Break my heart

So this isn’t a real post. It’s just a response I made on a forum the other day.

Taylor had started a thread about emotional sadism and masochism and the word abuse was being tossed around like a beach ball – which of course compelled me to reply.

I don’t want to lose the words, the thoughts, cuz I rather like them.

So here they are.

The word abuse has been tossed around quite a bit in this thread.

I suppose hurting someone emotionally when it’s non consensual would be abuse. Just as smacking someone upside the head without consent would be.

Perhaps it’s my own error but I generally assume, when speaking on a BDSM forum, that we’re talking about consensual relationships.

I suppose one could make the argument that even with consent abuse can occur. But that’s for another thread at another time.

The initial post in this thread was speaking about emotional s/m in a consensual relationship.
And that’s what I’m going to talk about.

Just so we’re all clear.

The need for pain is a driving force in my life.
It’s not just something that makes me horny. It’s not just spice for my sex life.
It does make me horny and it does spice things up in the sack – I’m not going to act all superior, like I don’t get turned on by nipple clamps and a nice rattan cane – but it also goes way, way beyond that for me.
My life is missing something, my life is incomplete, without pain.
I thrive on pain as much as I do happiness and joy.
If I don’t have pain as a regular part of my life I am utterly fucking miserable.

And while a nice, warm, freshly spanked ass can be pleasant as hell and just what I need at times it’s not the sort of pain I’m talking about.

I need excruciating, gut wrenching, tear jerking, sob inducing, intense and overwhelming pain.
Pain that leaves me breathless and stuttering.
Pain that numbs the mind and makes me forget my own name.
Pain that blinds and deafens me to anything but the singing of the sensation itself.
Pain that breaks me down and leaves me a limp, sobbing, beaten and broken wreck upon the floor.

If I don’t get it in a consensual relationship I’ll find other ways to get it.
I don’t self harm. I never have.
But I’m accident prone and become more so when pain is lacking in my life.
And I make the most horrible, painful choices when I’m not being given pain in a way that is helpful rather than harmful for me.

It’s not just physical pain I crave.
I jones for emotional hurt just as often, just as deeply.

That ball of hurt in my chest thrills me as much as an oozing welt across my bottom.
That knot of tortured pain in my gut feeds me as well as a back layered with bruises and abrasions from the flogger or whip.
The mad screaming ringing in my head when I’m being emotionally bludgeoned is just as satisfying as the crack of a paddle or the pinch of a clamp.

These are all things I need, things I crave, things I’ll go to stupid lengths to get if I’m not being given them in a consensual relationship.

There’s nothing abusive about it.
No more so than there is in any of the other aspects of BDSM.

For me it’s not about growth and releasing horrible memories from the past.
My growth as a submissive doesn’t come thru pain. My growth as a person doesn’t come thru s/m. And I just don’t have enough horrible things in my past to attempt to use pain to release myself from them.

Pain, for me, is sensation.
I am a very contained, calm, middle of the road type of person most times.
Stable.
Content.

Intense happiness thrills me.
Intense fear exhilarates me.
Intense pain intoxicates me.

Intense feelings are, for me, rare and beautiful and absolutely necessary to bring color to my life.

And whether he’s cutting my flesh with a sharp, flashing scalpel or welting my skin with a hissing, biting single tail or squeezing my tender heart in his hands until it bleeds…

It’s all necessary, gorgeous pain to me.

Perhaps if I were vulnerable and weak as some have implied a partner of Taylor’s must be I wouldn’t be able to handle such things.
But I am gloriously strong and revel in being broken down on occasion – be that physically or emotionally.
It thrills me.
It feeds me.
It balances me.

Is it wrong to subject someone who is not strong enough to bear it to such things? Of course. Just as it’s wrong to force physical pain upon someone who neither wants nor can take it.
Can we emotionally harm those we don’t know or love? Of course. Most of us have been hurt by strangers or casual friends at least a time or two. We don’t need a key to get in, don’t need someone to love us in order to hurt them. We humans can hurt each other all too easily.

But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
We are – and always have been – talking about people who do this because they want to, choose to.
Because it leaves them pulsating with sadistic pleasure or quivering in exquisite, masochistic pain.