Shame and Humiliation

[Stella_Omega]

Poetry will always fall apart in the face of the empirical. Put a poem on the "Pritchard scale," or turn mythology into fact, and you've missed the point.

and people who can't imagine that poetry can exist in the empirical have also missed the point.

What we are really talking about is kneeling before something greater than we are at the altar of sex itself.

The root of humiliation is humility. Which at its base is insignificance, feeling our smallness in the vastness of things.

That is what we seek and find in transcendent sex (which is the sort of sex Doc is talking about and VM's guffawing over ) It isn't the only version of sex available to us, or the only experience - as many have said.

Well, if you're defining "transcendent sex" as "religious renunciation of shame sex" then i'd like to get that definition down in wikipedia. Because I kinda think the concept and practice is a little wider than that.

I happen to agree with Doc, that for me, it's the most interesting and worthy of exploration. And that says much more about me and my psyche and my makeup than it does about sex or even the culture at large, as I'm sure Doc's view says about him, and Stella hers, etc.

But I forgive Doc his broad brush strokes in his excitement - he's already admitted his tendency to speak for "everyone," that he's often guilty of not including the usual p.c. "Well, for ME," disclaimer so as not to be perceived as speaking for the whole.

I want the picture painted for me in full from the heart of the artist, in colors of their choosing.

But hey... that's me.

yeah-- it's the omitting of "works for me" that gets my hackles up eventually.

Except that when I call him on the carelessness, he does say in this thread that I am either;
denying that my sense of shame, or;
terribly, boringly vanilla, or;
clueless regarding my own motivations.



Gets my antlers itching.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

And you need shame to do that? I don't think so.

Tapping into the universal life force through sex has been one of the very best things in my life. I find this is easier when approaching it in playful innocence, not harder.

My feelings exactly. Shame made me feel bad. What possible benefit can there be to feeling bad so that one can feel good? Illogical. Senseless. It's like puking so that you can be hungry. Twaddle.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

And you need shame to do that? I don't think so.

Yes, in this context.

I don't even know if we have a real definition for what Doc's trying to talk about, without all its religious and dogmatic connotations. Which is probably what prompted the question in the first place. It's beyond our definition of the word, certainly, but that's probably as close as we can come. At its core, humiliate, with its root in humility, really strikes the tuning fork, I think.

VM (and others here, I think) associate shame with "feeling bad," and that's a connotation (and judgment) we've given the emotion, I think. Shame/humiliation, whether they are the same or subtly different, are both surrender to something greater than oneself.

 

[Corylea]

Yes, in this context.
Shame/humiliation, whether they are the same or subtly different, are both surrender to something greater than oneself.

Nope. You're redefining the words. If that works for you, great, but it doesn't work for me, and you don't get to rewrite the English language, just because it works for you.

 

[Corylea]

It's like puking so that you can be hungry.

*laugh* The AH'ers are on a roll with the great analogies tonight. More, more!

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Nope. You're redefining the words. If that works for you, great, but it doesn't work for me, and you don't get to rewrite the English language, just because it works for you.

Right. Poetry on the Pritchard scale it is then. Time to abandon this ship.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Poetry will always fall apart in the face of the empirical. Put a poem on the "Pritchard scale," or turn mythology into fact, and you've missed the point.

For you.

I love the mechanics of meter. The more minutely I look into it, the more beautifully it astonishes me.

Great poetry shines in the face of the empirical. Put Frost to the test on his variations of iambic pentameter and you reveal a level of genius no cursory reading will show you.

Why grasp only one point when you can grasp many?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I am puzzled by the idea that humiliation is surrender. When anyone ever tried to humiliate me, I grew furiously resentful and angry, once to the point of potential homicide. Disparage me and I'll open you up like a gymbag. We are nothing without dignity. So whatever willing surrender might be, the words humiliation and shame seem inappropriate. Why not just call it surrender if surrender is what you mean?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well to get back to that first question-- "humiliation" is a verb, and you can use "shame" as a verb as well. To my mind, to humiliate someone is destructive, and has a connotation of having no purpose beyond the destruction. To shame someone I think, implies that there has been a transgression and you are attempting to bring it to bear on its source.

The noun "Humility" and the noun "Shame" seem to me to mean two very different things. "Humility" has some very positive connotations-- and we've beaten that other horse to death.

(no offence, Shanglan!)

 

[BlackShanglan]

Oopsy.

 

[Corylea]

Right. Poetry on the Pritchard scale it is then.

Nope. Another thing you don't get to do is decide unilaterally that other people have no understanding of myth or metaphor. What's gotten into you tonight? Does this touch something deeply personal for you?

