Shame and Humiliation

[xssve]

I'm surprised you lump objectification and humiliation together. To me, objectification means treating someone as a sexual body without a soul, while humiliation is all about psychology and character, almost the opposite. I suppose you mean that by objectifying them we humiliate them, but I don't think that's necessarily true.

Objectification/Humiliation is just a convention as a fetish category, humiliation has a lot to do with objectification, a cunt, a slut, etc, any name really is an objectification of a human being, they are really not these things, these are symbols we apply to people as cultural signifiers, i.e., seeing someone not for who they are as an individual, but as what they represent symbolically - "slut" is a word, not a thing. So depending on your viewpoint, what is just dirty talk for one person is highly objectifying for another.

If someone say I'm acting like an ass, it means something totally different than if they call me a "misogynist", an abstract category which objectifies a person, as opposed to referring to a cultural movement, ethic, zeitgeist, attitude, etc., which you can make some generalizations about.

At some point in this process, communication breaks down completely because neither side see's the other as person, but only a representative of some abstract cultural category - objectification=abstraction, and that in itself, can be humiliating - you are no longer an individual, you're a symbol, you don't even need to be there, you might as well be a cardboard cutout.

And of course, some people really get into their symbols, they become their symbol, it becomes their identity, a sort of a personality substitute, "identity politics".

Masks, oddly enough are among the most common hard limits, along with scat, kids, and diapers, and it may have to do with the fear factor, i.e., we communicate a great deal through facial expressions, and masks are the ultimate form of objectification, i.e., one cease to be an individual and becomes the mask, and whatever it signifies, which can be very unsettling whether it's the top of the bottom wearing it.
...

But I always thought that the objectification in BDSM was a large part of the attraction. I know that for the dom, in my case at least, the sub's passivity goes a long way toward fulfilling xssve's criteria of "loving yourself when you're with somebody" -- being selfish with their body. It's something you can't do as well if you're worried about their needs as another human being.

You cannot escape objectification in this culture, that's the deal with "role models", which is an objectification, i.e., whether it's due to population density, corporate/media influence, whatever it is, individuality is an increasingly rare commodity, the concept of individuality itself just another marketing gimmick to push product because it will set you apart from the rest of the herd of homogeneous consumers, all competing to be more different by becoming more the same.

Anybody actually questioning this whole process is thought to be pretty weird, humans have a very broad provincial streak.

By taking on roles of aggressiveness and passivity in the P/E dynamic, you essentially take all of that socio-political competition and set it aside, you no longer have to try and second guess your partners political reaction to what you do, or what is done to you, you're free to enjoy the existential hedonism, the thrill of controlling, being controlled, the flush of shame or humiliation, pain, etc, without having to calculate how it will affect your overall status outside the scene/dyad, etc., i.e., worrying about whether it's going to used for social-political manipulation later in an inconvenient way.

It happens to be protocol within the community, because everybody theoretically has something to lose if they're outed.

You're exactly right, once you've shut the rest of the world out, it gives you the freedom to be yourself, even if you're ashamed of it, with someone who understands and supports your need to act out on your urges, to feel these emotions, you can stop pretending.

 

[xssve]

The shit you gotta go through nowadays for some hot sex..., lol.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The way I see Objectification and humiliation within the context of BDSM is that the two are elements that can be used together, but don't necessarily have to be.

An objectification scene I recently heard about; The Dom put a complete hood on the sub's head. There was a smallish, low table, and the Dom put padding on it-- there was no discomfort or struggle intended, and put the sub on all fours over it, and cuffed the sub's arms and legs to the table to keep the sub in place. And that was it, for about eight hours. The sub was a coffee table and foot prop while the Dom watched TV, a desk for books and papers, the Dom ate meals off the sub's back. Every once in a while, the Dom would stick a straw into the mask so the sub could drink some water.

Now, you could do that with verbal and physical humiliation, if you wanted to add that element. But the two aren't interchangeable...

 

[xssve]

Lest we overthink this, shame is a physical sensation as well as an emotional/identity phenomona: the shivers that go down your spine, the cold lump in the pit of your stomach, the flush of your skin, the goosebumps...

Humiliation/objectification, is, on one level, eliciting certain physiological responses through psychological means to enhance the sexual experience.

 

[AllardChardon]

'You're free to enjoy the existential hedonism'...

THAT IS IT! My inner beast unleashed!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Lest we overthink this, shame is a physical sensation as well as an emotional/identity phenomona: the shivers that go down your spine, the cold lump in the pit of your stomach, the flush of your skin, the goosebumps...

