cutting
- Thread starter spazt
- Start date
MasterNico
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2003
- Posts
- 157
I myself don't do deep cutting, though I do like knife play. I know some folks that are good at it though, and I'll try to get them on here sometime soon to give you some tips. I'm going to have them teach it to me, it looks awsome and my sub really wants to try it. I'm not going to venture there myself until I get some training.
catalina_francisco
Happily insatiable always
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2002
- Posts
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You might find some interest in this thread. https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=175772
Catalina
Catalina
sigsauerprinces
just a shot away from you
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2004
- Posts
- 437
MasterNico your sig made me giggle 
and yes i like cutting and knives...tis very sexy.
and yes i like cutting and knives...tis very sexy.
MasterNico
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2003
- Posts
- 157
Thanks, I wish I could take credit for it, but I heard it somewhere. It's just so fitting
Limbhugger
Team Slut Towel Boy
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2003
- Posts
- 3,031
I'm a bit of a knife freak in every day so am naturally pulled to this idea. I look forward to the day that Wife and I reach the point of experimenting in this realm.
Etoile
Mod, 2003-2015
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2000
- Posts
- 17,049
Are you talking about cutting as part of a scene, or as self-injury? I haven't met any kinksters practice SI, though it's possible. It's not something that automatically follows just because one is masochistic, though - SI is typically a reaction to depression than a need for pain.spazt said:
the shadow of a boy
Experienced
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2004
- Posts
- 75
Re: self-injury
Wow! I'm actually an expert on something! woo-hoo!
Looking back on my own episodes of SI, I'm not sure that's 100% accurate. Because there is definitely a positive reinforcement from the pain, especially the subsequent daily pain of the unhealed injury.
I would describe it as essentially being a survival mechanism, although I know that people have engaged in SI obsessively as part of a course towards suicide. But for me, the two key words would be reification and control. You express, simultaneously, both the mental anguish and the self-loathing of your condition. You make it real in the world, even if you can't express it, by cutting it into your body. Most importantly, though, you assert control over your body by damaging it. And you distract yourself from mental suffering with physical pain; essentially you substitute managable, self-controlled pain for unmanagable, helpless pain.
So I think it is basically masochistic, in a way. But one tends to think of masochism in terms of someone who wishes to be powerless.
Etoile said:
Wow! I'm actually an expert on something! woo-hoo!
Looking back on my own episodes of SI, I'm not sure that's 100% accurate. Because there is definitely a positive reinforcement from the pain, especially the subsequent daily pain of the unhealed injury.
I would describe it as essentially being a survival mechanism, although I know that people have engaged in SI obsessively as part of a course towards suicide. But for me, the two key words would be reification and control. You express, simultaneously, both the mental anguish and the self-loathing of your condition. You make it real in the world, even if you can't express it, by cutting it into your body. Most importantly, though, you assert control over your body by damaging it. And you distract yourself from mental suffering with physical pain; essentially you substitute managable, self-controlled pain for unmanagable, helpless pain.
So I think it is basically masochistic, in a way. But one tends to think of masochism in terms of someone who wishes to be powerless.
Kajira Callista
Empty
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2003
- Posts
- 19,348
Why do people deliberately injure themselves?
Drowning in the dark blood of would-be brothers who,
beyond the pressing of fingers, those for whom
the slice is only the beginning, and a different kind
of light comes in, begs recognition and peace of mind.
-- Judybats
This may be the aspect of self-harm that is most puzzling to those who do not do it. Why would anyone choose to inflict physical damage on him or herself? Because they cannot imagine themselves doing such a thing under any circumstances, many people dismiss self-injury as "senseless" or "irrational" behavior. And certainly it does seem that way at first glance.
But people generally do things for reasons that make sense to them. The reasons may not be apparent or may not fit into our frame of reference, but they exist and recognizing their existence is crucial to understanding self-harm. With understanding of the reasons behind a particular act of self-harm comes knowledge of the coping skills that are lacking. When you know what skills are missing, you can start trying to introduce them.
This page is in two sections. The first has to do with what people who engage in SIB say it does for them. The second deals with possible biological or psychoneurological reasons -- why some people find relief in self-harm while others don't. The message of both is simple: It's about coping.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The assumption is that the alternative to self-injury is "acting normally," but on the contrary . . . the alternative to self-injury is total loss of control and possibly suicide. It becomes a forced choice from among limited options.
Solomon and Farrand (1996)
Psychological motivations:
What self-injurers say SI does for them
Many papers on self-harm (Miller, 1994; Favazza 1986, 1996; Connors, 1996a, 2000; Solomon & Farrand, 1996; Ousch et al., 1999; Suyemoto, 1998; and others), have uncovered possible motivations for self-injurious behavior:
Escape from emptiness, depression, and feelings of unreality.
Easing tension.
Providing relief: when intense feelings build, self-injurers are overwhelmed and unable to cope. By causing pain, they reduce the level of emotional and physiological arousal to a bearable one.