 

[BlackShanglan]

I am puzzled by the idea that humiliation is surrender. When anyone ever tried to humiliate me, I grew furiously resentful and angry, once to the point of potential homicide. Disparage me and I'll open you up like a gymbag. We are nothing without dignity. So whatever willing surrender might be, the words humiliation and shame seem inappropriate. Why not just call it surrender if surrender is what you mean?

I think that shame, humility, and surrender are related in the sexual context, but not generally outside of it. That's the first thing to recall: eroticized humiliatian isn't the same as the garden variety, just as eroticized pain isn't the same as slamming your finger in a door.

In the context of eroticized shame or humiliation, one surrenders by revealing the desire one feels for such things - a surrender that immediately grants a great deal of power to one's partner, who could easily inflict considerable pain by doing anything from revealing that fact to all of one's acquaintence to simply saying, "Freak" and walking out. One further surrenders control in the illusory way that all edgeplay and control games involves when one allows the infliction of shame or humiliation, or the punishment of those things.

I wouldn't say that shame, humiliation, and surrender are the same thing, but in the context of eroticized shame and humiliation, they can often be closely involved with each other.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I am puzzled by the idea that humiliation is surrender.

Humiliation (also called stultification) is the abasement of pride; mortification. The state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It is thus the process of being made humble.

To provide an empirical definition.

It's the dissolving or thinning of the ego (god forbid!) ... humans have a tendency to cling so closely to that which we can touch, what we can see.

Humiliation has its ROOTS in "humility." They may carry different connotations in our minds today, but the word itself stretches back and back... and without judgment, surrender is part of its base. (And the feeling stretches far behind that...)

I don't reject the empirical. But I think the empirical already has plenty of place and voice in the world. Hell, it pretty much rules our culture as the status quo. Talk about beating dead horses. The implication in our culture is that only which we can "prove" as fact is valuable. So myth becomes literalized. Poetry becomes measurable by some standard.

Yes, music has notes behind it. Poems are made of words. But they existed, apriori, before they were pulled into the world by human imagination.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Both are just as important as the other, and just as necessary. One just has a larger voice in our culture, that's all.

And I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.

 

[Stella_Omega]

All of that is fine, Selena, but if you want to share or discuss these ideas it still behoves you to try for some precision, and if you wax poetical-- warn your listeners.

that's not P.C. it's good manners and good communication.

If Zoot wants to pinpoint the subtle shades of difference between two terms-- well that's what the title of the thread implies. If he wants to talk about the artistry of sexual shame-- and I think he should-- I just want to know upfront yanno? My point back when we were talking about the garden was that the value of the garden as a myth has been destroyed because so many people think it's a fact. That's when empiricism becomes necessary.

And it's pretty insulting to see one's empirical presence be brushed away because you'd rather go with the myth that everyone has hot shame!sex-- or no heat at all.

I won't get empirical with the rest of your post. Except to remind you that poetry was always a measured literary form until someone invented Verse Libre about a hundred years ago. Measured poetry is an application of painstaking skill in service of artistry. Poems cannot exist without words.

 

[jomar]

...God gave me this great body and off the charts sex drive for a good reason and I intend to fulfill by obligation ...I feel that...now it is my turn to take my sex drive, without any threat of pregnancy, to its heights, with the assistance of an attentive lover, of course.

...

I have no shame in saying that it would be wonderful to meet you some day. Just for coffee. Unless, of course, you have obligations...

 

[BlackShanglan]

It's the dissolving or thinning of the ego (god forbid!) ... humans have a tendency to cling so closely to that which we can touch, what we can see.

Some consider an empirical focus an aid to setting aside one's ego. It asks one to examine the world and ask if one's inherent impulses are true for all of the world and humanity, or possibly just for one's self. That can help one to avoid making sweeping generalizations that might annoy those who know them not to be true.

 

[Corylea]

I don't reject the empirical. But I think the empirical already has plenty of place and voice in the world. Hell, it pretty much rules our culture as the status quo. Talk about beating dead horses. The implication in our culture is that only which we can "prove" as fact is valuable. So myth becomes literalized. Poetry becomes measurable by some standard.

And I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.

You seem to have decided that if we don't agree with you, we're nasty empiricists who have no poetry in our souls and who want to quantify the unquantifiable. Sorry, but I reject that characterization; it's untrue. I disagree with you AND I love myth and metaphor. You don't have the only path to truth, Selena, and you aren't the ultimate judge of anybody.

 

[AllardChardon]

This is an excellent thread, full of intelligent ideas, and I want to take a moment to thank the Doc for one of the best discussions in October. Now, there's a contest. Best Discussion of the Month.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

This is an excellent thread, full of intelligent ideas, and I want to take a moment to thank the Doc for one of the best discussions in October. Now, there's a contest. Best Discussion of the Month.

