Stockholm Syndrome in a s/d relationship

Are there any women or men who have experienced Stockholm Syndrome-ish type of symptoms while in an (initially at least) consensual BDSM type of relationship? For instance, maybe you like to be shoved/slapped around a little (or a lot) or whatever during sex, but it becomes more terrorizing or traumatic than the "fun" you were anticipating. Maybe it even becomes abusive outside of sex, and your mentality starts to shift to sympathize with the abuser and you WANT to remain in the situation (or whatever one of the classic SS symptoms). And the sympathy for the abusive person's plight is very far away from anything you would have ever morally considered prior to the situation. Has anyone experienced anything similar?

I know it's pretty specific. Just curious, it's for this other thing I'm working on.

Thanks, K

This sounds more like a stereotype to me than reality.

BDSM is based on consent. If the relationship is not consentual, it's abuse, the same as any other relationship.

It's normal to develop ""Stockholm Syndrom-ish" type of symptoms" in any relationship - because the symptoms are like in any relationship. Show me a pain slut that never was hit too hard and never needed more pain to feel satisfied....

Sayyid said:

This sounds more like a stereotype to me than reality.

BDSM is based on consent. If the relationship is not consentual, it's abuse, the same as any other relationship.

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The lines of what is considered "consent" seem to somewhat blurry though, people push limits all the time. I think it would be very easy to fall into a pattern of abuse in this setting. But I read a lot and have too much time on my hands to think about miscellaneous things like these.

Sooo pick a partner who can be trusted (don't rush into things), develop a relationship (have a foundation deeper than rope & "forced" blow jobs), and if it gets abusive - leave.

I don't consider a D/s relationship to be any more difficult to leave than a dating relationship, marriage, etc ... Do we phrase it as Stolkholm Syndrome when a spouse stays for the sake of the children, or if a girl just won't let go?

I have gained a little bit of insight on the OP. I think maybe it should be worded differently. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll help if I can.

nh23 said:

My first thought upon reading the OP was this thread is a pile of bullshit. Or a troll baiting.

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Pile of bullshit? No. That was a real thought. But I've, luckily, moved on to a new group of books, and a new group of thoughts, so...

katydidnt said:

The lines of what is considered "consent" seem to somewhat blurry though, people push limits all the time. I think it would be very easy to fall into a pattern of abuse in this setting. But I read a lot and have too much time on my hands to think about miscellaneous things like these.

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Consent is pretty straightforward when partners negotiate their limits beforehand and set out exactly what they want the other to do and to not do.

katydidnt said:

Pile of bullshit? No. That was a real thought. But I've, luckily, moved on to a new group of books, and a new group of thoughts, so...

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I edited. I still think it was poorly written from what I've been told is the real question. You know how many trolls we've had come around here saying shit like that? I had no idea it was honest. Like I said since it is, I'll be glad to help. I'm a 24/7 TPE slave. A masochist. And as far as I know have never experienced stockholm's.

This honestly doesn't seem like such a ridiculous notion to me. I've heard plenty of tales about women (it is mostly women, I've found) who stay in relationships that are abusive and that they know are unhealthy for reasons that do sound rather like Stockholm Syndrome. Isn't it normally the case that those afflicted with it don't realise until after the fact?

katydidnt said:

The lines of what is considered "consent" seem to somewhat blurry though, people push limits all the time. I think it would be very easy to fall into a pattern of abuse in this setting. But I read a lot and have too much time on my hands to think about miscellaneous things like these.

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Sayyid said:

Consent is pretty straightforward when partners negotiate their limits beforehand and set out exactly what they want the other to do and to not do.

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No, it really, really isn't. It's slippery and troublesome.

The relationship I had in which we played most freely and had, frankly, far and away the most thrilling erotic experiences of my life, started to go wrong for reasons which had nothing whatever to do with sex or D/s. But as it went wrong, my partner, who was desperately trying to keep the relationship together, encouraged me to treat her in more and more extreme ways. Partly, that was thrilling; partly it uncovered things in my personality which I'm (still) deeply uncomfortable with.

And, in the end, it boils down to this: did she encourage and consent to those activities because she got off on them, or did she encourage/consent because she was trying to keep us together? I mean, obviously, as in so many things in life, it was a bit of both - she did get off on them (and so did I). In the context of a happy and stable relationship it would have been great, great sex. In the context of a disintegrating relationship I found it morally very troubling; I'm certain I was going further than she would have been willing to go if it weren't for her need to hold on to me.

Modern western human beings are a thin skin of civility over some very primal and primitive behaviours, behaviours which are not comfortable to recognise in one's self. BDSM is a framework through which we explore and express some of that, and try to make it safe. Of course consent is the key. But consent is not simple.

SimonBrooke said:

No, it really, really isn't. It's slippery and troublesome.


