Sadism, and the Study of Pain

Posted on May 7, 2009 in theory | 10 Comments

i have noticed elsewhere online that you have added ’sadistic’ to your lineup of adjectives. i was very interested in your explanation of how you came to claim those words as part of your identity (forgive me if this is not accurate), and would be interested in hearing a similar description of how you came to claim sadistic as well.

Yes, I have added “sadistic” in a couple of my taglines or bios or descriptions recently, and it is an identity label that I claim, at least to a degree. I think the identity of “sadist” is understood much less – outside of kink communities and circles – than the other identity tags I use (queer, butch, top), and it can be incredibly off-putting for folks who don’t understand it.

There’s just so much stigma around it – you like to give others pain? You enjoy that, you get off on it, it turns you on? That’s seen as, well, kind of fucked up by a lot of people.

And it kind of is fucked up, if that’s the way you’re looking at it. But the details of how sadism works a lot more complicated than that – at least, it is for me.

It’s taken me a long time to come to claim a bit more of a sadistic identity, and it’s still something that I say with a little bit of reservation or even shame, partly because I don’t want it to come on too strongly and freak someone out.

First: playing with sadism, for me, must be consensual and intentional. I do not enjoy being cruel in general, and actually it is sometimes very difficult for me to treat someone I love with humiliation or damage, to hit them, to slap someone in the face. I’ve had to go through the feelings of top guilt and, to a greater extend, sadist guilt, when I started exploring this. Those feelings aren’t completely gone, but I know what I’m doing more now and I have more confidence in my perspective and standpoint, so I don’t have as much guilt about it.

I remember precisely when I realized I was a sadist: it was 2002, and I was in a Body Electric workshop called Power, Surrender, and Intimacy. (This is going to get a little bit sacred sex/spiritual, just to warn you.) We had been discussing power, dominance, and sadism – and receiving that with surrender, submission, and masochism – and had been doing exercises all relating to tapping into those feelings. We were in the middle of a ritual (I won’t go into details) when someone had a very strong reaction, and began crying. I was going through my own experience and starting to really feel myself come into some power and dominance in a new way, and I was flooded with the witness of her release. It was a solo ritual, so we weren’t working together or touching, and she probably wasn’t even aware of me, she just started sobbing, loudly, in her own world of release, and I felt the energy as the grief and emotion flooded through her, I was so attuned to the shifts of energy in the room, and started realizing that I was incredibly turned on by her release. It was beautiful – pure and unhindered, just letting go of some really deep things that she’d been carrying and holding on to for who knows how long. I wanted to coax her through it, support her, and in my mind I was soothing her, cradling, holding the space around her so that she herself could have room to be safe and release. I loved the feeling of doing that for someone (even though I wasn’t really doing that for her, I was just imagining the scenario where I would do that) and I got such a rush and release myself from witnessing someone else get into that space of deep release, deep surrender, and then come back, smiling and whole.

So there’s a lot of psychology to it for me: we carry around all sorts of grief, pain, shame, anger, rage, distrust, disassociation, and guilt, especially about our physical bodies and our sexualities. And one of the ways that BDSM and power play and pain play taps into that is through acknowledgment and, ultimately, release – which is why we can feel renewed, refreshed, energized after a deep scene.

We also just don’t have very good tools for release and replenishment available to us. We’re not exactly taught how to remake ourselves and let go of some of our deep grief, and I believe this kind of emotional release is one of those ways.

Aside from the psychology, I also like pain. And as much as I talk about being a sadist, I have spent many years as a masochist also – I’ve been beaten, flogged, caned, whipped, pierced, cut, and slapped; I’ve had 13 piercings (only one of which I wear anymore); I’ve had some experience submitting and surrendering, and using pain as a way to get more present in my body, and then to let go.

There’s a degree to which, though, at this point, I feel like I’ve had enough of that kind of release, I seek something else now. I know how to get myself into a state of deep body release, mostly through yoga or meditation or masturbation or running, and I wanted to explore other things related to that kind of bodily release – namely, guiding it in others. I get more out of the experience of taking someone through it than I do going through it myself, these days. I don’t expect that to be permanent, but I don’t expect it to change either – for now, I know I’m a top who really likes to play with my sadistic side, and that really works for me.