Yeah, this one was pretty good, all right. Right up there with the one we had going that included Shakespeare!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I want to chime in here and say a few things.

First of all, I come from a tradition of guilt-free and shame-free sex. I was never taught that sex was in any way dirty or shameful or wrong. I never believed that and don't believe that to this day, so the kind of shame and guilt I'm talking about is certainly not religious or even moral in nature. It's not the kind that makes you think, "I'm a bad person."

On the other hand, I believe that all sex is in some sense, maybe just a subconscious sense, violational. Even in the most loving sex, someone pokes and someone gets poked; someone pitches and someone catches, and this is a subtle source of guilt and shame, power and weakness. Then again, pleasure makes a temporary slave of someone; orgasm makes us weak. There are all sorts of power dynamics going on, and the more passionate and emotional the sex, the deeper and more profound this interpersonal thralldom becomes. There's loss of autonomy, dependence, all the stuff that adds up to the phenomenon we know as love, or at least temporary affection.

In the best cases, the love is felt symmetrically and isn't a problem, but more times than not, it's asymmetric, and when that happens you start getting into issues of pride and guilt and shame. This doesn't have to be anything grand and overwhelming, no hand-wringing and breast-beating. Just to make someone orgasm is enough to embarrass them, which is probably something we've all experienced. Humiliation doesn't have to involve dragging someone around on a leash. Loving someone can be humiliating enough if it's not reciprocated. In any case, sex itself generates its own uncertainty and shame.

That's one way I see shame as central to sex, as a consequence of the violational and emotional nature of sex. As I say, it's not traumatic shame; it's not the kind of shame they teach you to feel in Sunday school that warps sex for you and damages you as a person. Rather it's what you feel when you're compromised by love.

Now, it's certainly possible to set yourself up to have sex without all this, to arrange for fulfilling sex without the intrusion of all these other emotions. All I'll say is, that's not the way I work. I mean, I can do that if I arrange it as very casual, fuck-buddy sex. But I don't know how you can be emotionally involved with someone without going through all these other emotional changes (unless you're already in a stable, long-term relationship where all this has already been decided and isn't an issue anymore.)

For me, when you're talking about sex you're basically talking about this subtle kind of violation, so the notion of shame is inherent in your words. The idea of seduction means surrender of autonomy which is ultimately, viewed objectively, depowering. Someone conquers someone.

For some reason, I'm suddenly reminded of Dracula, of the women he seduces, their obvious shame. It's a good metaphor.

I don't know. No doubt you guys are thinking of a more wholesome, sex-positive type of thing. More of a partnership and less a competition.

 

[Shwenn]

That's one way I see shame as central to sex, as a consequence of the violational and emotional nature of sex. As I say, it's not traumatic shame; it's not the kind of shame they teach you to feel in Sunday school that warps sex for you and damages you as a person. Rather it's what you feel when you're compromised by love.

...

For me, when you're talking about sex you're basically talking about this subtle kind of violation, so the notion of shame is inherent in your words. The idea of seduction means surrender of autonomy which is ultimately, viewed objectively, depowering. Someone conquers someone.

For some reason, I'm suddenly reminded of Dracula, of the women he seduces, their obvious shame. It's a good metaphor.

I don't know. No doubt you guys are thinking of a more wholesome, sex-positive type of thing. More of a partnership and less a competition.

I get the feeling that you are following your own argument off of a cliff, here.

This isn't shame you are talking about. It's vulnerability. Yes, there is a great deal of vulnerability associated with romantic love and the sex that ensues from it.

This is what I was trying to say. That you consider this vulnerabilty to be shameful does nothing to convince me that sex is shameful. It isn't for me, not in the least.

It does tell me that self-empowerment and autonomy are very high in your value system such that the loss of these things is a shameful experience for you.

I do not consider sacrificing those things to be shameful unless I were sacrificing them for another person whose values or ethics conflict with mine. Or, if I did it out of fear I would consider that shameful.

But there is nothing inherently shameful about that sacrifice to me.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I get the feeling that you are following your own argument off of a cliff, here.

This isn't shame you are talking about. It's vulnerability. Yes, there is a great deal of vulnerability associated with romantic love and the sex that ensues from it.

This is what I was trying to say. That you consider this vulnerabilty to be shameful does nothing to convince me that sex is shameful. It isn't for me, not in the least.

It does tell me that self-empowerment and autonomy are very high in your value system such that the loss of these things is a shameful experience for you.

I do not consider sacrificing those things to be shameful unless I were sacrificing them for another person whose values or ethics conflict with mine. Or, if I did it out of fear I would consider that shameful.

But there is nothing inherently shameful about that sacrifice to me.

Yes, you're right. I'm seeing vulnerability as shameful. I'm not saying sex is shameful though. I'm saying that the shame is what makes sex worth doing. The vulnerability and risk is what makes it valuable and worthwhile.