And, in the end, it boils down to this: did she encourage and consent to those activities because she got off on them, or did she encourage/consent because she was trying to keep us together? I mean, obviously, as in so many things in life, it was a bit of both - she did get off on them (and so did I). In the context of a happy and stable relationship it would have been great, great sex. In the context of a disintegrating relationship I found it morally very troubling; I'm certain I was going further than she would have been willing to go if it weren't for her need to hold on to me.

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Either way, what does it matter? It was consent. Maybe consent out of a more forced situation but consent none the less. I was in a pretty bad relationship for a few years, and I learned in those years just how far I was willing to go to keep someone. And it was way farther than I ever thought I would. And I spent a lot of time being miserable, and crying, and alone. However every minute of it was by my choice. I could have ended it at any time and choose not to. Eventually I did end it, with a lot of sadness, but had I choose not to, that would have been 100% my choice with consent too.

If at any point you say no and mean it (ie. with your safeword) and your partner keeps going, it's sexual assault.

But you can't claim that about something you agreed to let them do beforehand.

Sayyid said:

If at any point you say no and mean it (ie. with your safeword) and your partner keeps going, it's sexual assault.

But you can't claim that about something you agreed to let them do beforehand.

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Uhm, this is of course wrong, at least in legal terms. If they agreed to it then you might lack the guilty mind, if they say "No" and you think it's just play. Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea. But that's it, it doesn't mean they can't retreat from an agreement and it doesn't mean you don't have to care about, if they retreat from the agreement. And although it's the attorney who has to prove that you are guilty, it's kinda a moot point, because it's sufficient if he convinces the rest - after all, there is no objective way yet to look into the thoughts of someone, especially not past ones.

I don't think the OP -and quite a few of the people who posted afterward- really understands the concept of Stockholm Syndrome. It doesn't apply to "relationships" but to case of kidnapping/hostage taking. It's named after a particular incident in Stockholm, Sweden, where a bank robber took the employees and customers of the bank hostage, and convinced them to aid him. The hostages afterward said they assisted him because they were more afraid of the police being violent than their abductor.

Since romantic/sexual relationships typically don't have a third-party threat (law enforcement) the dynamic is inapplicable to them.

Now, if you set up a situation of an abusive woman (I'm tired of the "abusive man" stereotype, and we have to be fair to women, right? ) who mistreats her boyfriend, and he stays with her despite that because he's afraid of going back to his parents or of letting the world know he's abused, then you are maybe a little closer to Stockholm Syndrome. But, still...

The distilled definition of Stockholm Syndrome is where a captive begins to empathise with his or her captors - Patty Hearst is a common example, but let's not get into whether it genuinely was or if she was going along with her own free will - so with that in mind, maybe you can see why it would be applicable to abusive relationships. By your logic, the only people who actually have Oedipus complexes would also have had to slept with their mothers and killed their fathers.

Primalex said:

Uhm, this is of course wrong, at least in legal terms. If they agreed to it then you might lack the guilty mind, if they say "No" and you think it's just play. Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea. But that's it, it doesn't mean they can't retreat from an agreement and it doesn't mean you don't have to care about, if they retreat from the agreement. And although it's the attorney who has to prove that you are guilty, it's kinda a moot point, because it's sufficient if he convinces the rest - after all, there is no objective way yet to look into the thoughts of someone, especially not past ones.

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What's your point.

nh23 said:

Either way, what does it matter? It was consent. Maybe consent out of a more forced situation but consent none the less. I was in a pretty bad relationship for a few years, and I learned in those years just how far I was willing to go to keep someone. And it was way farther than I ever thought I would. And I spent a lot of time being miserable, and crying, and alone. However every minute of it was by my choice. I could have ended it at any time and choose not to. Eventually I did end it, with a lot of sadness, but had I choose not to, that would have been 100% my choice with consent too.

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H'mmm... OK, fair enough. This is exactly what I mean about consent being slippery. People consent to things for money, security, protection, all sorts of things. And its very hard, without being able to look inside their minds, to know what their motivations are.

SimonBrooke said:

H'mmm... OK, fair enough. This is exactly what I mean about consent being slippery. People consent to things for money, security, protection, all sorts of things. And its very hard, without being able to look inside their minds, to know what their motivations are.

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People often talk about consent as if only the bottom had to consent, but tops have to consent, too. People sometimes assume that if the top is continuing to play, s/he is fully consenting, but tops can get carried along by the moment/their partner's expections/lots of stuff and only realize afterwards that they hadn't been sensitive enough to their OWN consent. It sounds to me as if this might have been what happened here.

Maybe Simon's ex-wife's consent was "real," in the sense that she wasn't lying, coerced, or on drugs, but it's quite possible that "consent because partner enjoys the activity" and "consent because partner wants to keep the relationship" provoke different reactions in the top -- Simon, in this case -- and perhaps HE enjoyed consenting in the former case but regrets his consent in the latter.

Corylea said:

People often talk about consent as if only the bottom had to consent, but tops have to consent, too. People sometimes assume that if the top is continuing to play, s/he is fully consenting, but tops can get carried along by the moment/their partner's expections/lots of stuff and only realize afterwards that they hadn't been sensitive enough to their OWN consent. It sounds to me as if this might have been what happened here.