Relieving anger: many self-injurers have enormous amounts of rage within. Afraid to express it outwardly, they injure themselves as a way of venting these feelings.
Escaping numbness: many of those who self-injure say they do it in order to feel something, to know that they're still alive.
Grounding in reality, as a way of dealing with feelings of depersonalization and dissociation
Maintaining a sense of security or feeling of uniqueness
Obtaining a feeling of euphoria
Preventing suicide
Expressing emotional pain they feel they cannot bear
Obtaining or maintaining influence over the behavior of others
Communicating to others the extent of their inner turmoil
Communicating a need for support
Expressing or repressing sexuality
Expressing or coping with feelings of alienation
Validating their emotional pain -- the wounds can serve as evidence that those feelings are real
Continuing abusive patterns: self-injurers tend to have been abused as children.
Punishing oneself for being "bad"
Obtaining biochemical relief: there is some thought that adults who were repeatedly traumatized as children have a hard time returning to a "normal" baseline level of arousal and are, in some sense, addicted to crisis behavior. Self-harm can perpetuate this kind of crisis state
Diverting attention (inner or outer) from issues that are too painful to examine
Exerting a sense of control over one's body
Preventing something worse from happening
These reasons can be broadly grouped into three categories:
Affect regulation -- Trying to bring the body back to equilibrium in the face of turbulent or unsettling feelings. This includes reconnection with the body after a dissociative episode, calming of the body in times of high emotional and physiological arousal, validating the inner pain with an outer expression, and avoiding suicide because of unbearable feelings. In many ways, as Sutton says, self-harm is a "gift of survival." It can be the most integrative and self-preserving choice from a very limited field of options.
Communication -- Some people use self-harm as a way to express things they cannot speak. When the communication is directed at others, the SIB is often seen as manipulative. However, manipulation is usually an indirect attempt to get a need met; if a person learns that direct requests will be listened to and addressed the need for indirect attempts to influence behavior decreases. Thus, understanding what an act of self-harm is trying to communicate can be crucial to dealing with it in an effective and constructive way.
Control/punishment -- This category includes trauma reenactment, bargaining and magical thinking (if I hurt myself, then the bad thing I am fearing will be prevented), protecting other people, and self-control. Self-control overlaps somewhat with affect regulation; in fact, most of the reasons for self-harm listed above have an element of affect control in them.
In an interesting theory that combines all three categories, Miller (1994) posits an explanation for why such a large majority of peep who self-harm are female. Women are not socialized to express violence externally and when confronted with the vast rage many self-injurers feel, women tend to vent on themselves. She quotes the feminist poet Adrienne Rich:
"Most women have not even been able to touch
this anger except to drive it inward like a
rusted nail."
Miller says, "Men act out. Women act out by acting in." Another reason fewer men self-injure may be that men are socialized in a way that makes repressing feelings the norm. Linehan's (1993a) theory that self-harm results in part from chronic invalidation, from always being told that your feelings are bad or wrong or inappropriate, could explain the gender disparity in self-injury; men are generally brought up to hold emotion in.
Alexithymia
Alexithymia is a fairly recent psychological construct describing the state of not being able to describe the emotions one is feeling. Alexithymia was positively linked to self-injurious behavior in a 1996 study (Zlotnick, et el.) and is congruent with how people who self-injure often describe the emotional state before an injury; they frequently cannot pinpoint any particular feeling that was present. This is especially important in understanding the communicative function of self-injury: "Rather than use words to express feelings, an alexithymic's communication is an act aimed at making others feel [those same feelings]" (Zlotnick et al., 1996).
Self-capacities and Invalidation
A constructivist theory of self-injurious behavior (Deiter, Nicholls, & Pearlman, 2000) holds that people who self-injure usually have not developed three important self-capacities: the ability to tolerate strong affect, the ability to maintain a sense of self-worth, and the ability to maintain a sense of connection to others. The first of these speaks directly to the affect-regulation role of self-harm; the others are perhaps related to its communicative functions.
Pearlman et al. (2000) note that "when children experience shaming and punitive rhetoric or physical blows rather than responsive words" they cannot internalize others are loving and cannot develop the capacity to maintain a sense of connection to others. They further state, "The ability to experience, tolerate, and integrate strong affect cannot develop fully when strong feelings are met with punishment or derision." Having a sense that some feelings are unacceptable and not allowed also impairs this ability. And the ability to maintain a sense of oneself as a person of worth cannot be developed when a child never feels she is good enough, when her "existence and accomplishments are met with silence or abusive words or actions."
Interestingly, all of these conditions are found in invalidating environments, which Linehan and others have tied to future self-injury.
Finally, Haines and Williams (1997) found that self-mutilators reported more use of problem avoidance as a coping strategy and perceived themselves to have less control over problem-solving options. This feeling of disempowerment may in turn be related to the chronic invalidation many self-injurers have experienced.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Physiological concerns: What the researchers have found
People who self-injure tend to be dysphoric -- experiencing a depressed mood with a high degree of irritability and sensitivity to rejection and some underlying tension -- even when not actively hurting themselves. The pattern found by Herpertz (1995) indicates that something, usually some sort of interpersonal stressor, increases the level of dysphoria and tension to an unbearable degree. The painful feelings become overwhelming: it's as if the usual underlying uncomfortable affect is escalated to a critical maximum point. "SIB has the function of bringing about a transient relief from these [high levels of irritability and sensitivity to rejection]," Herpertz said. This conclusion is supported by the work of Haines and her colleagues.
