The Pang! Underrated and Under-discussed and how you know you're alive

[SlickTony]

I found this definition in Dictionary.com:

1. a sudden feeling of mental or emotional distress or longing: a pang of remorse; a pang of desire.
2. a sudden, brief, sharp pain or physical sensation; spasm: hunger pangs.

I am mostly thinking in terms of the second definition, except I don't count hunger pangs as part of it. It's...more mental; it's about memory and emotion. That sudden "brief, sharp pain" seems to be felt somewhere in the region of the heart and is accompanied by a sensation kind of like going up in a really fast elevator and having the ground fall out from under you. It can be evoked by reliving a sensation or one's emotional response to something you experienced or heard; something piercingly sweet or intense.

I remember the first time I ever felt it: I was 16, and had just started dating this guy who went to the same HS I did. It was the first time I'd experienced the blind, dizzy blitz of kisses that comes at the start of a new relationship, and the first time I'd permitted a man to put his hands on my breasts, although I was scared to let him go much further than that. Then he had to go with his family on their summer vacation trip. And I, alas, had to spend the summer in summer school. I remember reliving the sensation of his kisses and his hands on my body and feeling that pain--a pain that was strangely pleasurable and somehow irresistable.

In the years since I've felt it again and again; not merely from the thought of a lover's touch, but the tension of his body when he was just about to get off, or the different tone of his voice when he was remembering...since I've been writing, I've sometimes been able to feel that same pang thinking of something said or felt by one of my characters.

As many romantic stories and as much erotica as I've read, I've seldom run across any descriptions of the pang but I can't think I'm the only one who's ever experienced it. The only one who's given much thought as to its physiological origins. perhaps...

 

[damppanties]

I can almost get what you're saying. Is it sexual or romantic? For instance, there's that 'tug' in the bottom of your stomach when you remember something particularly sexy.

 

[PositiveThinker]

I found this definition in Dictionary.com:

1. a sudden feeling of mental or emotional distress or longing: a pang of remorse; a pang of desire.
2. a sudden, brief, sharp pain or physical sensation; spasm: hunger pangs.

I am mostly thinking in terms of the second definition, except I don't count hunger pangs as part of it. It's...more mental; it's about memory and emotion. That sudden "brief, sharp pain" seems to be felt somewhere in the region of the heart and is accompanied by a sensation kind of like going up in a really fast elevator and having the ground fall out from under you. It can be evoked by reliving a sensation or one's emotional response to something you experienced or heard; something piercingly sweet or intense.

I remember the first time I ever felt it: I was 16, and had just started dating this guy who went to the same HS I did. It was the first time I'd experienced the blind, dizzy blitz of kisses that comes at the start of a new relationship, and the first time I'd permitted a man to put his hands on my breasts, although I was scared to let him go much further than that. Then he had to go with his family on their summer vacation trip. And I, alas, had to spend the summer in summer school. I remember reliving the sensation of his kisses and his hands on my body and feeling that pain--a pain that was strangely pleasurable and somehow irresistable.

In the years since I've felt it again and again; not merely from the thought of a lover's touch, but the tension of his body when he was just about to get off, or the different tone of his voice when he was remembering...since I've been writing, I've sometimes been able to feel that same pang thinking of something said or felt by one of my characters.

As many romantic stories and as much erotica as I've read, I've seldom run across any descriptions of the pang but I can't think I'm the only one who's ever experienced it. The only one who's given much thought as to its physiological origins. perhaps...

The first time I kissed my ex-wife, I heard bells. I've kissed plenty of women before and after, but never had that sensation before. Now, I get a similar feeling when I've worked hard for something and waited, such as when buying a new car. I just don't walk into a dealership and buy a car, I research which one to buy, test drive several, and then order the one that I want with the options that I want. It's more exciting having to wait 8 weeks to receive the car finally than just buying one from the lot. Having it now does little to gratify the that special feeling. I think you need to suffer before you can feel it.

There was only one other time that I felt a similar sensation that didn't involve my ex-wife or a new car. It involved a woman that I met. She literally took my breath away. Not that she was beautiful, only she was, but she touched me in so many areas. We were friends for 2 years before we finally had an affair that lasted 4 years. Twenty years later, I wonder where she is and what she's doing.

