Humiliation

[Friday]

(I am entirely new to the whole idea of BDSM so please forgive me if I sound ignorant and you've had the same question a dozen times)

There are parts of BDSM that I understand (as far as my limited understanding takes me anyway) but one thing that makes no sense to me is humiliation. Please rest assured I am in no way degrading (haha funny pun) this practice, I simply do not get it, to put it in layman's terms. I'd be incredibly grateful for any help you can give me when it comes to explaining the whole concept.

[nix]

I personally love humiliation.
The whole idea is to surrender yourself, to put yourself into a position where you are not only vulnerable but also assured to be tormented. It's a release of dangerous emotions in a safe environment.
Basically think of it as spanking/whipping/etc for the mind.

[ReallyGreen]

In a manner of speaking humiliation is losing or abandoning your sense of pride. Many people think embarrassment and humiliation are the same but they aren't. When the sub kneels to the dom they are showing humility or being humiliated. You don't have to call somebody a "fat sweaty faggot" to humiliate them. Some people enjoy this kind of verbal abuse play, but its not the end-all, be-all of domination or humiliation.

Some will say that a sub's ultimate goal is not just a loss of pride, but a loss of self, to be transformed from an independant person to a living apparatus of pleasure for someone else; having no thought or concern for anything except the desires of the dom. In Freudian psychology they wish to surpress the ego and the super-ego and exist totally in the id. The novel 'The Story of O' follows this theory.

Examples of humiliation commonly include:
*Crossdressing (which when stripped of its cultural mores means less than nothing as far as sex is concerned)
*The sub refering to him/herself as 'your slave' (or whore, sissy etc) instead of using the 1st person 'I' or 'me'. This reinforces the humility of loss of self identity.
*The sub engaging in sexual acts outside the sub's orientation (ie, a hetero male sucking cock)

[Friday]

Thank you nix for the metaphor, which made complete sense to me

Thank you ReallyGreen for the explanation from a psychology point of view. I think my understanding of what constituted humiliation in this setting was limited, and did not encompass everything that someone who was familiar with the idea would think of. Humiliation, to me, seemed to be more about the verbal abuse side of things. However, the way you've explained it makes much more sense and I can understand the need to lose your identity in another.

[nix]

Friday:
I'm glad I helped

RG:
Nice reference to L'histoire d'O. We should have a topic for those types of works, such as Venus in Furs etc too.

[Friday]

If you know of any other books that would be good reading for explanations like this one I'd be incredibly grateful.

[ReallyGreen]

Good books? No, sorry. Maybe 'Erotic Slavery', which while informative, is so incredibly dry it will just as likely make you bored with the idea of D/s relationships as it will encourage it.

But I can tell you that the Anne Rice 'Sleeping Beauty' series is so ungodly stupid that you really should avoid them. Never before has spanking been so repetitive or boring.

[Friday]

*laughs*

I have never been a huge fan of Anne Rice to be honest. Her books just never did anything for me.

I might have to pick up a copy of the one you suggested though, and read it a chapter at a time, with lengthy breaks in between to recover my sanity

[InnocentLooks]

Originally Posted by ReallyGreen

In a manner of speaking humiliation is losing or abandoning your sense of pride. Many people think embarrassment and humiliation are the same but they aren't. When the sub kneels to the dom they are showing humility or being humiliated. You don't have to call somebody a "fat sweaty faggot" to humiliate them. Some people enjoy this kind of verbal abuse play, but its not the end-all, be-all of domination or humiliation.

Some will say that a sub's ultimate goal is not just a loss of pride, but a loss of self, to be transformed from an independant person to a living apparatus of pleasure for someone else; having no thought or concern for anything except the desires of the dom. In Freudian psychology they wish to surpress the ego and the super-ego and exist totally in the id. The novel 'The Story of O' follows this theory.

Examples of humiliation commonly include:
*Crossdressing (which when stripped of its cultural mores means less than nothing as far as sex is concerned)
*The sub refering to him/herself as 'your slave' (or whore, sissy etc) instead of using the 1st person 'I' or 'me'. This reinforces the humility of loss of self identity.
*The sub engaging in sexual acts outside the sub's orientation (ie, a hetero male sucking cock)

The Story of O is a fantastic example and Desclos is a great writer, no rival to de Sade of course in the BDSM literature arena, but it's still very well done. De Sade isn't going to give you the same look into submission as Desclos though, his characters being rather different (more interesting) than the O of Desclos' book. I would still recommend it though, if you have the time and are looking for some really good bdsm reads...

Also, the sub doesn't just want to diminish themselves, they want the diminishing to be done for them, so they can really let go of that self-preservation and the responsibility of the ego. The idea of force and humiliation appeals to a lot of subs because they can show their Id without it being, technically, their responsibility. It's like comitting murder because a gun is pressed to your head--it helps remove the guilt factor. Only in this situation, the sub has a deep and secret desire to commit that murder.

Humiliation is also a great factor in the more... rough sub/dom relationships. Not everyone wants one with total submission and devotion, some like the sub to put up a bit of a fight, and humiliation is a great way to inspire that fight.

[nix]

I still think that you can't go past Venus in Furs for a pretty balanced look at submissive and dominant.
For submissive though, L'histoire d'O is the best. I reccomend reading it in the original French, if you can.

[smutty-m]

Thanks to this thread. I was also enlightened about humiliation.

[ReallyGreen]