In a fascinating study, Haines et al. (1995) led groups of self-injuring and non-self-injuring subjects through guided imagery sessions. Each subject experienced the same four scenarios in random order: a scene in which aggression was imagined, a neutral scene, a scene of accidental injury, and one in which self-injury was imagined. The scripts had four stages: scene-setting, approach, incident, and consequence. During the guided imagery sessions, physiological arousal and subjective arousal were measured.
The results were striking. Subject reactions across groups didn't differ on the aggression, accident, and neutral scripts. In the self-injury script, though, the control groups went to a high level of arousal and stayed there throughout the script, in spite of relaxation instructions contained in the "consequences" stage. In contrast, self-injurers experienced increased arousal through the scene-setting and approach stages, until the the decision to self-injure was made. Their tension then dropped, dropping even more at the incident stage and remaining low.
These results provide strong evidence that self-injury provides a quick, effective release of physiological tension, which would include the physiological arousal brought on by negative or overwhelming psychological states. As Haines et al. say
Self-mutilators often are unable to provide explanations for their own self-mutilative behavior. . . . Participants reported continued negative feelings despite reduced psychophysiological arousal. This result suggests that it is the alteration of psychophysiological arousal that may operate to reinforce and maintain the behavior, not the psychological response. (1995, p. 481)
In other words, self-injury may be a preferred coping mechanism because it quickly and dramatically calms the body, even though people who self-injure may have very negative feelings after an episode. They feel bad, but the overwhelming psychophysiological pressure and tension is gone. Herpertz et al. (1995) explain this:
We may surmise that self-mutilators usually disapprove of aggressive feelings and impulses. If they fail to suppress these, our findings indicate that they direct them inwardly. . . . This is in agreement with patients' reports, where they often regard their self-mutilative acts as ways of relieving intolerable tension resulting from interpersonal stressors. (p. 70).
A recent case study (Sachsse et al., 2002) supports the idea that self-injury acts to reduce physiological and thus emotional stress. They tracked the nightly cortisol levels in a woman who self-harmed, then compared the results for days on which she did not engage in self-harm acts to those for days during which she did hurt herself. Cortisol excretion is increased under stress, which makes it an excellent marker for stress levels. An analysis of the results showed that on the days during which the woman had harmed herself, her cortisol levels were significantly lower than on other days.
Another stress-reduction theory, set forth by Herman (1992), says that most children who are abused discover that a serious jolt to the body, like that produced by self-injury, can make intolerable feelings go away temporarily. This may help explain how self-injury gets entrenched as a coping mechanism.
Brain chemistry and serotonin
Brain chemistry may play a role in determining who self-injures and who doesn't. Simeon et al. (1992) found that people who self-injure tend to be extremely angry, impulsive, anxious, and aggressive, and presented evidence that some of these traits may be linked to deficits in the brain's serotonin system. Favazza (1993) refers to this study and to work by Coccaro on irritability to posit that perhaps irritable people with relatively normal serotonin function express their irritation outwardly, by screaming or throwing things; people with low serotonin function turn the irritability inward by self-damaging or suicidal acts.
Zweig-Frank et al. (1994) also suggest that degree of self-injury is related to serotonin dysfunction. More recently, Steiger et al. (2000), in a study of bulimics, found that serotonin function in bulimic women was significantly lower in bulimics who also engaged in self-harm. More information on the likely role of serotonin in self-injury can be found on the psychopharmacology page.
next section: Who self-injures
return to SI main page
http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/injury.html
Drowning in the dark blood of would-be brothers who,
beyond the pressing of fingers, those for whom
the slice is only the beginning, and a different kind
of light comes in, begs recognition and peace of mind.
-- Judybats
This may be the aspect of self-harm that is most puzzling to those who do not do it. Why would anyone choose to inflict physical damage on him or herself? Because they cannot imagine themselves doing such a thing under any circumstances, many people dismiss self-injury as "senseless" or "irrational" behavior. And certainly it does seem that way at first glance.
But people generally do things for reasons that make sense to them. The reasons may not be apparent or may not fit into our frame of reference, but they exist and recognizing their existence is crucial to understanding self-harm. With understanding of the reasons behind a particular act of self-harm comes knowledge of the coping skills that are lacking. When you know what skills are missing, you can start trying to introduce them.
This page is in two sections. The first has to do with what people who engage in SIB say it does for them. The second deals with possible biological or psychoneurological reasons -- why some people find relief in self-harm while others don't. The message of both is simple: It's about coping.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The assumption is that the alternative to self-injury is "acting normally," but on the contrary . . . the alternative to self-injury is total loss of control and possibly suicide. It becomes a forced choice from among limited options.
