Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission (35 page)

Nine

T
o experience pain as pleasure seems paradoxical. Yet, the playful pinch or slap of a lover in a moment of high passion are varieties of pain, and both are common and widely accepted as aspects of intimate play that increase excitement. Pain is pleasurable when it is perceived as pleasurable. A love bite given in the bedroom may drive one to a peak of passion. A bite of identical force given on the street may drive one to the nearest police station to press charges.

To a person for whom the very idea of being struck with a whip can be
perceived only as pain, it is difficult to understand that for some it may well be as erotic as the most gentle and intimate caress. Perception is everything, and perception varies from individual to individual.

This chapter profiles several individuals who speak to the subject of pain as pleasure.

That acute sensations may enhance erotic pleasure has always been known: Varieties of painful stimulation are recorded as means of enhancing sensations and lovemaking in sexual manuals such as
The Kama Sutra
(circa 450
B.C
.) and other works. According to Magnus Hirschfeld, the Talmud “says that flagellation on the back may lead to a discharge of semen.”
²
Erotic pain was considered a specific to combat the wilting effects of age and impotence in cultures as diverse as Imperial Rome and Restoration-era England. It is difficult to assess the sexual mores of another age, especially when that age left little documentation of the practices of the bedroom. Yet the notion that pain and pleasure are intermingled in the act of sex is one that would probably have elicited little controversy among the ancients.

The love of pain was termed
algolagnia
(literally, “pain craving”) by Schrenk-Notzing in 1892. It was about this period that pain was apparently segregated from “normal” sexuality. Until erotic pain came under the scrutiny and disapproval of late-19th Century sexologists, it seems to have been accepted as an unusual vice that might, at most, excite gossip or speculation.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the psychological literature on the enjoyment of pain is the absolute inability of psychologists to reach a consensus on etiology. No single theory on the etiology of sadomasochism proposed between 1886 and 1992 stands up to basic scientific scrutiny.
³

The bias against painful pursuits has not markedly changed since the 19th Century, although today’s more enlightened helping professionals seldom attempt to cure or to correct a patient’s desire for pain. The exceptions are extreme cases of masochism which result in life-threatening emergencies. This small minority of masochists however seems rarely to pursue consensual D&S.

The eros of pain has a long history of representation in Western literature. Krafft-Ebing identified the enjoyment of pain with the name of novelist Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Masoch’s most notorious novel was
Venus in Furs
, wherein the whip-wielding Wanda treats her submissive lover, Severin, to sharp depredations which cause him unalloyed delight. Krafft-Ebing chose the Marquis de Sade—whose imagination, as is often the case, was far more active than his sex life—as an exemplar of pain giving. In
Psychopathia Sexualis
, Krafft-Ebing forever linked the enjoyment of inflicting pain with de Sade. (Contrary to popular belief, the term
sadism
had been in use for decades before Krafft-Ebing employed it, primarily in French literary criticism.)

These gentlemen are hardly unique in having inscribed a penchant for erotic pain upon the literary record. For centuries the tradition of courtly love glorified the concomitant pain and pleasure experienced by the man who rapturously suffers for the sake of a cruel, unattainable woman. While such sentiments were considered to be chaste, the metaphors and images were explicitly sadomasochistic. By the end of the 19th Century, poets Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, Charles Algernon Swinburne, and Paul Verlaine had scandalized and titillated readers with their evocative descriptions of sadomasochistic sexuality.

D&Sers who are solely interested in the psychological stimulation of D&S or in fetish activities are often just as baffled or put off by physical discomfort as are most mainstream individuals. Nonetheless, D&Sers generally agree that putatively uncomfortable or painful activities, such as bondage, spanking, whipping, or other intense stimulation, are often a part of their sexual relationships.

Few, if any, D&Sers do all the things covered in the following four chapters. People who enjoy rigorous physical discipline may not necessarily enjoy bondage. Many “love bondage” enthusiasts object to pain of any kind. Not only does the desirable level of stimulation vary from person to person, but the kind and the location of stimulation desired varies broadly as well. Those who enjoy a stringent spanking may be loath to experience pain to anything but the buttocks, and those who enjoy stimulation in far more sensitive areas may seek only light, teasing, tingling sensations.

Not only is the percentage of the population who is aroused by intense stimulus high, but the actual numbers vary according to what one classifies as an erotic response to pain, and even what constitutes pain.

The people we interviewed often made critical distinctions between dominant and sadist, and submissive and masochist. Most D&Sers feel compelled to arrive at personal definitions. The clinical labels rarely fit, perhaps because psychological communities lump together people of significantly different tastes, desires, and degrees of interest.

Spanking, for example, has been little studied as a distinct phenomenon. Instead, it has been assumed to be a behavior within the boundaries of clinically defined sadomasochism, an assumption which makes spanking “purists” bristle. Likewise, there is little general differentiation of bondage or of whipping in clinical classifications, yet these behaviors have a core of practitioners who are interested in little else. Classifications are more a matter of convenience for the researcher than a reflection of what people desire or practice. The distinctions made by the people themselves are crucial to an understanding of their sexual personae. Making the willing infliction or reception of pain in any sexual context a common denominator is guaranteed to result in a huge grouping of peoples whose interests are widely divergent.

The Grimm fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” is about a delicate young girl who is disturbed by the slightest sensation. Perhaps the story of deep masochiste could be titled “The Princess and the Nettles,” since anything less chafing might be undetectable, even boring. A sexual masochist not only requires a profound arousal of the senses but actually loves extreme sensation in much the same way that others delight in a soft caress.

A sexual sadist, conversely, derives pleasure from inflicting intense stimulation. But D&Sers who follow the “Safe, Sane, and Consensual” credo wish to give or feel a pain that is inherently pleasurable to both partners.

Clearly, people vary dramatically in their thresholds for intense stimulation. The question of why this is so is difficult to answer.

In recent years some strides have been made in developing plausible physiological—if not psychological—explanations for the thrill of pain. This is
partly a result of sports medicine’s research on the effects of endorphins. Athletes frequently note the rush of endorphins (from
endogenous morphine:
“the morphine within”)
⁵
that can accompany pain and fatigue. Endorphins are natural opiates that are secreted by the pituitary gland in response to pain. They bind to opiate receptors in the brain, bringing not only a cessation of pain but a sense of well-being or even euphoria. Pain can literally bring pleasure.

A masochist’s interest in pain may be partly attributable to the craving for an endorphin-induced natural high. Most of our interviewees recall that they first learned that the same sensations that others perceived as purely painful—i.e., an anguish to be avoided at all costs—were for them erotic and exciting when they were still children. For them, pain and pleasure created a powerful erotic admixture.