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Why Humiliation?
Where is the fun? (continued - page 2)
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transmitted and received by both involved. It's like two gears meshed together. One moves counter clockwise,
the other moves clockwise. The Dominant moves towards more control and turns the submissive in the opposite
direction towards having less control.
What can be more difficult to understand is the use of humiliation as a tool to expand the submissive's experience
of themselves to a broader, more complete horizon.
Alright, so now I'm imagining you jumping up out of your chair and saying, "Just wait a minute here. You're going to tell me that by
humiliating someone they are going get some warm sensation of expanded consciousness? This sounds like some of that
self-help, personal discovery, pop-psyche mumble-jumble crap that gets thrown around day-time TV talk shows or sold
to neurotic alphabet people (AA, NA, CA, ACOA) at New Age book stores! I don't need any of that stuff. All I'm
interested in is getting my ass whipped and being called a low life scum bag! I don't need my horizons expanded!"
O.K., now sit back down and don't reach for that mouse yet. The fact that you are here, reading this, tells me that
you have gained a great deal of self awareness and have become fairly satisfied with yourself. People who are
not as self aware, find BDSM a bit
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too scary to submit their fragile emotions and battered self-esteem to. Or, they really go off the deep
end with it and walk around wanting to be a 'REAL SLAVE', or something like that. No, we're not perfectly
secure forms of humanity sitting on a mountain summit with all the answers to life's mysteries in the palm
of our hand, but, we do have some clues to it. The whole D/s- BDSM thing for us is not the road out of a
screwed up life but rather a playground that requires a good sense of emotional balance and a degree of
personal accomplishment to understand how the games work.
No one accepts pain without the promise of getting something more than just blue balls and a red ass. Although
the stuff we do is very erotic and turns us on, most of the men and women that are sincere about this lifestyle
aren't spending all of this energy just to get layed. There is more here. BDSM is fun plus some.
Why does it feel so uncomfortable when we feel like we have been humiliated or we experience some form of
character denigration? We don't have to be hurt physically, yet it hurts as much as having a cane come
crashing down on our ass. What makes us rebel against simple words that make us blush but can't do violence
to us or damage our flesh? Physical acts of humiliation carry the same weight as those that we experience
with our ears. What is the common thread between all forms of humiliation that can leave such gaping wounds
to our emotions?
It's simple. Humiliation confronts and attacks our ego. Yes, it's all about ego. Figures doesn't it?
It all boils down to the same old thing that gets thrown out at us all of the time. "Your ego keeps getting
in the way...he's got an inflated ego...what an ego-maniac...ah, did it bruise your ego...and on and on...blah,
blah, blah! So what? Well, first let's make a review of what the ego actually is and what it actually does for us.
Our ego does perform a real function in our daily life and it's not exactly all that the clichés make it out to be.
Here's a short and sweet vignette of psychology 101. I'm not going to get very technical here. In fact,
I'm going to take some liberty with terminology, just to keep it simple and to save some bandwidth. Please don't
write me with a long technical explanation or interpretation of all this psych stuff. I'm not trying to publish
a scientific paper here for peer review or debate. I'm just making an attempt to explain why you need me to
treat you like the garbage scavenging rodent that you are.
Everyone has heard of the Ego, the Id, and the Super Ego. These are basic terms that are used to explain how
our personality is formed and what makes it function as it does. What separates me from you are the life
experiences that we have been exposed to and how they, through cultural and social influences, have been
interpreted and evaluated by us. Those experiences are stored in memory on an unconscious, subconscious and
conscious level and manipulated by two separate components of our psyche, the Id and the Super Ego. These
are two very different entities that serve distinctly different purposes. The Id acts as what I like to call
the wild child that is selfless and cares nothing about rules or consequences. Now the Super Ego is basically
the exact opposite. If the Id is the wild child, then the Super Ego is the stern, overbearing, control freak
parent. The Super Ego is the super cop in your brain. It's all about strict conformity to the highest standards
and staunch letter of the law. This super cop wants to enforce it's will onto everything that the Id can conjure
up and then some. Want to do something? the Super Ego has a rule for it. Don't want to do something? it's got a
rule for that as well.
So I think you get the picture. If it's about pleasure and spontaneity, all the 'terrible two's' things, Id says
yes, Super Ego says no. Now, what is the Ego? Well, this is where the balancing act comes in that makes us behave
the way we do. Obviously, if we were all Id there would be nothing but chaos. We'd probably all be in jail.
If the Super Ego was in charge, well, that would be a real drag, but we wouldn't notice because everyone would
appear to be the same, all acting in unison, never straying out away from the norm. Zero range of tolerance and
no meaning to the term 'standard deviation'. If we never saw something different than what we are, we wouldn't
have anything with which to judge how boring it is to be us.
So here is the deal. The EGO balances out the demands of the virtue of the
Super Ego and the vice of the Id. Okay, so I'm doing a little judgment here about these two little characters,
but, it's easier for me to do it that way and I'm doing the writing. I'm going to try to make a point, which is;
Our EGO is really who we are presented as. What I mean is this; Our EGO ends up being an entity of compromise out
of this battle between the ID and Super Ego. It is therefore, the end all force that commands how we interact with
the world outside of us. The EGO is what tells us really what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior for the 'Person'
we are suppose to be.
I have heard some people say that the EGO is our operating system or functioning program. Put data in and the
EGO processes it and puts behavior out. Our senses collect data, by hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting, and smelling,
then processes it with the brain. Data into the EGO, then 'US' data out. Simple! Get your feelings hurt or stub
your toe and feel pain...EGO says...take it like a man, don't cry. See some hot babe and feel turned on...Ego says...
you are supposed to be a dignified, refined, gentleman, be polite. feel like you're a bit stressed out and need a break..
.EGO says...be responsible and take charge.
Whatever comes your way, your EGO normally has an answer as to how you need to handle it. This is how we are and
it is good. Without the EGO we would not have consistency nor would we have individual personalities. Our EGO makes
us recognizable and predictable to others, even if they may not like the way we are. Who we see ourselves as is
determined by our EGO and what we take pride in about ourselves, like the way we look, what we do, or what we know.
Our self-esteem, or lack of self-esteem, is a function of our EGO. The court that you play your game of life out
on and the rules that you play by are all a function of your EGO. When you look in a mirror, how you see yourself
is determined by...yes, your EGO.
Why Humiliation?(continued)
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