In the first part, we've talked about the biochemical reactions of the body when confronted with pain. We are now going to talk about the psychological perception of it.
Pain is not something actually "physical", it is a sensation, and as such it is perceived differently by different people and even by the same person in different circumstances.
First, it seems to be that there is a "good" pain and a "bad" pain. As far as I know, a lot of people enjoy being severely spanked on the buttocks in a scene, even when it is painful, but most people doesn't enjoy knocking their bare foot against furniture. (I know. Both happened to me).
When using a flexible flogging instrument, you could hit "long", making the point of the instrument wrap around the body and hitting the wrong place. If you are whipping your bottom's back and you hit long, you'll hit the side of her body, under the arm. If with a belt on the buttocks, their side, or if on the thighs, the inside. That's ok for a punishment flogging (but be careful if hitting under the arm and with the genitals if on the thighs), but the "unpleasant" pain will distract your sub if it is supposed to be a sensual or sexual spanking. The "pleasant " pain of the slaps will not.
Many people enjoy receiving a beating on the soles of their feet, or the palms of their hands. But a sharp hit with a ruler on the upper part of the fingers or toes, hitting the knuckles (it is dangerous, don't try it), will get you a furious reaction from your bottom.
It seems then that there are "flavors" of pain, some acceptable, and some not.
Of course, they are not the same for everybody. It seems also that people has different tastes for pain. Be sure you know your submissive's feelings about that.
Second, the perception of pain itself changes with your mood. When you are aroused, or otherwise excited, (when your system is full of adrenaline or/and endorphins) your pain threshold is much higher.
Typical examples are the "love kisses", scratching and slapping received when having passionate or rough sex, even by "vanilla" lovers, that are not into spanking. The receiver notices the bruises and scratches afterwards, but cannot usually recall when s/he got them. They would have been painful outside the scene, and you would have suffered the victims resent immediately after, no matter whether s/he is or not into BDSM, but there were acceptable (and even arousing) and went unnoticed in the excitement of the act.
The same happens when you are engaged on a fight. You can accept blows that would be terribly painful if you were not enraged, stand them, and hit back.
When playing contact sports, you can receive not only blows, but injuries, and get up and continue playing. Adrenaline again. If you were kicked in the shins when playing soccer, or knocked to the ground by a hard defensive back when playing football, or sprained your ankle or knee in any sport, you will feel it after "cooling down" (after your body gets rid of the adrenaline and endorphins) and you will be very sore the morning after, not even being able to walk, but at the moment you took it as just a game incident, and you barely felt it.
So, the perception of pain is different depending on the kind of pain, and on your mood when receiving it.
Finally, even when pain is just undisguised pain, the morning after, when you have good memories of yesterday's activities, but your body aches, you accept it as an outcome of the pleasure you had. And the next time you will play again, or have sex again, (or get spanked again) even when you know that, most likely, there will be some pain afterwards.
And people are willing to accept the pain even when they feel it fully at the moment of receiving it. Women accept a lot of pain that is not disguised with pleasure when they are delivering babies. And they go to have another baby after, even knowing first hand the ordeal they are going to pass.
But it is not only in exchange of such great accomplishments that people are willing to accept pain. A long distance runner, biker or triathlon contender is going to suffer a lot of pain, actual and "painful" pain, even when masked by the adrenalin, during the race. And s/he is going to stand it and defeat it, and continue running in spite of the pain, even when knowing that s/he is doing it just for fun, with no chances of winning.
Even in which you can say that are trivial things people are willing to accept pain even when it is unpleasant. People have their body hair painfully plucked for "looking good". People torture themselves in the gym for being fit, or for loosing weight
(1). Women endure sore feet for wearing that "special" pair of shoes for the ball (and they dance all night notwithstanding).
It seems, then, that people are prepared to accept pain, actual pain, even when they don't enjoy it, in exchange of something they want.
Why we, in our games, would not be ready to accept pain in order to get what we enjoy?
Because if we really enjoyed pain, we would look for it always, when, in our everyday lives, we try to avoid it as much as anybody else. Our pleasure doesn't comes directly from pain, we suffer it in a scene as a way of getting what we want.
BDSM relations are, in our view, based basically in power interchange. One is in charge, the other looses control.
And one never feels so controlled, so helpless, that when somebody is beating on you and you cannot control it. It hurts, it is humiliating. That is the moment when you feel that you are in the top's power. And that, and not the pain, is what we like.
So, before making complex analysis of why people can enjoy pain, or if they are sick because of that, the questions should be: are they actually feeling as much pain as it looks, or is it diminished or masked by the body chemicals? Is that kind of pain so "painful" as to be actually unpleasant under the circumstances? And if they are feeling the pain and it is unpleasant, is there some desirable reward expected in exchange for that unpleasant pain?
Because, if when trying to understand "sadomasochistic" games, you overlook those questions, you are going to focus in what is actually a necessary and very visible condition for them, the pain, but you will be probably missing the actual reason for playing.
(1) We've found the Cicero cite after writing this article, but he used the same example in the sentence following the one cited at the beginning: "Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur?" (To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it?) (back)
Published: 01/23/04
Rev: 09/17/04
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