A Question about Sub Space, Sexual Arousal, and Mid-Scene Negotiation

Question

Kinky people: Does one of these situations strike you as more creepy than the other? Please explain your answer. 

Situation 1

Two non-kinky people – let’s call them Casey and Avery - have several friends in common and think one another are cute, so when Avery asks Casey out “for coffee,” Casey accepts. They really hit it off, hang out awhile after coffee has been had, and go for a little walk. 

A then asks C to “come over,” and the two of them end up going hot and heavy on Avery’s couch. Soon, various appendages are inserted into various orifices. Safer sex practices are followed. Each tells the other they’ve had a good time. No verbal consent is ever obtained for any sexual activity. 

Situation 2

Two kinky people – let’s call them LeatherPony77 and GreySadist – are chatting and flirting at a private play party. There’s a good vibe and they decide to play. A very short negotiation establishes that both enjoy caning, so GreySadist is going to cane LeatherPony77; LeatherPony77’s safeword is “Ernest Hemingway”; and if blood is drawn the scene needs to end. 

Both become sexually aroused while playing. After a little while, GS asks LP if it’s OK to kiss, and LP agrees. Then after awhile longer, LP asks GS to insert an appendage or two into one of their orifices, and GS complies. Safer sex practices are followed. When the scene ends, each tells the other they’ve had a good time. Verbal consent **is** explicitly obtained for all activities, although some consent isn’t obtained until after they have begun playing.

This is a serious question; I’m interested in hearing all perspectives on this. I’m trying to figure out whether and/or why Sub Space is considered a more vulnerable or judgment-impairing state of being than sexual arousal. I know people who feel that Sub Space can or does impair one's judgment, but I've never heard those same people say how they feel what sexual arousal does to one's judgment. Full disclosure: In my own experience, I don't find that one leaves me more or less capable of making decisions. 

Humiliation vs Shame vs Embarrassment vs Objectification vs Degradation

Thanks to @lamoscacojonera, you can now read this post in Spanish! Leerlo en Español.

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I happen to be married to a really perverted guy. When he and I met, he let me explore the limits of my libido for the first time (so far, no known limits; expanding along with the universe), and showed me how to let myself be a really, really perverted gal. I was new to kink, and his kink informed my own in a very formative way. So as a result, I like to play with other really, really perverted guys and gals. 

One of the really perverted things I have been both drawn to and repelled by(*) is that type of play we kinky people call Humiliation. I've met lots of people into Humiliation Play in the last decade, and I've discovered that no two bottoms/subs/slaves/littles/pets mean quite the same thing when they use that term. It's more of an umbrella term for lots of different types of emotionally submissive play. Under that umbrella are humiliation, shame, embarrassment, degradation, and objectification. (I may have left some out. Let me know if I have.) 

What I've discovered is that it's not enough to tell someone that you're into Humiliation and leave it at that. Most tops/doms/daddies/mistresses/owners I meet have a more general understanding of the kind of play that lies under that umbrella term. I've tried for years to explain why I like certain kinds of Humiliation and not other kinds, and I have yet to satisfy myself or any of my potential play partners, so I've shied away from that kind of play with others for fear of a Bad Experience. 

I don't want to shy away from it anymore. So this is really a personal exercise for me to define what I think each of the following terms means, whether I want it, and under what circumstances. I hope other people find it useful, too, since I've noticed I'm not the only person who has trouble finding the right language to talk about this stuff.

Humiliation

To humiliate: to cause a painful loss of pride, self-respect, or dignity

I love everything about this definition. As both a submissive/bottom type player, and a Dominant/Top type player. It's masochistic ("painful loss"); it fulfills power exchange goals; it allows for all kinds of delicious creativity. To use this term in a discussion with a play partner is an invitation to get to know each other better. Find out what makes the other person tick. What do you fear? What do you crave? Why? What are your neuroses? What do you want, need, despise? What do you spend lots of time thinking about? It's not enough to say someone is into humiliation - each person has different sources of pride, self-respect, and dignity. Find out what they are. Then find out what is the healthiest way to take it away from them. 

Which brings me to what I view as the sub-sets of Humiliation:

Shame

Shame: The painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, etc, done by oneself

This, for me, is the most explosive, potentially hot, and also potentially toxic one. It's tricky; it's dangerous. It's awfully closely related to guilt, and more importantly, self-worth. I love to feel ashamed in a scene. It makes me really, really hot. This bothered me for a long time. There I was, an intelligent, educated, modern woman and feminist, with plenty of shame issues to overcome in her day-to-day life (as every woman does), and feeling ashamed in a scene made my pussy dripping wet. This in and of itself, I thought, was shameful. (A viciously hot cycle for anyone who could figure it out.) I took lots of time to think about this. It was a process. I've worked it out for myself now, and I'm OK with how I am and why this works for me. 

BUT! There is a big But here for me. I only consent to this kind of play with people I trust, because sometimes I carry the shame with me beyond the scene. This is something I do not want. I know there are people who like to hold on to the shameful feeling they get in a humiliation scene; they want to enjoy it, feel it linger, process it. More power to them. I don't know how they do it. For me, it's not healthy. I have no interest in emotional masochism outside of play. I view shame as a very personal thing. It is related to our own self-images, our self-esteem, how valuable we view ourselves as people. One feels ashamed of oneself. We are each our own harshest critic. We internalize it. It can warp us. 