Solomon and Farrand (1996)
Psychological motivations:
What self-injurers say SI does for them
Many papers on self-harm (Miller, 1994; Favazza 1986, 1996; Connors, 1996a, 2000; Solomon & Farrand, 1996; Ousch et al., 1999; Suyemoto, 1998; and others), have uncovered possible motivations for self-injurious behavior:
Escape from emptiness, depression, and feelings of unreality.
Easing tension.
Providing relief: when intense feelings build, self-injurers are overwhelmed and unable to cope. By causing pain, they reduce the level of emotional and physiological arousal to a bearable one.
Relieving anger: many self-injurers have enormous amounts of rage within. Afraid to express it outwardly, they injure themselves as a way of venting these feelings.
Escaping numbness: many of those who self-injure say they do it in order to feel something, to know that they're still alive.
Grounding in reality, as a way of dealing with feelings of depersonalization and dissociation
Maintaining a sense of security or feeling of uniqueness
Obtaining a feeling of euphoria
Preventing suicide
Expressing emotional pain they feel they cannot bear
Obtaining or maintaining influence over the behavior of others
Communicating to others the extent of their inner turmoil
Communicating a need for support
Expressing or repressing sexuality
Expressing or coping with feelings of alienation
Validating their emotional pain -- the wounds can serve as evidence that those feelings are real
Continuing abusive patterns: self-injurers tend to have been abused as children.
Punishing oneself for being "bad"
Obtaining biochemical relief: there is some thought that adults who were repeatedly traumatized as children have a hard time returning to a "normal" baseline level of arousal and are, in some sense, addicted to crisis behavior. Self-harm can perpetuate this kind of crisis state
Diverting attention (inner or outer) from issues that are too painful to examine
Exerting a sense of control over one's body
Preventing something worse from happening
These reasons can be broadly grouped into three categories:
Affect regulation -- Trying to bring the body back to equilibrium in the face of turbulent or unsettling feelings. This includes reconnection with the body after a dissociative episode, calming of the body in times of high emotional and physiological arousal, validating the inner pain with an outer expression, and avoiding suicide because of unbearable feelings. In many ways, as Sutton says, self-harm is a "gift of survival." It can be the most integrative and self-preserving choice from a very limited field of options.
Communication -- Some people use self-harm as a way to express things they cannot speak. When the communication is directed at others, the SIB is often seen as manipulative. However, manipulation is usually an indirect attempt to get a need met; if a person learns that direct requests will be listened to and addressed the need for indirect attempts to influence behavior decreases. Thus, understanding what an act of self-harm is trying to communicate can be crucial to dealing with it in an effective and constructive way.
Control/punishment -- This category includes trauma reenactment, bargaining and magical thinking (if I hurt myself, then the bad thing I am fearing will be prevented), protecting other people, and self-control. Self-control overlaps somewhat with affect regulation; in fact, most of the reasons for self-harm listed above have an element of affect control in them.
In an interesting theory that combines all three categories, Miller (1994) posits an explanation for why such a large majority of peep who self-harm are female. Women are not socialized to express violence externally and when confronted with the vast rage many self-injurers feel, women tend to vent on themselves. She quotes the feminist poet Adrienne Rich:
"Most women have not even been able to touch
this anger except to drive it inward like a
rusted nail."
Miller says, "Men act out. Women act out by acting in." Another reason fewer men self-injure may be that men are socialized in a way that makes repressing feelings the norm. Linehan's (1993a) theory that self-harm results in part from chronic invalidation, from always being told that your feelings are bad or wrong or inappropriate, could explain the gender disparity in self-injury; men are generally brought up to hold emotion in.
Alexithymia
Alexithymia is a fairly recent psychological construct describing the state of not being able to describe the emotions one is feeling. Alexithymia was positively linked to self-injurious behavior in a 1996 study (Zlotnick, et el.) and is congruent with how people who self-injure often describe the emotional state before an injury; they frequently cannot pinpoint any particular feeling that was present. This is especially important in understanding the communicative function of self-injury: "Rather than use words to express feelings, an alexithymic's communication is an act aimed at making others feel [those same feelings]" (Zlotnick et al., 1996).
Self-capacities and Invalidation
A constructivist theory of self-injurious behavior (Deiter, Nicholls, & Pearlman, 2000) holds that people who self-injure usually have not developed three important self-capacities: the ability to tolerate strong affect, the ability to maintain a sense of self-worth, and the ability to maintain a sense of connection to others. The first of these speaks directly to the affect-regulation role of self-harm; the others are perhaps related to its communicative functions.
Pearlman et al. (2000) note that "when children experience shaming and punitive rhetoric or physical blows rather than responsive words" they cannot internalize others are loving and cannot develop the capacity to maintain a sense of connection to others. They further state, "The ability to experience, tolerate, and integrate strong affect cannot develop fully when strong feelings are met with punishment or derision." Having a sense that some feelings are unacceptable and not allowed also impairs this ability. And the ability to maintain a sense of oneself as a person of worth cannot be developed when a child never feels she is good enough, when her "existence and accomplishments are met with silence or abusive words or actions."