So, after this series of revelations and after some further investigation, and being very sure that I wanted to get deeper into this kind of play, I began studying it more intentionally: how to get someone into that state, how to keep them safe when they’re there, how to encourage the release (but not overwhelmingly so), and how to bring them back from it.

There’s also that moment … how do I describe it. Where put your hand in water and you can’t tell if it’s super hot or super cold – how our senses cross-fire sometimes when sensation is so deep and heavy and stimulating that we can’t tell if it’s pain or pleasure.

I love playing with that line, partly because it is a way to practice pain without suffering – a way to practice pain without being hurt, but to experience it as a release, change, and growth. I think pain play can do a lot of that, too, and it is very interesting to me, as someone who is interested in algology (the study of pain), and someone who studies the cessation of suffering, how to encourage these moments of transformation where pain becomes pleasure, useful, and a methodology of study.

What I’m saying is: sadism is the intentional use of pain, discomfort, and other dark emotions to find deep release, move energy, and renew the self. As someone who is deeply interested in dark emotions, the messy stuff, the hard stuff, and personal transformation and self-awareness, this is a tool that I find incredibly useful.

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A Resplendent Image

Posted on March 6, 2009 in Kristen, stories to turn you on | 12 Comments

Some days just the memory of her is enough to drive me wild.

I’ve been holding on to the image of her in my bed last Sunday all week, rolling it over in my mind like I roll my ring on my finger.

We’d already been fucking, all day really. Woke and I couldn’t keep my hands off her, stayed in bed until hunger forced us up after one. Back home and I wanted more. Cradled her, fucked a while, until I wanted to watch.

I’m perhaps more of a voyeur than even I know. And she is such an expert at her own body, I love watching her as her skin flushes, fingers move, hands hover above her own pussy as she shakes, then opens her eyes to look at me: “want me to do it again?”

This time, she was on her back, on my bed. I wished aloud for a spreader bar and then made one, makeshift, from a white-tipped straight black cane and black rope, her ankles as far apart as they could go, she couldn’t close her knees.

Then: clamps on her nipples. Tighter than I expected, but I know she likes the pressure, likes it when I bite hard.

Then: I got a cock out, a big one, the widest I have, I can’t even get my thumb and forefinger all the way around the narrowest part. It is short, so, hard to strap-on. I keep it in my hand as I watch her writhe for one, two orgasms on her own, as she can’t take something that big until she’s warmed up.

I tug at the chain of the nipple clamps, twist them around for more of a pinch. She moans. She likes it.

I watch her come and lube up the cock, slide it in without much resistance, watch her face change, her hips open, as she starts working her clit again right away.

And these are the images that flash in my mind: that thick red cock shoved all the way in; her hands, both, between her legs, upper arms pushing her breasts together as the clamps and chain accent her nipples and swollen aureole; knees up and rocking back and forth, straining against the bar holding her ankles apart.

I’m kneeling at the foot of the bed, knees apart, stroking my cock, still strapped on, watching from slightly above as she writhes and moans.

Then: next to her, my hand working the cock in and out, my mouth at her neck, shoulder.

“Kiss me,” she whispers, as I refuse to close the distance and keep her straining to reach my mouth.

I grin, and slap her instead, three four five six times in rapid succession. She moans, I hit her again. “Or slap me, that’s good too,” she breathes, nearly under her breath, as I continue to make her cheek pinker, and I do, again, and she starts coming, harder, so I slap her a few more times before leaning in to kiss her, until she starts jerking as she comes and nearly knocks me in the nose with her forehead.

“Fuck me, please,” she is unhinged like this and asking for just what she wants, and I love that.

I shift between her legs, the bar holding her ankles apart now behind my knees and I keep some pressure on it so she can strain against it, and slide inside easily, wrap my arms around her, kiss her hard, and we lose ourselves in it, rocking against each other, going deep.

12 Comments | Category: Kristen, stories to turn you on | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,