Motivations

[HarlotMinx]

Something I've been putting a lot of thought into and wanted to hear some second opinions. Admittedly we tend to stray from what the "mainstream" society considers "normal" rolleyes and as such I notice people tend to be defensive of their kinks and in no small part define themselves based on these kinks. One thing I've noticed in the local community(maybe this is just a local thing) is that a lot of emphasis is placed on accepting peoples kinks and very little on what motivates a person to have those kinks.

All too oft I hear "Well it's just what I like" but I'm not sure that really cuts it. Admittedly we don't always know why we like things, just that we do but I've found there's a lot of merit to looking at possible reasons. I recently saw two people within the past year end up in really bad situations because kinks were feeding underlying emotional damage that they weren't willing to seek help for. With a lot of various fetishes that are ever present in BDSM, I can't help but look at people and find myself curious about what it is that makes it appealing to them. I mean, very few of us are in any position to judge others but what about when it's a partner? A friend? A family member? Do we try and make them question themselves or do we ourselves question them?

I guess I ask this because I popped a head in to one of the BDSM 101 classes in the area recently and listened to them talking about the importance of establishing safe words, kink lists, hard limits, soft limits, and all that good stuff but nowhere did anyone mention a "why" list. Is it something that I'm just imagining or do many people just assume the person they're with is fully capable of making nothing but safe decisions that are mentally healthy? And especially in a situation where people have casual BDSM partners and they aren't taking any real time to get to know each other....

I remember back when I first got really deep into my own fetishes... the second I realized I had a thing for cutting, piercing and blood I hightailed my ass to the first kink friendly therapist I could find. I found that while I did in fact have some emotional damage that I was dealing with in my own way, my kinks were relatively independent of that damage. I think overall we all have some form of damage, it's just important to recognize it for what it is.

In addition, I also find that as I look at others I find I have biases against some kinks more than others as I see them as high danger zones for people with emotional and mental damage.

 

[Scotsman69]

What a sensible and reasoned post. Yes, I have wondered the same thing, more so recently as things have become more intense. I don't have any answers for now, but I'm trying to write a new story to explore some of this.

 

[the captians wench]

This was actually something I thought about long and hard when I was a newbie exploring this lifestyle. I've always been a person who was very intune with myself, so this question really did come natural.

My answers, at least for the major two in my life.

Let's start with the easy one, submission: Basically it boils down to my need for acceptance and how I try to earn that acceptance, ie I'm a people pleaser. I work hard to please my owner (on back in the day the top at hand so to speak) so that I may earn praise and there for feel accepted and loved. That's the cut and dry of it.

Masochism is a little more complex. There really are a few reasons why this is a favored kink. One is that I use it as a bit of a source of meditation. I can loose myself in the pain, throw the rest of the world away and focas on nothing but the pain. This is why I favor thudy pain as appose to sharp pain, I can tune out even the pain of the thuds easier than I can the sharp.

There is also my need to understand and catagorize everything, physical pain is easy to understand. You can see it, and you can usually fairly easily fix it. Yes I have cutter tendancies, but I do not act on them, I insted use other people to act on them for me. This may or may not be the healthiest of things, but another person is more likely to stop when I show physical symptoms as where I would keep up the physical pain until the emotional stopped which would not be likely to happen. You can't "fix" emotional pain with physical, you can only distract yourself from it.

Then again enters in the people pleasing and need for acceptance. I will push myself as far as I can and further to please and impress even the person beating or other wize inflicting pain on me. I don't even need verbal acceptance, just that look is enough.

I can also define why I feel the need to be accepted so much. I have abondonment issues that go back to my childhood and surface again in my adult life. *shrug*

In order to feel like I could accept these things into my life, I felt that I had to understand why I wanted to accept them, and so I did a lot of soul searching. Every beating I would find a place where I would ask myself "why am I doing this?" A few times that question got me out of a bad situation, so really an important one to ask I think.

 

[Shalrath]

Interesting topics. My kinks are mostly unrelated to pain nor power, so when I analyse them I tend to think of them as a simple matter of taste e.g. just like liking pork but not prawns. I'd be up for being challenged on that.