Interestingly, all of these conditions are found in invalidating environments, which Linehan and others have tied to future self-injury.
Finally, Haines and Williams (1997) found that self-mutilators reported more use of problem avoidance as a coping strategy and perceived themselves to have less control over problem-solving options. This feeling of disempowerment may in turn be related to the chronic invalidation many self-injurers have experienced.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Physiological concerns: What the researchers have found
People who self-injure tend to be dysphoric -- experiencing a depressed mood with a high degree of irritability and sensitivity to rejection and some underlying tension -- even when not actively hurting themselves. The pattern found by Herpertz (1995) indicates that something, usually some sort of interpersonal stressor, increases the level of dysphoria and tension to an unbearable degree. The painful feelings become overwhelming: it's as if the usual underlying uncomfortable affect is escalated to a critical maximum point. "SIB has the function of bringing about a transient relief from these [high levels of irritability and sensitivity to rejection]," Herpertz said. This conclusion is supported by the work of Haines and her colleagues.
In a fascinating study, Haines et al. (1995) led groups of self-injuring and non-self-injuring subjects through guided imagery sessions. Each subject experienced the same four scenarios in random order: a scene in which aggression was imagined, a neutral scene, a scene of accidental injury, and one in which self-injury was imagined. The scripts had four stages: scene-setting, approach, incident, and consequence. During the guided imagery sessions, physiological arousal and subjective arousal were measured.
The results were striking. Subject reactions across groups didn't differ on the aggression, accident, and neutral scripts. In the self-injury script, though, the control groups went to a high level of arousal and stayed there throughout the script, in spite of relaxation instructions contained in the "consequences" stage. In contrast, self-injurers experienced increased arousal through the scene-setting and approach stages, until the the decision to self-injure was made. Their tension then dropped, dropping even more at the incident stage and remaining low.
These results provide strong evidence that self-injury provides a quick, effective release of physiological tension, which would include the physiological arousal brought on by negative or overwhelming psychological states. As Haines et al. say
Self-mutilators often are unable to provide explanations for their own self-mutilative behavior. . . . Participants reported continued negative feelings despite reduced psychophysiological arousal. This result suggests that it is the alteration of psychophysiological arousal that may operate to reinforce and maintain the behavior, not the psychological response. (1995, p. 481)
In other words, self-injury may be a preferred coping mechanism because it quickly and dramatically calms the body, even though people who self-injure may have very negative feelings after an episode. They feel bad, but the overwhelming psychophysiological pressure and tension is gone. Herpertz et al. (1995) explain this:
We may surmise that self-mutilators usually disapprove of aggressive feelings and impulses. If they fail to suppress these, our findings indicate that they direct them inwardly. . . . This is in agreement with patients' reports, where they often regard their self-mutilative acts as ways of relieving intolerable tension resulting from interpersonal stressors. (p. 70).
A recent case study (Sachsse et al., 2002) supports the idea that self-injury acts to reduce physiological and thus emotional stress. They tracked the nightly cortisol levels in a woman who self-harmed, then compared the results for days on which she did not engage in self-harm acts to those for days during which she did hurt herself. Cortisol excretion is increased under stress, which makes it an excellent marker for stress levels. An analysis of the results showed that on the days during which the woman had harmed herself, her cortisol levels were significantly lower than on other days.
Another stress-reduction theory, set forth by Herman (1992), says that most children who are abused discover that a serious jolt to the body, like that produced by self-injury, can make intolerable feelings go away temporarily. This may help explain how self-injury gets entrenched as a coping mechanism.
Brain chemistry and serotonin
Brain chemistry may play a role in determining who self-injures and who doesn't. Simeon et al. (1992) found that people who self-injure tend to be extremely angry, impulsive, anxious, and aggressive, and presented evidence that some of these traits may be linked to deficits in the brain's serotonin system. Favazza (1993) refers to this study and to work by Coccaro on irritability to posit that perhaps irritable people with relatively normal serotonin function express their irritation outwardly, by screaming or throwing things; people with low serotonin function turn the irritability inward by self-damaging or suicidal acts.
Zweig-Frank et al. (1994) also suggest that degree of self-injury is related to serotonin dysfunction. More recently, Steiger et al. (2000), in a study of bulimics, found that serotonin function in bulimic women was significantly lower in bulimics who also engaged in self-harm. More information on the likely role of serotonin in self-injury can be found on the psychopharmacology page.
next section: Who self-injures
return to SI main page
http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/injury.html
lark sparrow
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2002
- Posts
- 1,715
I attended a very well done program on cutting last week with a local BDSM group. Here is the promo text and general focus of the class.
Blood Lust: The Art of Cutting
Giving up control of blood is a hot and scary form of submission. Taking a blood offering is an exquisite and passionate statement of power.