The case I'm thinking of is two people, strongly attracted to each other, coming together for the first time. The vulnerability opens them to the possibility of rejection, and that's where the shame comes in. Vulnerability is potential shame. Commitment calls for that vulnerability -- trust without assurance -- and that's where the trepidation comes from and the potential for shame and humiliation, and that's what I've been talking about.

 

[Stella_Omega]

double post...

 

[Stella_Omega]

Triple post! I'm so ashamed!

Here, I'll use one to answer doc;

Yes, you're right. I'm seeing vulnerability as shameful. I'm not saying sex is shameful though. I'm saying that the shame is what makes sex worth doing. The vulnerability and risk is what makes it valuable and worthwhile.

The case I'm thinking of is two people, strongly attracted to each other, coming together for the first time. The vulnerability opens them to the possibility of rejection, and that's where the shame comes in. Vulnerability is potential shame. Commitment calls for that vulnerability -- trust without assurance -- and that's where the trepidation comes from and the potential for shame and humiliation, and that's what I've been talking about.

Vulnerability is shameful?

I see where you're coming from, I think. And I can imagine feeling ashamed of a vulnerability, sure, and I could imagine a sexual scenario based around that-- as one among many.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I want to chime in here and say a few things.

First of all, I come from a tradition of guilt-free and shame-free sex. I was never taught that sex was in any way dirty or shameful or wrong. I never believed that and don't believe that to this day, so the kind of shame and guilt I'm talking about is certainly not religious or even moral in nature. It's not the kind that makes you think, "I'm a bad person."

Then Doc, as i've said a number of times-- you've redefined the word. 1.
1. A painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace.
2. Capacity for such a feeling: Have you no shame?
2. One that brings dishonor, disgrace, or condemnation.
3. A condition of disgrace or dishonor; ignominy.
4. A great disappointment.

On the other hand, I believe that all sex is in some sense, maybe just a subconscious sense, violational. Even in the most loving sex, someone pokes and someone gets poked; someone pitches and someone catches, and this is a subtle source of guilt and shame, power and weakness. Then again, pleasure makes a temporary slave of someone; orgasm makes us weak. There are all sorts of power dynamics going on, and the more passionate and emotional the sex, the deeper and more profound this interpersonal thralldom becomes. There's loss of autonomy, dependence, all the stuff that adds up to the phenomenon we know as love, or at least temporary affection.

Yes, I too agree that all sex is violational. Yes, yes and again yes.

Yes, indeed sex makes one or the other partner vulnerable, sometimes both. yes indeed, passionate sex can be more terrifying, have longer repercussions than unemotional sex.

Yes indeed, I know all about the urge to own or be owned.

In the best cases, the love is felt symmetrically and isn't a problem, but more times than not, it's asymmetric, and when that happens you start getting into issues of pride and guilt and shame. This doesn't have to be anything grand and overwhelming, no hand-wringing and breast-beating. Just to make someone orgasm is enough to embarrass them, which is probably something we've all experienced. Humiliation doesn't have to involve dragging someone around on a leash. Loving someone can be humiliating enough if it's not reciprocated. In any case, sex itself generates its own uncertainty and shame.

That's one way I see shame as central to sex, as a consequence of the violational and emotional nature of sex. As I say, it's not traumatic shame; it's not the kind of shame they teach you to feel in Sunday school that warps sex for you and damages you as a person. Rather it's what you feel when you're compromised by love.

Now, it's certainly possible to set yourself up to have sex without all this, to arrange for fulfilling sex without the intrusion of all these other emotions. All I'll say is, that's not the way I work. I mean, I can do that if I arrange it as very casual, fuck-buddy sex. But I don't know how you can be emotionally involved with someone without going through all these other emotional changes (unless you're already in a stable, long-term relationship where all this has already been decided and isn't an issue anymore.)

For me, when you're talking about sex you're basically talking about this subtle kind of violation, so the notion of shame is inherent in your words. The idea of seduction means surrender of autonomy which is ultimately, viewed objectively, depowering. Someone conquers someone.

yeah, but why oh why oh why do you insist that these dynamics are all covered under this one single word? Why is it so important to you to reject all the other possible nuances out there?

For some reason, I'm suddenly reminded of Dracula, of the women he seduces, their obvious shame. It's a good metaphor.

Um, yeah in so many ways it is-- considering the straitlaced Victorian era the book was written in, and the plethora of really weird ideas prevalent at the time!

I don't know. No doubt you guys are thinking of a more wholesome, sex-positive type of thing. More of a partnership and less a competition.

See, now-- that's just insulting and tells me you are not reading anyone else's posts. If you want respect, give respect.