However I can see with pain / power issues involved there could be more underlying issues that are perhaps worth knowing about. I do find this sort of investigating interesting, especially when there's a bit more than "matter of taste".

 

[Pinkneonsocks]

I must applaud you for posting this. I am in that "why" phase, if you will. For me, I have to explore the reasons why I am finding myself recognizing new fetishes and if that's what they truly are. If it is what they truly are how do I bring those into my sex life without feeling insecure about them.

This is all new to me and it's one of the reasons I've explored the internet. It's how I stumbled upon literotica.

You mentioned a BDSM class, and that's something I could benefit from right now. However, you'd never find that here. If they do exist here in Utah I'd have to do some major digging.

 

[Evil_Geoff]

*shrugs*

I don't care "why" someone has the kinks they do, I just care if they consent to what I'm going to do to them.

I've never given much thought as to why I'm a sadist, I've been this way as long as I can remember. Don't really care why. I don't feel a need to "fix" anything there, so the why is irrelevant.

Why becomes relevant when someone is trying to figure out what's wrong in their lives and how they can go about fixing the problems. But if the kink itself isn't the problem, figuring out the "why" of the kink is simply taking a long, round-about way to get to the root issue.

*drops 2 cents in the jar...*

 

[the captians wench]

*shrugs*

I don't care "why" someone has the kinks they do, I just care if they consent to what I'm going to do to them.

I've never given much thought as to why I'm a sadist, I've been this way as long as I can remember. Don't really care why. I don't feel a need to "fix" anything there, so the why is irrelevant.

Why becomes relevant when someone is trying to figure out what's wrong in their lives and how they can go about fixing the problems. But if the kink itself isn't the problem, figuring out the "why" of the kink is simply taking a long, round-about way to get to the root issue.

*drops 2 cents in the jar...*

For me it was a little backwards. I didn't want to fix the kinks, I wanted to know why the kinks fixed other things in my life. Suddenly I was happier than I had been in a long time and the only thing new were the kinks I was slowly discovering. Kind of like an algebretic equation and solving for x.

 

[HarlotMinx]

*shrugs*

I don't care "why" someone has the kinks they do, I just care if they consent to what I'm going to do to them.

*snickers* Bah, you sadists are all alike.

I've never given much thought as to why I'm a sadist, I've been this way as long as I can remember. Don't really care why. I don't feel a need to "fix" anything there, so the why is irrelevant.

Why becomes relevant when someone is trying to figure out what's wrong in their lives and how they can go about fixing the problems. But if the kink itself isn't the problem, figuring out the "why" of the kink is simply taking a long, round-about way to get to the root issue.

*drops 2 cents in the jar...*

Well it's more the idea of recognizing when kinks are the manifestation of damage. Case and point, one of the previously mentioned cases in my OP, a sadist not unlike you had a thing for beating his sub pretty hard along with slapping and she has a thing for always calling him daddy. Well he didn't find out until after a particularly intense scene where she totally flipped out that the reason she called him daddy was that her father sexually and physically abused her and she was reliving the experiences on purpose. Last I saw her she was pretty messed up. I believe she eventually got help though. This was one of the cases I had in mind. I mean as a sadist you're looking to cause pain but you aren't looking to cause actual damage (wellllll at least unintentional damage)

 

[nh23]

I struggle with the why's about myself at times. Mostly at this point in my life I just accept that I'm this way and more on, but there are times.

I have a pretty colorful history I guess. I was sexually abused from the age of 5 to 8 by a friend of my father's. This man was also very sadistic. I have scars on my body to this day from cigarette burns. I learned at a very young age to associate pain with pleasure. Is that the reason I'm a masochist? Probably but I don't really know. I means someone else going through the same thing may run from anything involving pain.

I'm a huge emotional masochist. I can't stay in a relationship where I'm treated too well. It's just how I am. I need cruelty at times, and humiliation, and emotional pain.

