Not everybody seeks pain.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Duh, Tess!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This was actually a harder concept for me to grasp. So hard, in fact, that I turned to my distinctly pain-avoiding husband to ask him, why?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n His answer was simple and beautiful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those who search out discomfort are looking to grow. But it doesn\u2019t have to be physical discomfort.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Was I growing from my pain? Or merely avoiding the more psychological discomforts in life? I sat with that question for a while, and then finally, I began to write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve heard them all a million times: Why would you want to do that? Doesn\u2019t that hurt?! Why do you think that\u2019s fun?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure, being poked with a cattle prod and balancing on one foot while surrounded by rat traps on the floor isn\u2019t everybody\u2019s idea of a good time, but the sheer absurdity of what the human body can do and endure is in itself exhilarating.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A friend of mine once learned she could orgasm if I kicked her hard enough in a certain spot. Tell me that isn\u2019t a weird and fascinating fact to learn about yourself as a human being? Shock value and strangeness aside, there are very real benefits to the exploration of pain, both giving and receiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On this, I could wax poetic for hours, but I\u2019ll spare you the long-winded version. My soapbox, however, begins with one very specific idea:<\/p>\n\n\n\n All pain is sensation, but not all sensation is pain.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On more enlightened days, I\u2019ll go so far as to strip away my title of masochist<\/em> and replace it with sensation seeker<\/em>. The definition of pain can vary slightly but at the core, it is quite universal: Pain is your body telling you that you are hurt and something is wrong.<\/em> Now, here\u2019s where we can play with nuance: The idea of hurt<\/em> varies from person to person. The downhill mountain biker probably wouldn\u2019t consider that sore bruise from when his shin met the open dishwasher door an injury<\/em>, but it may bother somebody else for days. Chronic pain sufferers will frequently go through their day with a baseline of pain that would make others feel crippled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pain can be a highly subjective experience\u200a \u2014 \u200ato a point.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The line, for me, is drawn at an undeniable injury that impedes my ability to function normally<\/em>. Whether it be for hours or years, true injury is debilitating and limiting. My body over time has unfortunately sustained many sports-related injuries, and I feel well-versed in what I consider an injury,<\/em> and what for me is an acceptable amount of bruising<\/em> from a good spanking. Yeah, it may be tender to sit down, but I can still sit down without causing myself harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, if pain<\/em> is a sign of injury, what do I call all that sweet post-spanking tenderness? Sensation.<\/em> And I am a sensation-fiend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why? Well, I could answer; why not?\u2014<\/em>but that wouldn\u2019t help anyone understand. But perhaps a better answer would be; I\u2019m raising my bar for suffering<\/em>. I\u2019ve given myself a yardstick for my personal endurance, and after being caned and waterboarded for three hours, maybe doing my taxes or carrying my heavy grocery bags four blocks home isn\u2019t that bad? When we change the rubric for what real<\/em> suffering is, we become bothered by less and less until the world is easier to endure.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes it\u2019s even possible to transmute what used to be painful and turn it into pleasure.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What could be more empowering than that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other bonus is that I\u2019ve learned to recognize the signs of true injury<\/em> within my body, which means I don\u2019t have to get nearly so peeved about those times I forget the dishwasher door is open and accidentally hit my shin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How about sadism? What could I possibly gain from letting myself enjoy the hurting of others? Truth is, a lot!<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I first came about my kinky family, I met a man whom others knew simply as Beast<\/em>. Beast was many things; intelligent, kind, humorous, and open-minded. He was also a wonderfully wicked sadist who belongs in my top five play partners who genuinely enjoyed and got off on my suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Beast first started exploring his sadism, however, he admitted that he\u2019d been fearful. As a martial artist, he\u2019d previously been in situations where his body was literally the weapon between himself and certain injury. He feared his urges; he wanted to cause pain, and this in turn felt shameful. He carried around a weight within that he could be, at his core, a rotten and evil person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years, Beast learned through play that his ministrations were desired, wanted, and appreciated. The part of him that he was once ashamed of became a celebrated and wonderful piece of him. People sought out his skill and reveled in his enjoyment of pain. And slowly, the distinction came to him that he\u2019d feared himself in the context of sexual aggression <\/em>and not sadism. The thought of a non-consensual form of this was abhorrent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, Beast realized he doesn\u2019t get off of the concept of human suffering. He wouldn\u2019t stand at the edge of a war zone with his pants around his ankles or feel a zing of excitement when stepping into a battered women\u2019s\u2019 shelter. No, he wants to see the pain that he or someone he knows inflicts on a willing partner.