlash that everybody is so keen on connecting everything to biology-- it came with conservativism and the new gender separation wave since about 2000--
I talked to a biologist today, (he's no human biologist) he believes that the pain receptors get "installed" from the experience of pain--it is well-known that the more pain you have suffered the more sensitive to pain you get. That is actually connected to the "installation" of the pain receptors-- they don't go away after you have made the pain experince-- and I believe that most women have made intense pain experiences in their lives (at the very least from menstrution or childbirth, but also from violence of course).

No offence, my dear, honestly

Bredon

Absolutely no offense taken. I admitted in my post that social conditioning was certainly one component. Re: your biologist friend, that the brain becomes wired during early childhood through experience, that certainly seems to be true with certain emotional responses/conditions like depression.

I do also think there is a brain/hormone connection. I've had a number of women friends - strong feminists - who had a boy and girl and found that despite trying to respond to both in the same way, they ended up treating them differently. For instance being more rough-and-tumble with the boys, more language-oriented with the girls. They attributed this not to falling into stereotypical responses but responding to how their babies acted and responded to them. Science is definitely finding not genetic but biological causes for sexual orientation that also result in brain differences.

I have gone through transition, both from MTF and FTM with several close friends. One of the things that we've all discussed and is fascinating is how they respond to hormones - in almost stereotypical ways that they didn't expect. For instance, a friend right now is transitioning from MTF and when she began taking hormones was amazed at how much easier it became to process emotions. This wasn't in response to transition but directly followed beginning to take estrogen.

Regarding experiences with pain - I think men have as many as women do - boys beat each other up, boys are as likely to suffer child abuse as girls, boys are "shamed" into "acting like males" (psychological pain). Which goes to your second point that boys are conditioned to feel anger and to hit rather than accept being hit. (I concur.)

I understand your comment about the political climate. A actually agree with this, also. My own take is that gender is a very complex interplay between nature, nurture and experiences, and that we have no real understanding yet of how all of these factors combine to make us who we are...

Neon

P.S., I always welcome civil discussion - that's part of the reason I love Lit

 

[Bredon]

The thought that gender is hormonal creeps me out, honestly--
I have seen TMs change and not change-- some react with changes to testosterone, other stay 100% the same.
On the other hand-- my character/mood/behaviour or whatever changed within one day, when I just came out as trans and started living male-- it was an extreme change, I turned into a sexist pig totally without hormones--

Many studies about "brain gender" etc have been shown to have no scientific value. Another biologist friend has a job where she controls these studies,and most of them are crap.

Dunno--- I just don't want to think about the whole issue I think--
There is on (realtively) intact matriarchal society in China (the musuo). And with them, there is no typically male or female behaviour in the sense as we know it. If it were hormonal, they should have it too, don*t you think?

OOOhhh-- lets just get back to the topic


__________________


again:

How is your pain tolerance, 100% doms/tops/PYLs? Confess!

Bredon

 

[neonflux]

The thought that gender is hormonal creeps me out, honestly--
I have seen TMs change and not change-- some react with changes to testosterone, other stay 100% the same.
On the other hand-- my character/mood/behaviour or whatever changed within one day, when I just came out as trans and started living male-- it was an extreme change, I turned into a sexist pig totally without hormones--

Many studies about "brain gender" etc have been shown to have no scientific value. Another biologist friend has a job where she controls these studies,and most of them are crap.

Dunno--- I just don't want to think about the whole issue I think--
There is on (realtively) intact matriarchal society in China (the musuo). And with them, there is no typically male or female behaviour in the sense as we know it. If it were hormonal, they should have it too, don*t you think?

OOOhhh-- lets just get back to the topic


__________________


again:

How is your pain tolerance, 100% doms/tops/PYLs? Confess!

Bredon

Just one last comment - I understand NOT wanting to see biology as destiny. I fought the whole idea of this new biological/brain research as having any validity for a long time, but now am not so sure. Anyway, not making the suggestion that anything in human beings is totally dependent upon biology. I think that biology is only one component of something much more complex, and that because we are human and our primary means of environmental adaptation has for millions of years been cultural, culture is always the primary mediator. Behaviors having to do with who dresses up to attract the other sex, how assertive one is in society, who takes out the trash (couldn't resist ) are certainly culturally dependent. Something like how pain is experienced in the brain, might very well have a biological component. (And please forgive for hijacking your thread one more time - if you post again, promise not to try to have the last word .)

Now, back to topic, except for when someone crossed a hard boundary, I have never call yellow in response to pain when in scene (except once - nipples were overly sensitive that day)... One of my current fantasies is to go through all of the house doms at one of the local sex clubs, via flogging, LOL. (True, actually). I may not be a sub but I am one hell of a power bottom - think that it's actually somewhat of a "macho" thing.

 

[Shankara20]

One of my current fantasies is to go through all of the house doms at one of the local sex clubs, via flogging, LOL.

I wanted to go through all the TV's at the same club, but that is for some other thread....

 

[neonflux]

I wanted to go through all the TV's at the same club, but that is for some other thread....

I know someone else (there last night), who probably has the same fantasy, LOL.
<---- sorry, another hijack, mea culpa...

 

[Ebonyfire]

LOL I've always done that. If I have some pansy-butt boy complaining about clothespins, I'll deploy a moment of bored nudity by putting one on a tit and telling him to stifle it.

If one of my boys complains, I bring out the industrial clips and put one or two on his nuts (he usually shuts up at that point). For some reason they never safeword, lol!

 

[WI Master]

I get enjoyment from pushing myself physically but I don't find it erotic... I have walked 120 miles in 4 days in full uniform (meaning BOOTS) and a 22 pound ruck sack... and let me tell you IT HURT, I had 10 plus blisters on my feet... but I turned around and did it again all over the next year... so I would say I have a high threshold for pain... I just don't find it erotic... but I love it when my sub does... finding that edge between pain pleasure and pain is very intense... my doing these extreme things makes me appreciate her desires..

 

[rexfelis]

I am dominant, and a sadist. I really enjoy inflicting pain... haven't yet really had a chance to explore this side of myself, yet, because my slave has a low tolerance and I choose to respect that.

However, I can say that I am sensitive to, and dislike pain... and I can also say I have lived through some of the worst pain any person could possibly experience and still live to tell the tale. Male, female or otherwise. Even those ladies who have gone through natural childbirth can't say they have one up on me... at least, according to one of the female nurses who talked to me after she witnessed some of what happened. Obviously, being male, all I know is I was in absolutely incredible amounts of pain.

Do I like pain? No. Is it erotic for me? No. Is there pain worse than what I experienced? Yes. Can I take great pain? Apparently, when the chips are down... I can. Do I ever want to try that experience again? Not on your life!

 

[John Doe]

Life is pain.