Sub having inner conflicts?

IceEyes · Jul 27, 2010

Hello,
This is my first post here so I will try to introduce myself and the reason to why I'm here.

I have been into BDSM for about 6 years and never met anyone like my girlfriend.
We met 2 months ago and the sex is better than anything I've experienced.

We do not live 24/7, and our BDSM-relationship stays for the most part in the bedroom.
She has a necklace I have given here and whenever I want her as my slave, i simply ask her to put it on.
Our play has been fantastic and she have had no problems whatsoever when it comes to "turning"...
She has told me that she never has felt as dominated/far down as when I dominate her and that she never experienced the complete feeling of belonging to anyone as she does with me...somehing that both me and her are extremely happy about.

However...the last few weeks I've noticed some problems.

Sometimes, in certain situations, she suddenly "rises" up and loses touch with her sub. This could take it's expression in that she suddenly stops responding to my questions, becomes angry, flinches, acts to "proud" to serve me, wants to hit me, wrestle me, bite me etc. Has anyone had any experience with this sort of behavior?

She tells me that she does not want to rise, it just happens in her body that suddenly she loses touch with her inner slave during a session.

For exampe, this happens more often now during a spanking/caning. When she is being punished for something, and the pain starts to really hurt...she starts to become angry instead of accepting her punishment as before. When she enters this mode, she acts similar to an angry kitten. She stops to answer me, she hits the bed/wall, she curses, she moves out of positions or she attacks me.

She does not want to feel this way, but says that it just happens. She enjoys pain, but it also makes her angry and sometimes she rises instead of sinking.

I have asked her afterwards if there's something she's thinking about that's bothering her, if she's had a tough day, if she's sad/angry about anything else but she says that this is not the case.

What would you focus on with a slave like this? If pain has this effect on her, (something that we will have to solve) would you try to solve this by giving up painplay for some time and concetrate on other punishments, other forms of DS?

Another way of seeing it is that all of this anger that she feels, is there because of a reason and that reason is not the spanking or the pain. That it is something that she needs to get out of her system, a plateau if you will, wich will if crossed go over to something else. When her body learns that she cannot escape her punishments by being angry, wrestling me or whatever my experience tells me that the body also eventually will understand this. The anger will then probably go over into tears, feelings of humiliation, sadness etc.

What we absolutely cannot have is that she whenever confronted with pain (as I must clarify, she enjoys ) can escape this by acting like a spoiled brat who screams until she gets things her way...

What are your're thoughts about this? Sorry for my english, and please ask any questions that you want... I appreciate all help regarding this.

Cheers,

IceEyes

sillylittlepet · Jul 27, 2010

if she's struggling to escape a punishment (as I have often done) tie her down

Get some restraints and restrain her.

also the two of you will probably have to have a serious discussion about why she wants to serve you, what you expectations for her are, when fighting back is acceptable, why isnt she using the safe word when she's lost her subness, and so on

IceEyes · Jul 27, 2010

Thanks for your reply,

We have all sorts of restraints but they don't really have anything to do with the problem i believe. I am mostly concerned about the "anger" she feels. Not the anger itself, since it's just an emotion and not dangerous in any way by itself. I am concerned with what the anger does TO her. She describes it as if, when she feels the anger inside of her, she rises against her will to my level.

She takes the pain personally, in other words I guess you could say but as a result she becomes either a reluctant brat or a dead fish. When she gets mad she stops to answer me in the ways she should, does it with an attitude, starts to flinch as I touch her etc.

It goes from being D/s to abuse, where it really doesn't give her anything when i caress her/penetrate her afterwards. She becomes almost lame, if you will.

In my experience, anger is quite common when being spanked to a certain level, but it is just a level och you can go beyond it...somewhere else.

I have tried this once with her. I am stronger, so i held her down and continued to spank her for a good half hour. Eventually her body surrenders and she accepts her punishment, but this is also very exhausting for her.

So...my questions are these:

Do you agree with me that in a situation like this, it fills it's purpose to continue with the spanking until she cools down and surrenders? Bringing her to tears, humiliation etc if necessary to both rinse out her system from these feelings aswell as preventing any topping from the bottom (as she may well be trying to do, even though not aware of it herself).

Or would you rather pick some other way, since it's really a question of turning to her sub-self and not only staying there, but wanting to stay there?

Sparrow69 · Jul 27, 2010

I have two modes of thought with what you said here IceEyes, both of which are solved with communication. Sit her down outside of a scene and ask her openly and honestly about whats been going on recently, and dont act negatively to whatever it is she says.

1) She's reached a point and feels your in a rut... this symbolizes growth in a sub, and shes testing her limits in hopes you'll progress as well.

2) She's grown as much as she can as a sub, and has made the decision she'd like to try to be a Dom for a change.

Either way shes unhappy with the current situation and needs to be talked to about it. The longer you go without communicating properly with her about what her feelings and the actual reason she's acting this way, all we can do is hypothesize and wonder. Let us know how it turns out.

sebastian · Jul 27, 2010

While I think Sparrow is likely to be right, given his considerable experience in this area, let me suggest a different sort of answer. Is it possible that something your doing is trigger a memory of some form of abuse? Might she have been spanked abusively as a child, or otherwise bullied by a parent, sibling, or schoolmate? A good number of subs that I've spoken to have experienced some form of abuse or bullying as children, so it's possible that something in your interaction is bringing up feelings of being abused. So talk to her and ask if it's possible that something from her childhood is getting dredged up.