<\/em> There is such a clear delineation between the two that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or DSM, as psychiatrists refer to it) refuses to even place those who experiment with only consensual sadism within its diagnostic scope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know people whose darkness extends deeper than Beast\u2019s, whose sadism is an undeniably larger part of themselves, and those who still can have that deep and intense exchange with only minimal amounts of pain infliction. The spectrum of sadism is as myriad and variegated as the people themselves who belong to it. And with every one of them, what I find the most inspiring above all is the willingness to seek beauty where many others would turn away. The exploration of human limits has always been a brave undertaking, no matter how much it is a part of us. A sadist who can not only recognize but revel in their darker self will not lose their humanity, because humanity is the difference between sadist and aggressor. And if you feared losing yours, to begin with, then that already speaks to your humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the words of Alebeard from the classic paintoy.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n ” We have watched your world, the pain and suffering, cruelty, and malice and within it found mirth and joy. It was not us that so forged it, not me and mine who crafted the madness of it, but upon it we feast. Use a safeword and I shall cease, tell me no and I shall stop, this is the sacred bond. Your suffering interests me. I am fed with cruelty, with obscenity and degradation, with sadism and sex. If you are not, walk on, shining sister, and maybe we shall share tea, but not a scene. “<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes, it\u2019s as simple as that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance.<\/p>\u2014Arthur Schopenhauer<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a song I enjoy listening to with the opening lyrics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s gasoline in your heart, there\u2019s fire in mine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s an apt description of my tendency to explode with excitement at the things that I enjoy. When I meet others with the same inclinations, I feel we could burn the world down with our zealous hedonism. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s climbing mountain tops or being flogged; two people enjoying something and sharing in each others\u2019 enjoyment doesn\u2019t just double the excitement\u200a\u2014\u200ait squares it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I often tell people that my favorite fear is the look in the eyes of a sadist who is enjoying my suffering. The exchange between a sadist and a masochist is akin to a dance. It reminds me of bachata or a fiery tango. The push and pull, fierceness, and connection are undeniable.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s being exchanged in those moments? It differs from scene to scene, person to person. The fundamental pieces of cruelty and suffering come from a deeper and more primal place than anything else I\u2019ve experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a bottom, I\u2019m willing myself to either endure or be lost in the moment, and the energy of my top can be my encouragement to do so. Their enjoyment is a gift that I can utilize to bring me closer to an edge that I may or may not have had the strength for myself. Sometimes it draws out pleasure from places I didn\u2019t know it could be found or teaches me to draw it out on my own. When the scene is over, I\u2019m intoxicated by both myself and the glowing person who brought me to my knees and back again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a top, I\u2019ve been given the opportunity to relish a power that I otherwise wouldn\u2019t have, but also the tenderness that comes with the trust placed in me. Cries and whimpers to me are already lovely, but the warmth it brings me that I\u2019m given the chance to elicit them is something else entirely. Knowing you\u2019re the source for a reaction is a stirring feeling. We\u2019ve all known it when we make a lover gasp or hear our friends laugh in pleasure from something we said. Drawing out reactions feeds the soul, and so does knowing that in this instance, they\u2019re seen as positive reactions\u200a\u2014\u200aeven when accompanied by tears.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The article, Your Pain, My Pleasure<\/a> by Ena Dahl<\/a> might touch on the answer. A piece of it may lie in the ego, and our psychological hedonism may push us to endure greater pain to enjoy greater net pleasure. Whether that pleasure is physical, social, or mental is entirely up to one\u2019s tastes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve watched man dance with pain through redemptive suffering, and the rise of the Flagellantism (from the Latin flagellare<\/em>, to whip) in the 14th century. Surrounded by the involuntary suffering of the Black Plague, fanatical Catholics whipped their own backs in the hopes to bring themselves closer to Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Towards the latter end of the 18th century, victorian France in all its pious glory had been turned on its head by one Donatien Alphonse Francois, otherwise known as Marquis de Sade. His views on pain concerned the ethics thereof and predicted that, in our need to suppress it, we would eventually succumb to seeking it\u200a\u2014\u200aboth in giving and receiving. He was proved right many times after his death, a feat that I\u2019m sure has his bones chuckling in the Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nReceiving pain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nGiving Pain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nPutting the two together<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSo why do we seek pain?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n