I never ever admit this one, only to a few friends here on Lit..but here goes. I'm a nympho. Not the haha I love that my chick wants it all the time, but the type where if I don't get sex for one day I'm depressed and crying, and angry. It's been a huge issue in my relationship with Master. When I was with my ex husband he played to it. If I wanted sex he gave it to me. We were also in an open marriage and I could have all the sex I wanted outside of our marriage. In hindsight it was a bad idea I suppose. In the end it made things a lot worse.

Master and I are in a monogamous M/s relationship. Which means I've had to learn a lot of new behaviors. He does tell me no. He won't let that part of me control him, and it's lead to issues for us, that thankfully have been working out wonderfully here lately.

I learned to use sex to get a fix for myself, which in turn would lead to self loathing, that being an emotional masochist I got off on in some way also. With Master I've had to learn to get control of those issues, which hasn't been a day in the park...lol

I'm also a cutter. I don't do it as often as I used to, but I do backslide now and then. The last time was because I needed sex as a fix and couldn't have it..If I can't have sex..pain works. I have on many occasions bottomed just for the pain. No sexual activity involved because it gives me the same sort of fix.

All that being said. Do I think that being in a M/s relationship or a S&M relationship is bad for me? No. I will admit that at one time in my life I should have had counseling. However I don't use my relationship to heal myself. And much to my disappointment at times..Master refuses to coddle those parts of me.

I will admit that I'm fucked up..lol. But I handle my life well. I have a successful career as a pediatric nurse. I'm raising two kids, not perfectly but pretty damn well I think. At times I fall into habits that are bad for me, but I've been doing well to realize what I'm doing and change my path.

 

[wicked woman]

I've never seen the need to ask why I'm submissive. I don't ask why I'm introverted either, or why I like to travel or enjoy music. It's just how I'm made...who I am.

I dislike the idea that because someone is into BDSM there's something wrong with them. Yes there are some people that have been abused, but it's my understanding that they're not in the majority. I've certainly never been abused but I still love when sir flogs me.

If anything, being submissive let's me be true to myself. I can remember as a child always wanting to please. Taking pleasure when I'd pleased my parents, my teacher. My life's path and choices have required me to be independent, in a position of power with many responsibilities. People look to me for the answers. I think I do it well. But when I'm submissive to sir, something touches me at my very core. It's like I'm coming home.

No need for me to ask why.

 

[Homburg]

"This might work better if we try it my way."

That's pretty much the core motivation for me.

 

[Netzach]

I absolutely think that my relationship to power and sex is a kind of scar from all the shit thrown at me.

And I think it's very beautiful. I have had days where I wished I could live without it, sure, but most of the time if I could wave a wand and fix everything I would not.

It's really fucked up.

Because on a micro level, my family is fucked up, and on a macro level men and women are so horribly intensely cosmically fucked up. This is my response. It's not pure reaction, but it DOES have origins and I don't have problems with that. I'm not the guardian of the psyche of anyone but myself, so if I find a consenting person I jive with hurrah.

And I don't really want to change it, because the idea that I can escape myself and everything I know about gender and sex is laughable.

The idea of "a healthy sexuality" is a joke to me. There are different functionalities and different variations. I'm just working with my dark side a little more than vanilla people do, I suppose.

 

[Netzach]

*snickers* Bah, you sadists are all alike.



Well it's more the idea of recognizing when kinks are the manifestation of damage. Case and point, one of the previously mentioned cases in my OP, a sadist not unlike you had a thing for beating his sub pretty hard along with slapping and she has a thing for always calling him daddy. Well he didn't find out until after a particularly intense scene where she totally flipped out that the reason she called him daddy was that her father sexually and physically abused her and she was reliving the experiences on purpose. Last I saw her she was pretty messed up. I believe she eventually got help though. This was one of the cases I had in mind. I mean as a sadist you're looking to cause pain but you aren't looking to cause actual damage (wellllll at least unintentional damage)

That's not his responsibility, as you describe it at least. It's her and her.