Humiliation/objectification, is, on one level, eliciting certain physiological responses through psychological means to enhance the sexual experience.

I remember a folk story; "The boy who felt no fear" no matter waht kind of terrifying situation he encountered.

It ended with his mother tossing a bucket of eels down his shirt. As the cold water and the wriggling critters made him shiver and wriggle himself, he said; "Oh mother! I feel fear! I feel fear!

 

[xssve]

Rowrr!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

'You're free to enjoy the existential hedonism'...

THAT IS IT! My inner beast unleashed!

My inner beast is a ol' houn' dawg curled up by the fire.

 

[xssve]

Probably the foremost scientific researcher on the subject of love is a woman. Her name is Helen Fisher.

I think this is really cool in my own geekazoid way:

Chemistry.com, the internet dating site, is her baby. She created it and uses it to collect data on a study she is doing on why we choose the mates we choose.

Match.com got in touch with her to ask her what makes people choose the mates they choose, in an attempt to make their own site better. She didn't have the answer but they got her thinking about it. She wanted to find out. In order to do that, she ended up creating a competitor to match.com.

They really shot themselves in the foot, there.

I'm a big fan of Fisher, she 's a very empirical thinker. I thought of doing a dating site based on astrology, way back in the early days to the internet, even wrote some of the code but I got sidetracked.

 

[xssve]

In fact it occurs to me that the sensation of shame is very similar to the sensation of anticipation, like waiting for the roller coaster to start moving - that something is about to happen over which you have no control, and can only hope to ride out: the anticipation of being punished - or pleasured.

 

[AllardChardon]

Titillation was the word used eariler. I have always loved this word because as a young girl I purposely mis-interpreted the word to mean, titties' elation. Like Harmonic Convergence can be rewritten into Harmonica Virgins. That one is based on a true story.

A newbie to the New Age Movement is invited to go to Mt. Shasta to witness the blessing of the sacred spiritual portal by representatives of the Dalai Lama on the day of the plantary Harmonic Convergence.. When he arrives he asks in all sincerity, "Where are the harmonica virgins?" Laughed til I cried.

 

[xssve]

Lol, how terribly disappointing, where are the virgins?

There's no denying that anticipation/titillation is huge factor in romance: in fact one typically tries to sustain that giddy feeling as long as possible throughout the evening, building the tension, until the moment when you can wrap your lover in your arms and kiss her long and deep.

In many ways it's what romance is all about, why your tragic/unrequited love affairs are so compelling, Romeo and Juliet, Eloise and Abelard - it's an exquisite torture.

 

[Stella_Omega]

In fact it occurs to me that the sensation of shame is very similar to the sensation of anticipation, like waiting for the roller coaster to start moving - that something is about to happen over which you have no control, and can only hope to ride out: the anticipation of being punished - or pleasured.

Anticipation is anticipation. You can anticipate shame, but shame itself isn't anticipatory-- it's kind of a done deal, don't you think? It's the emotional result of one's moral self-judgement.

 

[xssve]

It's absolutely anticipatory in my mind, it can only be relieved through some action, one must repent, make amends, etc. one must do something in order to mitigate it - unless one anticipates wallowing in it indefinitely.

 

[xssve]

Frankenstein is a classic example: Dr. Frankenstein's shame at the monster he created can only be mitigated by destroying the monster - the monsters shame at being a monster - created, through no fault of his own, only to become an object of hatred and fear - can only be eased by destroying Frankenstein, everything he loves, and ultimately, his death.

“The bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wound until death shall close them forever.”

 

[Stella_Omega]

It's absolutely anticipatory in my mind, it can only be relieved through some action, one must repent, make amends, etc. one must do something in order to mitigate it - unless one anticipates wallowing in it indefinitely.

The need to find relief from shame is also an accessory to the emotion...

Just the way I see it. Emotions-- Joy, grief, lust, shame, whatever-- are kind of like mountains in a landscape, and like mountains, there are trees and rivers and stuff that surround and clothe those emotional entities... Anticipation is like scrub oak; flourishes in any emotional environment.

 

[xssve]

Shame is the knowledge of having done wrong - as the definitions I posted previously allude to, it is the sense that one is wrong, as opposed to humiliation, which is the sense of having done wrong, a social thing, as has been stated above.

Shame is both pain, and anticipation of punishment: remorse existentially, humiliation socially.

As I mentioned early on, shame is pain and pain is often projected as hatred or objectification, onto the object that is the source of the pain, which is the underlying dynamic of Shelly's Frankenstein.