Because of the potential danger and high probability of permanent marking, cutting has been seen as a "fringe" or "heavy" play activity. It can produce intense mind-altering play, but it is such a primal activity, tapping into the cannibal in us, that it's terrifying to some.
The physical sensations from cutting range from intense pain to calming release. Performing a cutting can generate feelings ranging from explosive power surges to being overwhelmed by the trust being placed in your hands.
In this program, Marilyn will discuss:
Why would anyone want to do that??
Negotiating a cutting scene
Tools of the trade: getting them, caring for them
Health & safety issues
Techniques
Preserving a cut image
Integrating cutting into a scene
After care
After the break there will be demonstration cuttings.
----
She did two cuttings - one on a play partner (upside down triangle on upper arm) and the other on her partner, in collar, re-cutting a Star of David into her back, which she had done 3 years earlier in the beginning of their relationsip.
She also loved knife play but considered that more of a mind fuck, and performed all of her cuttings with sterile surgical scalpels exclusively. She recommended navel oranges as a good beginners guinea pig - similar depth of skin as a human.
If you have the opportunity to attend a class or speak with someone who is passionate and knowledgeable about cutting as a BDSM activity - do so!
Blood Lust: The Art of Cutting
Giving up control of blood is a hot and scary form of submission. Taking a blood offering is an exquisite and passionate statement of power.
Because of the potential danger and high probability of permanent marking, cutting has been seen as a "fringe" or "heavy" play activity. It can produce intense mind-altering play, but it is such a primal activity, tapping into the cannibal in us, that it's terrifying to some.
The physical sensations from cutting range from intense pain to calming release. Performing a cutting can generate feelings ranging from explosive power surges to being overwhelmed by the trust being placed in your hands.
In this program, Marilyn will discuss:
Why would anyone want to do that??
Negotiating a cutting scene
Tools of the trade: getting them, caring for them
Health & safety issues
Techniques
Preserving a cut image
Integrating cutting into a scene
After care
After the break there will be demonstration cuttings.
----
She did two cuttings - one on a play partner (upside down triangle on upper arm) and the other on her partner, in collar, re-cutting a Star of David into her back, which she had done 3 years earlier in the beginning of their relationsip.
She also loved knife play but considered that more of a mind fuck, and performed all of her cuttings with sterile surgical scalpels exclusively. She recommended navel oranges as a good beginners guinea pig - similar depth of skin as a human.
If you have the opportunity to attend a class or speak with someone who is passionate and knowledgeable about cutting as a BDSM activity - do so!
the shadow of a boy
Experienced
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2004
- Posts
- 75
Shh! Shh! Ah...ouch. Jeez.
Dammit, lark, you just outed the Red Cross.
The following is amateur advice. My knowledge is based on recollection of SI and reading, rather than deliberate, focused learning and experience. However, there are a few points I'd like to make, in the absence of a professional, before we all head down to our local medical supply centers and hardware stores.
The first and most obvious thing to remember is that human skin varies greatly in thickness over the surface of the body. It's thickest on the upper back. I don't recall where it's thinnest. It also varies greatly from person to person. So does the probability of scarification.
If you have lots and lots of african ancestry(1), for instance, you'll already know that 'proud' scarring (raised above the skin surface) is more likely in general, and childhood nicks and scrapes will have probably given you a sense of how your own skin scars. But if you don't, don't make any assumptions. Unless you have very dark or very pale skin, and can't miss the smallest scar, don't assume that you don't scar easily. Unless the scar tissue raises up, it's easy to miss significant scars. Don't assume that the genes that determine your scarrability come from the same people as the genes that determine your skin color, either(2). Ideally you should be estimating your scarrability based on a scar resulting from an injury you clearly remember.
Because there are small oranges that I've referred to as 'navel' oranges, but which have thick skin, I'd suggest practicing with something similar to a Clementine.
Most 'cutting' of the SI variety is epidermal, if that's the right word: what I mean to say is that the cuts do not actually go all the way through the skin (sub-dermal); not very far into it, either. You'll know when you've parted the skin because there's a bit of actual parting, which feels weird. There's not a lot of difference in pain or blood loss. (That only depends on where nerve endings and capillaries are.) There is a huge difference in how likely a scar is, how wide it will be, how seriously you should take the risk of infection, and how 'proud' it will end up being. You should assume that there will be scars. You shouldn't assume that they'll come out all of a similar thickness. All cuts will heal better towards the ends, and it's possible for one half of a cut to heal better than the other.
Taking my own skin (pinkish-yellow white, low blush, fairly large pores) as an example, 'thin', light cuts - however bloody and painful - might well end up being scabbed for a few weeks, livid for half a year, noticeable as white lines for a couple of years, and for all intents and purposes invisible thereafter(3), or they could result in marginably noticeable, very slightly 'bumpy' scars. Mid-dermal, deeper cuts will leave a definite scar, but they might or might not be very noticeable. On me, those cuts have resulted in scars ranging from near invisible to faint raised lines to lesser proud scars roughly 1/16" across. Subdermal cuts have always ended up as proud scars, between 1/16" and 1/8" wide.