Maybe Simon's ex-wife's consent was "real," in the sense that she wasn't lying, coerced, or on drugs, but it's quite possible that "consent because partner enjoys the activity" and "consent because partner wants to keep the relationship" provoke different reactions in the top -- Simon, in this case -- and perhaps HE enjoyed consenting in the former case but regrets his consent in the latter.

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Exactly so, Cory, thank you. Of course, initially I did consent - what she did to try to hold onto my interest was startlingly erotic and flattering. But I feel tainted because I consented, because there's some sort of implicit contract when someone abases themselves to that degree in the hope that you'll go back... if you accept the abasement, you ought to pay the price - go back. And I wasn't going to, so I should not have allowed myself to accept the abasement. But I was angry, and I did.

I think the lesson I've learned is never to have 'dom' sex with someone you're actually angry with.

SimonBrooke said:

Exactly so, Cory, thank you.

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You're welcome. *blink* I guess you don't have me on "Ignore" after all.

SimonBrooke said:

Of course, initially I did consent - what she did to try to hold onto my interest was startlingly erotic and flattering. But I feel tainted because I consented, because there's some sort of implicit contract when someone abases themselves to that degree in the hope that you'll go back... if you accept the abasement, you ought to pay the price - go back. And I wasn't going to, so I should not have allowed myself to accept the abasement.

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Hmm. I think there are a few different problems with your analysis.

You've assumed that she was escalating your usual style of play in order to keep you. You were there and I wasn't, so this may well be true, but from your description, it doesn't sound as if you ever checked out this assumption with her. It's hard for me to believe that there's any kind of implicit bargain if it's all coming from inside your own head.

Is there any chance that she wanted to play at this level all along but was afraid you'd be revolted? But as long as you guys are on the verge of breaking up, anyway, she might as well ask for what she really wants, especially since this might be her very last chance of getting it.

Is it really because you accepted the escalation of play but didn't go back that you feel tainted? Or is it because you enjoyed the escalation but don't want to think of yourself as the sort of fellow who enjoys whatever it was you guys did?

I think the lesson I've learned is never to have 'dom' sex with someone you're actually angry with.

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This may well be true for you, but my (quite limited) experience is the opposite. There was a time when P and I were doing some very tentative D/S experiments.* He was going to be in my city for a couple of hours, so we planned to get together for the evening. We were having some problems in our relationship, and it didn't seem as if a couple of hours would be long enough to hash that out, so we agreed to put that on hold for this visit and talk about it the next time we saw each other.

We had vanilla sex, which was very nice, even with our being angry, though not quite as nice as usual, then he started to go into D/S mode. He did the things he usually did when in dom mode, and I thought, "You have a hell of a nerve, trying to throw your weight around, given what's going on between us," but I didn't say this, because we'd agreed not to address it. So instead of going under, I glared at him, which confused the hell out of him because he didn't know why I was doing it. So he escalated the things he was doing until I couldn't help but go under, at which point I promptly burst into tears.

P became even more confused and asked what was going on, so I said what I should have said before, and damn the agreement -- "You have a hell of a nerve, coming in here and trying to play the big man, given what's going on between us." He responded, and we talked it out. We talked it out and resolved it in about twenty minutes, which was a tiny fraction of the time we thought our relationship-problems discussion would take.

Doing D/S moved both of us to a place where we couldn't help but be honest and it moved us to a place where we were both vulnerable with each other and not on our high horses. And being in that place made it easy to resolve the misunderstanding. We could have dishonest vanilla sex, but we couldn't do dishonest D/S, and doing D/S seemed to be a shortcut to the heart of things.

Your mileage may, of course, vary!


*(which he could do only as long as we didn't mention that that's what we were doing. He found the idea scary beyond words but the actuality wonderfully hot. So we could do D/S as long as he didn't have to admit that we were doing it. Um, yeah. Where DO I find these people?!)

Corylea said:

You're welcome. *blink* I guess you don't have me on "Ignore" after all.

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I have precisely three people on ignore. If you think, you can probably name all of them.

Is it really because you accepted the escalation of play but didn't go back that you feel tainted? Or is it because you enjoyed the escalation but don't want to think of yourself as the sort of fellow who enjoys whatever it was you guys did?

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Well, that's possible too.

MisterSir said:

The distilled definition of Stockholm Syndrome is where a captive begins to empathise with his or her captors - Patty Hearst is a common example, but let's not get into whether it genuinely was or if she was going along with her own free will - so with that in mind, maybe you can see why it would be applicable to abusive relationships. By your logic, the only people who actually have Oedipus complexes would also have had to slept with their mothers and killed their fathers.

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You're right Patty Hearst is a common -if disputed- example. But I wouldn't take "my logic" so far; the operative word is "captive", even in the distilled version. We can't go to the other extreme of "your logic" and say that Oedipus complexes encompass anyone who's had the hots of older women.