In a less dramatic sense, it operates in BDSM much the same as anticipation in romance, there is in fact, the anticipation of the shame - and I'm forced to consider this since in BDSM, as a social activity, shame is not used a political tool (theoretically) but as an interactive dynamic, within the dynamic, and in order to serve the dynamic of the dyad as opposed to serving the reproductive politics of the society.

In fact the entire dynamic is often portrayed as being at odds with the larger issue of reproductive politics, and thus, shameful.

It's this political shame that probably generates the need for the interpersonal dynamic, lol, circles within circles.

One study indicated for example that children who were spanked or underwent corporeal punishment as children were more likely to become kinksters as adults.

i.e., The social order that finds kink repellent is, ironically, possibly the major source of it, a self sustaining system.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yeah, I should have known people would get confused about the type of shame I was talking about and assume it was just heavy sexual guilt, which isn't what I meant. Well in a way it is sexual guilt, but it's so mild and minor compared to that other that it's really a different beast altogether. The stuff I mean is very subtle and is more like what Schwenn means when she talks about her limits for scat. Anyone involved in urine play is not going to have deep sexual guilt issues, but as she says, she still has limits.

That barrier of the forbidden or the taboo is where a lot of erotic energy comes from, and that's all I was saying in my central thesis. When nothing's off limits or forbidden, then you can still have sex, but I don't know if you still have the same degree of erotic energy.

There will always be something-- even, in the final instance, a switch back to vanilla sex!

But you know, we must have been talking about something important here to take up 27 pages.

A number of important somethings, IMO. here's a rose-- even though you were an unwitting catalyst!

 

[xssve]

One might even see Shelly's Frankenstein as a classic work of homoerotic fiction, Frankenstein in effect, seduces the monster, makes him, then rejects him in shame and horror at what he has created - the last straw is when he refuses to allow the monster a suitable counterpart, so he might at least live out his existence in relative peace.

Maybe why Frankenstein isn't very popular with the girls: they seem to prefer Dracula, where shame and remorse, self loathing, are mostly conspicuous by their absence - the dynamic is rather one of a sort of hypnotic inevitability, to be taken, seduced into the darkness of eros, removed from the tedium and mundanity of commonplace reality to live forever in unrepentant erotic enslavement.

A dynamic that is shared, to extents greater or less, by the entire genre of bodice ripper erotic/romantic fiction, no?

 

[xssve]

Re: Frankenstein - in the book, the monster is only on the outside that he is ugly, diseased, far from the lumbering hulk of the original movie, he is almost the Greek ideal, a philosopher athlete - he is quick, intelligent, agile, and graceful, despite his great size he is capable of feats of uncanny strength, endurance, and agility, he's a better man than his creator.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: "For the experiment to be a success, all of the body parts must be enlarged."
Inga: "His veins, his feet, his hands, his organs vould all have to be increased in size."
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: "Exactly."
Inga: "He vould have an enormous schwanzstucker."
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: "That goes without saying."
Inga: "Voof."
Igor: "He's going to be very popular."

 

[xssve]

Lolita, which we discussed some time ago, is remarkably similar to Frankenstein, I wonder if that's a coincidence?

 

[AllardChardon]

Humbert Humbert and Dr. Frankenstein do have alot in common. I never thought of that, before.

Lolita and Young Frankenstein are two of my favorite movies. Young Frankenstein, the musical, is on ole Broadway. Wish I could go see it. And shake Mel's hand.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Lolita, which we discussed some time ago, is remarkably similar to Frankenstein, I wonder if that's a coincidence?

In that they both thought they had control over another person, but their expectations didn't match reality and they were disappointed by the outcomes?

 

[xssve]

In that they both thought they had control over another person, but their expectations didn't match reality and they were disappointed by the outcomes?

Both, but in terms of shame an humiliation, both H.H. and Dr. F are obsessed with seducing the object of their affections - Lolita for Humbert, life itself for Frankenstein - both regretted their decision once accomplished, both become consumed by remorse and loathing for their creations and themselves, for their part in that creation, and both ultimately destroyed by their creations, when they took on independent lives of their own.

 

[lisa123414]

I tried to read Lolita, and could not get through it. Maybe it was too dark and I was not comfortable with the subject? Anyway, I was rather -trying to think, was it shame or humiliation - when I returned it to the library and ran into a seriously conservative friend. That was uncomfortable.

Earlier someone suggested masks - I feel like I am wearing a mask here, and express feelings and opinions that I would rather my mom not hear.