She was trying something that wasn't healthy for her maybe. Many people do the same thing and find it healthy for them. Let's not get so fetishistic about the D always being in charge of everything that we can't allow a sub to have her own psyche.

 

[ecstaticsub]

I think I do what i do for the same reason some people bungee jump or jump from airplanes. It has nothing to do with my past sexual history (even though I do have a history of non-violent sexual assault).

It is more something that began even when I was very small. A desire to do something I have never done before. I want to try everything. Put that together with a serious love of sex, a keen interest in people and the effect I have on them, and submissive/abduction/rape fantasies since childhood and I am now who I am.

I am more interested in why my PYL does what he does then why I do what i do.

 

[Seshat]

"The unexamined life is not worth living." I think Socrates had it right in this. It's important to be constantly asking yourself why you do the things you do and why certain things, goals and whatnot either please or displease you. In sex and kinks, the questions are certainly still valid, and important. If you're here (reading LIT), sexuality and the erotic are probably an important aspects of your life. It's more than procreation or an animal need. We're addressing pain, pleasure, denial, release, power, submission, subjugation, humiliation, breaking taboo, control- a wide range of emotions and actions not always to experience them in themselves, but to get to where they take us in our minds. Asking why is an important part of your self knowledge.

Sure, sometimes its just because it feels good. Not everything is bound to some (good or bad) life changing experience. Still, knowing the difference remains your responsibility.

Sometimes kinks do have deep roots. I don't think its fair for a partner to be subjected to that unknowingly though. In examples of a sub who was abused as a child or the person who likes forced sex having untreated rape trauma or the dom with tendencies towards abuse: Would you consider it fair and open and consensual to carry out these fantasies (I use the term very liberally- as there are many ways they are played out) without sharing that information and possible risk that they may have a ptsd reaction and "freak out" on you?

I'm not suggesting that everyone has to submit a complete psychoanalysis and bio before getting funky, but its smart to know where you stand with yourself. Its not fair to put yourself into a dangerous situation mentally or physically without warning your partner and giving them the means to help get you through and out of it should it arise and giving them the choice to assume that task.

 

[HarlotMinx]

I dislike the idea that because someone is into BDSM there's something wrong with them. Yes there are some people that have been abused, but it's my understanding that they're not in the majority. I've certainly never been abused but I still love when sir flogs me.

Oh god hon, that wasn't what I meant at all. I was just saying that people who do have damage sometimes get attracted to BDSM as a outlet for that. Not everyone who is in BDSM is damaged (though almost everyone is damaged in one way or another but often it has nothing to do with any attraction to BDSM). I guess I'm talking about being aware of possible signs.

That's not his responsibility, as you describe it at least. It's her and her.

She was trying something that wasn't healthy for her maybe. Many people do the same thing and find it healthy for them. Let's not get so fetishistic about the D always being in charge of everything that we can't allow a sub to have her own psyche.

Yes and no. No, the D is not in charge of everything but yes the D is responsible for the sub to some degree. I mean,, the sub gives the Dom quite a bit of safety over their physical well being (and often mental). In the mentioned case, the Dom knew about her issues and chose to keep doing those types of scenes. Also, it goes beyond responsibility in another, I think it's important if only because you should know if the person you're going to be whipping or whipped by is not mentally stable or might do something dangerous for your own safety (case and point, you whip a sub who has abuse issues and they go to the police).

I am more interested in why my PYL does what he does then why I do what i do.

Oh i agree. While it's important to look at ourselves, i think it's more important to look at our partners. I mean, it's very hard for people to find possible flaws in themselves... we like to rationalize it away and so soul searching tends to be only so effective. Looking at other people's motives though, we examine with a keener eye.

I think I'm trying to say what Cutie put better

BDSM is not a substitute for actual treatment.

and i think it's important to recognize when a partner is using BDSM as one.