(1)I mean within the last 20,000 years, wise guy.
(2)For that matter, unless you're closely related, don't assume that the person in a crowd who looks the most like you 'ethnically' is the person you're the closest genetic match with.
(3)I did some elaborate designs on my feet that I really liked, and wish I still had, but they faded in that time frame.
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the shadow of a boy
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Hm, just thought of an inane joke.
"Well, for our twentieth aniversary, Mistress decided that we should try 'cutting'... and now I'm scarred for wife."
"Well, for our twentieth aniversary, Mistress decided that we should try 'cutting'... and now I'm scarred for wife."
lark sparrow
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Good info. There was a lot of discussion about possible hypertrophic scars or keloids. As well as how to preserve and highlight the cutting, such as by rubbing wood fire ash or even tattoo ink into the cutting... or even by not allowing it to heal naturally. Oh, and how they change over time. She did a cutting on her best friend years ago with an upside down triangle and the symbol for woman - both were thrilled with the brilliance of the design and how the cutting turned out - several years later the scar looks exactly like a champagne glass.
Also the need to wait 15 to 30 seconds, if you are looking for the blood, before you decide the cutting didn't work or wasn't deep enough. Her method was a very light, shallow cutting of the design, which did produce blood, and then gauging how much deeper she wanted to go for a second round with the design - but the blade edge was never more than fractionally below the skin. She also created some nifty souvenir art in preserving the design through transfer by pressing a papertowel to the bleeding cutting. There was also mentioned the consideration of certain medications, over-the-counter or prescribed, which thin the blood.
It was said that generally speaking, those areas of the body that are safest to flog would also be the areas with thicker skin or more protective padding to cut as well - generally avoiding face, neck, lower arms and lower legs, joints, etc. Although the belly and kidney area might be fairer game in cutting than in whipping.
Another good point for those who would make do with what was around to create a new pervertible - exacto knives and blades come with an oil on them to prevent rusting and aren't nearly as sharp and sterile as a surgical-grade scalpel. She used both betadine on the area to be cut, letting it dry beforehand, and alcohol afterwards for clean up and a nice sting.
She wasn't a doctor, just an experienced BDSM enthusiast, like most presenters, though there happened to be kinked MDs, nurses and professional tattoo and body mod. people who added to the conversation from the audience - so, as always, advice or idea on method of practice or play is not infallible, and further research is never a bad idea.
And of course, the connection between the players and what they share and explore with one another was one the most amazing and positive factors, scars aside.
Also the need to wait 15 to 30 seconds, if you are looking for the blood, before you decide the cutting didn't work or wasn't deep enough. Her method was a very light, shallow cutting of the design, which did produce blood, and then gauging how much deeper she wanted to go for a second round with the design - but the blade edge was never more than fractionally below the skin. She also created some nifty souvenir art in preserving the design through transfer by pressing a papertowel to the bleeding cutting. There was also mentioned the consideration of certain medications, over-the-counter or prescribed, which thin the blood.
It was said that generally speaking, those areas of the body that are safest to flog would also be the areas with thicker skin or more protective padding to cut as well - generally avoiding face, neck, lower arms and lower legs, joints, etc. Although the belly and kidney area might be fairer game in cutting than in whipping.
Another good point for those who would make do with what was around to create a new pervertible - exacto knives and blades come with an oil on them to prevent rusting and aren't nearly as sharp and sterile as a surgical-grade scalpel. She used both betadine on the area to be cut, letting it dry beforehand, and alcohol afterwards for clean up and a nice sting.
She wasn't a doctor, just an experienced BDSM enthusiast, like most presenters, though there happened to be kinked MDs, nurses and professional tattoo and body mod. people who added to the conversation from the audience - so, as always, advice or idea on method of practice or play is not infallible, and further research is never a bad idea.
And of course, the connection between the players and what they share and explore with one another was one the most amazing and positive factors, scars aside.
Etoile
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Re: Re: self-injury
I still think the masochism in SI is more from depression than from a simple desire for pain. Yes, it's control over your body. Don't worry, I understand SI pretty well - I'm aware that it involves masochism. But it's not something kinksters practice by definition. Cutting may be a sexual practice - bloodplay - but not SI.the shadow of a boy said:
the shadow of a boy
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Re: Re: Re: self-injury
I agree totally... I was just pointing out that there definitely is masochistic feedback. The points in my life where I was cutting/burning myself were also the only points where I came close to feeling desexualized.
One could just as easily say that the sensuality of cutting/bloodplay between two people has far more to do with power and trust than masochism. (If I may be allowed to guess.) Insofar as I can imagine self-cutting as a sort of 'masturbatory' practice, I imagine the thrill of it as deriving more from the violation of a brain-stem level taboo than from the pain. Non-injurious pain would be more suitable if the only point was the sensory overload and endorphin flood that drives pure masochism.
Etoile said:
I agree totally... I was just pointing out that there definitely is masochistic feedback. The points in my life where I was cutting/burning myself were also the only points where I came close to feeling desexualized.