I think what makes this feelings so sensational and memorable is because that are so rare.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I take Rolaids for it.

 

[neonlyte]

I take Rolaids for it.

I'm surprised you can swallow them with your bollocks in your mouth most of the time.

Fuck... that's another New Years Resolution gone.


****

I found this definition in Dictionary.com:

1. a sudden feeling of mental or emotional distress or longing: a pang of remorse; a pang of desire.
2. a sudden, brief, sharp pain or physical sensation; spasm: hunger pangs.

I am mostly thinking in terms of the second definition, except I don't count hunger pangs as part of it. It's...more mental; it's about memory and emotion. That sudden "brief, sharp pain" seems to be felt somewhere in the region of the heart and is accompanied by a sensation kind of like going up in a really fast elevator and having the ground fall out from under you. It can be evoked by reliving a sensation or one's emotional response to something you experienced or heard; something piercingly sweet or intense.

I remember the first time I ever felt it: I was 16, and had just started dating this guy who went to the same HS I did. It was the first time I'd experienced the blind, dizzy blitz of kisses that comes at the start of a new relationship, and the first time I'd permitted a man to put his hands on my breasts, although I was scared to let him go much further than that. Then he had to go with his family on their summer vacation trip. And I, alas, had to spend the summer in summer school. I remember reliving the sensation of his kisses and his hands on my body and feeling that pain--a pain that was strangely pleasurable and somehow irresistable.

In the years since I've felt it again and again; not merely from the thought of a lover's touch, but the tension of his body when he was just about to get off, or the different tone of his voice when he was remembering...since I've been writing, I've sometimes been able to feel that same pang thinking of something said or felt by one of my characters.

As many romantic stories and as much erotica as I've read, I've seldom run across any descriptions of the pang but I can't think I'm the only one who's ever experienced it. The only one who's given much thought as to its physiological origins. perhaps...

Pang is delicious... it is a heart rendering moment, though often manifested elsewhere, that requires the thought of, the smell of, the touch, taste, sound of... the indescribable. For too long, I associated it with absence, now I think it is closer to desire bearing a recklessness that portends all manner of indiscretion... if one had the nerve.

 

[SlickTony]

I'm surprised you can swallow them with your bollocks in your mouth most of the time.

Fuck... that's another New Years Resolution gone.


****


Pang is delicious... it is a heart rendering moment, though often manifested elsewhere, that requires the thought of, the smell of, the touch, taste, sound of... the indescribable. For too long, I associated it with absence, now I think it is closer to desire bearing a recklessness that portends all manner of indiscretion... if one had the nerve.

I'd say--and this answers Dampy's question as well--that it's both.

I liked the retort you threw at JBJ--every time I think about taking him off my Ignore list, in case he had something to say that was worth reading, some troll-dropping of his comes out in someone else's quote (can't the web host do something about that? If I don't want to read something, I really don't want to read it) and then I really remember why I put him there in the first place.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It sounds like it's related to the French word frisson: "an almost pleasurable sensation of fright," which I use a lot in my stories to describe that rush of sensation you get from a kiss or a lover's touch. Or else I just refer to it as a thrill.

There is fear involved in it, I believe, the fear of losing control of yourself, and that's why it's so exciting.

 

[NoJo]

Frisson is a lovely word, saying it gives me one

But pang has, as Tony says, a "some other time" yearning in it that reminds me of the untranslatable Polish Tesknota, a word which combines nostalgia with longing -- a longing for something that perhaps never was, but could be, might have been

 

[SlickTony]

Frisson is a lovely word, saying it gives me one

But pang has, as Tony says, a "some other time" yearning in it that reminds me of the untranslatable Polish Tesknota, a word which combines nostalgia with longing -- a longing for something that perhaps never was, but could be, might have been

Frisson is, indeed, a lovely word.

 

[Guest]

I have had that sensation in a good way... with beautiful memories... and I have had it in bad ways... where my soul hurts from the pain..... but I do understand what you are talking about

 

[Guest]

It sounds like it's related to the French word frisson: "an almost pleasurable sensation of fright," which I use a lot in my stories to describe that rush of sensation you get from a kiss or a lover's touch. Or else I just refer to it as a thrill.

There is fear involved in it, I believe, the fear of losing control of yourself, and that's why it's so exciting.

Yes.