 

[HarlotMinx]

EDIT: Ack, double post

 

[Netzach]

Yes and no. No, the D is not in charge of everything but yes the D is responsible for the sub to some degree. I mean,, the sub gives the Dom quite a bit of safety over their physical well being (and often mental). In the mentioned case, the Dom knew about her issues and chose to keep doing those types of scenes. Also, it goes beyond responsibility in another, I think it's important if only because you should know if the person you're going to be whipping or whipped by is not mentally stable or might do something dangerous for your own safety (case and point, you whip a sub who has abuse issues and they go to the police).

Then it's up to the person doing the emotional bungee jump to be working on their shit with a therapist and not just at home with their D, or to be at a point of comfort and self knowledge with their shit. The D is responsible over the sub inasmuch as he's been informed. If he hasn't taken the time to run all scenarios mentally, then he's got no business playing in the deep end, where there are risks. If she hasn't got some kind of game plan and hasn't done any communication she has no right to blame him for her flashbacks.

I know about H's issues. And I go right for the jugular every time we get hot and heavy. I know exactly why the kinds of humiliation doled out appeal to him, it's something no therapist would say is good for him, but we're a society hell bent on getting rid of any kind of messy catharsis. It works for him - but he's also 58 and he's a therapy kitten like I am, we're not lacking in self-assessment.

The community is full of blame every time anyone plays on the edge and things go a little wonky - if there weren't risks who would even do edgeplay?

 

[bethpage]

I have to figure out why....and usually struggle with it and talk too much and then it integrates and is less likely to cause problems.

For example, a lot goes back to childhood--my parents are fantastic, and we have a great relationship. But I've got some emotional attachment issues that I've traced back to having my dad being gone a shitload through some pivotal developmental years. He was army, and we dealt with it pretty well as a family, but I pretty much learned that what I felt wasn't going to fix anything and would make everyone else miserable too, so I distanced myself. Connecting to my emotions is not easy, especially if they are bad--I usually figure out a situation has tanked by feeling ill all the time, way past time for a graceful exit.

But there are other issues, like usually preferring to be on the receiving side, that showed up WAY before that. And I've accepted that its hardwired and enjoy it, and make sure that I don't hook up with people who push beyond agreed upon limits.

I've had to learn this stuff because NOT knowing was screwing up my relationships and getting me places I didn't want to go. And not owning my whys meant I had no hope of getting anywhere I did want. I'm not gonna say I've got it all figure out, but WHY is very important to me, and I don't think I'll ever get to the end of the line.

 

[Corylea]

I think that some of this stuff does come from emotional damage, but I think some of it is hardwired.

I know a number of kinky people who have children, and they tend to observe their children's budding sexuality with amusement when they see parallels. A friend of mine who's very into bondage as a top noticed that his four-year-old son liked to tie up his dinosaurs. The boy didn't have any dolls or other humanoid figures, but boy, did he love tying up those dinosaurs! Another friend, into bondage as a bottom, noticed that whenever her six-year-old daughter watched the kind of movie or cartoon where the heroine is tied to the railroad tracks or something, the girl started masturbating.

Someone gave a friend of mine a huge pile of clothespins for her birthday, and her four-year-old daughter wanted to know why she needed so many clothespins, since they had a dryer. My friend took a deep breath and explained that sometimes she liked to wear clothespins, just for fun. Her daughter said, "Put one on me!" So my friend put a clothespin on her daughter's earlobe. Her daughter said, "Ouch, take it off," and my friend took it off. She was surprised when, seconds later, her four-year-old said, "Hmm. Put it back on."

Power, pain, blood, and sex are all very primal things, and I don't think that any of them are very far apart in our minds, at least, not when we're young. We learn to suppress a lot of the primal stuff that's in us, because that's what civilization means. And I'm mostly in favor of it -- I like being able to walk down the street without fearing that I will become a victim of murder, rape, or robbery, because the people around me are all civilized. But sometimes civilization goes a bit too far, and we're made to feel bad about an attraction to the primal.