One could just as easily say that the sensuality of cutting/bloodplay between two people has far more to do with power and trust than masochism. (If I may be allowed to guess.) Insofar as I can imagine self-cutting as a sort of 'masturbatory' practice, I imagine the thrill of it as deriving more from the violation of a brain-stem level taboo than from the pain. Non-injurious pain would be more suitable if the only point was the sensory overload and endorphin flood that drives pure masochism.
paperdolly
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Blood Lust indeed. This is one of mine newly carved. Perfer the razor to the scalpel, as it is a sharper blade.
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the shadow of a boy
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paperdolly said:
Wow, that's a beautiful photo (pose, light and colour). I'm hoping for your sake that the pixelation isn't from the camera? Because that one's a keeper.
Somewhere out there in the world there's a polaroid of my feet after I did them, but I've not got it nor scanned it.
There's a LiveJournal picture community some girls are starting up, specficially about erotic/initimate(FF only, I think) cutting... thought I would mention that if you have any LJ affiliation.
paperdolly
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Not in on the LJ action, but thanks for the thought. The actual digital print of that shot is much crisper, so I can't fathom the pixelation.
sigsauerprinces
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paperdolly said:
that is beautiful
DustyWolfe
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Interesting thread... As I've discussed on a few other threads, I'm a reformed (mostly) cutter. It took me years to get away from it. For me it was never about depression, it was more out of anger at myself, situations, my now ex girlfriend, etc.
Cutting was about actually feeling something other than anger. I've been in several abusive situations in my life, somehow I seemed to go from abuser to abuser. I could deal with the physical pain without a problem because for some strange reason and Sadomasochist all bundled up into a Daddi... Anyways... Because of the abuse I had experienced anger was a scarey emotion for me. I was always afraid that I would become an abuser too. So I would cause myself pain so that it would be over with and noone would be hurt or upset with me.
I used to allow myself to go numb emotionally, I would be in a state that was like a zombie, i would do what I had to do and only what I had to do. I stared off into space and never really remembered what I had done in the day. I would get an urge to cut and would do so, then would come out of my fog because of the pain. It kept my balanced, or so I thought at the time. I was walking a thin line between living and losing myself because I didn't care if I lived or died by that point. Life had no meaning to me anymore.
Each time I cut it would be deeper and deeper and it would take more cuts to bring me around or calm down.
This of course poses a problem, because I do like artistic cuttings, but there is a slight fear that if I'm touched with a blade it will start over again, though I think now I have the control and will power that it wont since I am more or less happy and quite safe.
Cutting was about actually feeling something other than anger. I've been in several abusive situations in my life, somehow I seemed to go from abuser to abuser. I could deal with the physical pain without a problem because for some strange reason and Sadomasochist all bundled up into a Daddi
... Anyways... Because of the abuse I had experienced anger was a scarey emotion for me. I was always afraid that I would become an abuser too. So I would cause myself pain so that it would be over with and noone would be hurt or upset with me.I used to allow myself to go numb emotionally, I would be in a state that was like a zombie, i would do what I had to do and only what I had to do. I stared off into space and never really remembered what I had done in the day. I would get an urge to cut and would do so, then would come out of my fog because of the pain. It kept my balanced, or so I thought at the time. I was walking a thin line between living and losing myself because I didn't care if I lived or died by that point. Life had no meaning to me anymore.
Each time I cut it would be deeper and deeper and it would take more cuts to bring me around or calm down.
This of course poses a problem, because I do like artistic cuttings, but there is a slight fear that if I'm touched with a blade it will start over again, though I think now I have the control and will power that it wont since I am more or less happy and quite safe.
Jessalynvix
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Dustygrrl said:Interesting thread... As I've discussed on a few other threads, I'm a reformed (mostly) cutter. It took me years to get away from it. For me it was never about depression, it was more out of anger at myself, situations, my now ex girlfriend, etc.
Cutting was about actually feeling something other than anger. I've been in several abusive situations in my life, somehow I seemed to go from abuser to abuser. I could deal with the physical pain without a problem because for some strange reason and Sadomasochist all bundled up into a Daddi
I used to allow myself to go numb emotionally, I would be in a state that was like a zombie, i would do what I had to do and only what I had to do. I stared off into space and never really remembered what I had done in the day. I would get an urge to cut and would do so, then would come out of my fog because of the pain. It kept my balanced, or so I thought at the time. I was walking a thin line between living and losing myself because I didn't care if I lived or died by that point. Life had no meaning to me anymore.
Each time I cut it would be deeper and deeper and it would take more cuts to bring me around or calm down.
This of course poses a problem, because I do like artistic cuttings, but there is a slight fear that if I'm touched with a blade it will start over again, though I think now I have the control and will power that it wont since I am more or less happy and quite safe.
*eyes you carefully* Uh huh cause you kept scaring me when you were still doing that.
Artistic cuttings are different I suppose but if we think about this we just need to be careful because I don't want to lose you to this visicious cycle of cutting. I'd be lost with out you.