A few years ago, my ex-husband and I were wrestling, and he put me in a choke hold. It triggered a long-forgotten memory of my oldest brother choking me when I was about 8 or 10 years old. All the anger and shame and sense of impotence I had felt as a child (my brother is 8 years older, so I was completely at his mercy) suddenly came pouring out at my ex. I started yelling at him, hit him very hard, and stormed out of the apartment. It took me about half an hour to calm down enough to understand what was going on. So maybe your spankings are touching something deeply buried.

But Sparrow's right; you need to talk with her and ask her what's going on. She may very well not understand what she's feeling, so you may have to ask around the issue. Ask her what she feels at those moments, what she's thinking about, if it feels similar to anything else she's experienced, and so on. Whatever she talks about, let her have those feelings. It's important that she trust you enough to feel free to say whatever she's experiencing.

Savelle · Jul 28, 2010

It sounds to me like she's internalizing a lot of the pain your providing her with already. If I adopt the idea that she does enjoy pain, it makes me wonder if maybe in your relationship your sadism is greater then her masochistic needs/desires. Another theory is maybe she feels you are out of control; as SLP mentioned, your sub not using her safe word to stop a scene, and I use the term loosely, she's uncomfortable in tells me somewhere the communication is broken.

I dont say these things w/o saying- I was in a similar situation and when a conversation was had that really got to the heart of what was going on I was told that my sub personally felt I was too harsh, that I wasn't listening and she felt more abused then respected in our relationship. It was never my intention to make her feel that way- I did what many people do, and separated my personal life from everything else and when she came home stressed I made the mistake of assuming she would leave her troubles with work at the door as well.

To make the long story short- it isn't fair to say that the problem is with her and she is the one who needs to change; have a talk with her and take a time out and have a one on one with yourself.

IceEyes · Jul 28, 2010

Thank you for all your answers.

Yesterday, I sat her down and talked with her for a long time about what she thought herself about what had happened.
We also talked about some basic bdsm-concepts, such as why to spank someone, use of safe words etc. We sorta went back to basics all over again.
I explained to her the importance of communication, and told her that if she tells herself and me that she is a masochistic individual who enjoys the pain, then I believe that she enjoys it and therefore think that I in a sense "reward" her when i spank her. However, if she does not feel it as rewarding/pleasurable to be spanked but instead humiliating and painful, and I then spank her in the wrong context...then we have a communication problem.

I explained that I have to be sure of exactly what everything that I do does with her, that she now under the beginning of our relationship must communicate with me and tell me, if not during a session so after, what she enjoys and how it relates to her safe-list.

Giving someone a spanking/caning could have all the reasons in the world, either because someone really enjoys the sensation of pain being inflicted to their body or because someone enjoys the feeling of humiliation it gives or as a punishment to someone who does not enjoy pain but enjoys the feeling it gives of being punished and not having any say in it, the enjoyment of feeling abused etc. The reasons are many, but in my opinion the spanker must always know why he is spanking, and more importantly what his/her slave gets out of the spanking.

Otherwise it just two people hitting each other who doesn't speak the same language nor understand eachother.

I also emphazised the use of safe words. No pain/sensation-play should ever need to go as far as to "red", since it then is a sign of lacking communication. However, "yellow" is a very easy way to whenever something is being to rough, to intense, to slow things down for both's sake so that you don't kill the scene.

I explained to her that I have no problem whatsoever with spanking her until she bleeds, can't sit straight for a week, gets bruises or whatsoever...as long as she enjoys the feeling of it and want me to give her/bring out those feelings inside of her. However, if she instead don't get anything out of this and does not enjoy this in ANY way, then I would never do anything like that with her.

I explained this among with many other things, we talked about why she wants to serve me, how it makes her feel and what she likes with it etc. Then she told me one thing that she had thought about herself.

The last few weeks, she told me, she had been very upset with her father. They don't meet so often, and during her whole life he's been a compulsive drinker. All of these memories from her childhood with a father being an alcoholic makes her angry, and seeing him often brings these feelings back. A week ago they met and I was with her and could sense that she got upset, angry at him, blaiming him etc...but she kept it in.

I don't know if this has anything to do with her sudden anger during a session with me, if it's feelings that I bring out in her due to the fact that she has kept them in for so long.
If you've spanked people with a serious approach before, it's very common that feelings like anger or sadness rise to the surface, due to the fact that you push the body and "forces" it to feel and let your feelings out. Sorta like calling for them. I don't know if it has something to do with her unresolved isssues regarding her father and their relationship, but this is the first time that I've encountered a reaction as strong as this so I am glad for any input from anyone who can offer it...

Cheers,

IceEyes

sillylittlepet · Jul 28, 2010

sounds like you guys talked your way to the root of the problem though

WrathofThor · Aug 2, 2010

My interpretation is that she wants to serve you but she's having issues with her own masochism. Maybe as an experiment you should deliberately give her less, teasing her until she begs for the level of pain you may desire to give her. There's a green light for both of you and will force her to come to terms with herself - if she truly needs it, the truth will come out. That's the hardest thing for me to do, the waiting game kills me! But so far it's been rewarding.

Sub having inner conflicts?

IceEyes

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