As for the kind of BDSM that does originate in past damage, it's not always clear to me that that's a bad thing. I have known people who got piercings and mentally channeled the pain from the piercing to the father that abused them, then felt lighter afterwards. I've known people who wanted to be beaten so that they could have the experience of being beaten in a loving context instead of an abusive context, to take some of the emotional sting out of it. I've known people who've wanted to be controlled by someone who would control them for their own good, instead of for the controller's good, and so on. As long as people are aware of what they're doing, I think it's possible to use BDSM as a tool for growth and healing. Given how much of physical and sexual abuse seems to involve body memories, it wouldn't surprise me at all if BDSM -- properly applied -- were one of the best therapies for healing from past abuse.

A lot of people think that if anything is related to past abuse, that thing must be bad. Of course the abuse itself was bad, but that doesn't mean that everything that's related to it necessarily is. I have an ex-lover who was very badly physically abused as a child. In order to protect himself, he had to learn to read body language VERY well, so that he'd know when to run away or hide under the furniture and when things were (relatively) safe. His abusive father is long-dead now, and my love has been safe for decades. He still has an amazing ability to read body language, though, to the extent that he very nearly reads minds. It's truly horrible that he ever had to develop this skill to keep himself safe, but the skill itself is not bad -- the skill itself has proven to be useful in all sorts of non-abusive contexts.


(Some of you know that I'm a clinical psychologist and that I used to work extensively with abuse survivors, so I want to stress that everything I've said here is based on people I've observed and on gut feeling, not on any sort of scientific study or experiment.)


to all the survivors

 

[Alyssa1]

I always ask myself "why" so this question is normal for me.

I never even knew this lifestyle existed until recently. But as far as I can remember I was always turned on or whatever you want to call it with pain. And all that good stuff. I started out earlier than most due to my own history, but I do not blame that on the reason I have this fetish, I merely think it's what awakened my sexuality, and as soon as I found that, I was always for this sort of relationship.

As for the submissive part of my personality. I like being told what to do and that sort of stuff, I guess. I have never imagined myself being a dom. I wouldn't make it, and it just wouldn't be what I wanted. I like the idea of submitting, I guess.

I'm gonna be quiet now. I don't think I'm making sense. I'm sleepy, xD

 

[ChainedEros]

I'm motivated by pleasure. Pure and simple. My kinks provide me an emotional high like no other.

I never ask "why". As long as what I'm doing is consensual, I don't need to know why. Just that it achieves the desired result.

I never judge other people's kinks either. I assume they do what they do for the same reason I do what I do - the pursuit of pleasure.

 

[Mistress_Belladonna]

I'm curious about the "whys" for myself and my partner because I do want to be well-informed. And keep my partner well-informed. And I really enjoy talking about the lovely idiosyncracies we all have that make us unique and intriguing people.

For those who truly suffer for whatever reason, I hope they can find some relief and a sense of well-being through whatever they choose. It's not always so, but I'll offer a helping hand if I can.

 

[HarlotMinx]

I really love the posts this thread has gotten. Just the broad diversity of posts, not only on peoples motivations but why they do or don't look at other's motivations. I'm glad people have shown interest in this.

On a side note, I remembered how this conversation FIRST got started. Moon and I were talking about if she asked me to (using the cliche) jump off a bridge, whether I would or wouldn't. Well my immediate answer was "Not unless I was damn sure why!" It was a interesting topic and we were both surprised at just how many people answered "of course I would, I trust my master/mistress implicitly." Thing is, trust gets broken all the time; whether it's a spouse, doctor, police officer, president, friend, family... they all have a very real potential to betray trust or baring that simply make a mistake. So if anyone can violate trust whether on purpose or accidentally then how are masters or mistress different? And this is why we got into the whole talk about motivations behind peoples actions or kinks and not inherently trusting that everyone knows what they're doing or is being safe. The last thing I want to be doing is fire play with a dom and suddenly find out that his childhood urges to burn small animals has reawakened. Er and in note to that last sentence, I fully recognize that most people in the scene do not get into BDSM because of damage and that many are indeed wonderful normalish people who just get pleasure from certain things. I'm also however recognizing that someone who does have damage and violent or self destructive urges might see BDSM as a outlet or connection and the importance of keeping a eye out.