There are lots of ways to prevent this from happening. I need evidence that you care about me despite my exposed flaw.  If I don't get some kind of validation from my play partner either during or after a scene involving shame, I may end up hating something about myself, and/or hating the person who made me feel that way. I don't want to resent myself or my partners. The best validation for me is a hard cock/swollen pussy. Let me touch it. Fuck me. Have an orgasm brought on by my humiliation. It proves to me that you are just as fucked up as I am, in your own perverted way. That's my aftercare. Then, check in with regularity in the days after. Continue to be my friend/lover/partner. That way I know you, the person I care about and trust, are OK with my flaws, you embrace them even, and I don't have to beat myself up about it.

Embarrassment

To embarrass: To cause to feel confusion or self-consciousness; to disconcert; to fluster. Embarrassment usually refers to a feeling less painful than that of shame, one associated with less serious situations, often of a social nature

Embarrassment is like Shame's exhibitionist cousin. One cannot be embarrassed without an audience. When you have chocolate on your face, and you don't realize it until after you've given a 90-minute presentation to your colleagues - that's embarrassing. If you got chocolate on your face at home, and happened to notice it in the mirror 2 hours after you ate the chocolate, that's just realizing you should wipe your face. 

If I'm subbing to you and you want to really take the humiliation to another level, put it in front of an audience to add embarrassment to the shame. But beware that I will most likely get defensive in front of those voyeuristic fuckers over there whom I don't trust. If you want to see angry/bratty/snarky MrsB, this is the way to go. I will threaten to kick you in the nuts. I will call you a fucking asshole. I might step on your toe with my stiletto, or do something to fuck up your perfect rigging. I will provoke you. I know full well what the consequences are. Scenes like that can be cathartic and fun, but they'll be very different from scenes in the privacy of home. I can't get embarrassed if it's just you and me. 

If you really want to break me, do a humiliation scene complete with embarrassment in front of an audience, and then tell me that if I talk back you'll stop playing with me. I will do one of two things: shut down quietly, or break down explosively. BEWARE: this kind of scene may have a Bad Ending. I don't want the scene to end when I break down. I want to push past it. I will feel like a failure because you are setting me up do to something that's close to impossible for me. The trick is to make me feel like I'm not a failure. I need a reward for my efforts. Let me have some success after my total failure. See above re: swollen genitals and orgasms. Or (less ideally but still good) give me a task you know I can complete, and let me complete it. Let me please you.


Now, onto something very different:

Degradation

To degrade: To reduce in worth, honor, strength, character, rank, status, etc.

This, to me, is the essence of Power Exchange. I find it difficult to be satisfied in play without some kind of degradation involved. WHAT is reduced by kind of play, and play partner. In a simple rope scene, it may be agency. In a pain scene, it might be strength or endurance. If there is D/s involved, it's status. But in any case, the thing the sub agrees to give up is transferred actively to the top in the form of power and control. The sub is degraded in direct proportion to the empowerment of the top. And I think it's really important to note that while the word "degradation" normally carries a hugely negative connotation, when used in a BDSM context I am not necessarily implying something unpleasant or negative. Becoming reduced or "less than" can be a really wonderful experience when that's what you want.

When I sub, I want to feel like you are worth more than I am. I want to feel lesser than you. I want you to feel like More than me. I will do what I can to allow you to feel that way. If I'm the top in the scene, I want to feel like I'm better than you are. I want to feel more powerful. I want my status to be elevated. In play involving really intense Power Exchange, I want the bottom to feel degraded on multiple levels; I want them (or me) to feel like their needs and wants don't matter at all; I even want them (or me) to feel that their only desire is to please and elevate the top; therefore a total loss of ego on the part of the bottom is the ultimate goal. This is the essence of degradation for me, and it plays an important part in my overall concept of kink.

A subset of Degradation is:

Objectification

To objectify: [I am using the classic feminist definition for the purposes of this entry; it seems more relevant to our kink definitions of "objectification"] The seven features of objectification are 

1. instrumentality (to treat as a tool used for a purpose)
2. denial of autonomy
3. inertness (to treat as though lacking in agency)
4. fungibility (to treat as though interchangeable with other objects)
5. violability (to treat as though lacking in boundaries)
6. ownership (to treat as though capable of being bought or sold)
7. denial of subjectivity (to deny the validity or the existence of the object's thoughts/feelings)

While Degradation implies a lowering or reduction of these things (rank, status, worth, strength, etc), Objectification implies an elimination of these qualities. I have told people in the past that I love to be objectified; now I realize that isn't strictly true. I have learned that in order to be fulfilled in my kink, I need to feel like an active participant in it. I think it takes a special kind of mindset to feel that one's active participation in a scene goes only as far as surrendering one's right to self. It's difficult for me to find that particular mindset when it's needed. 

Now, if someone is attempting to objectify me and I'm not actually expected to "act" like an object (that seems like an oxymoron) - then that makes for a hot scene. I do enjoy the dilemma posed when the goal is to objectify me (for the pleasure of the top) but I'm unwilling to do so (for the preservation of my pride). There is a give and take there; I'm required to actively subjugate my own pride for the pleasure of the top and I feel like I'm participating in something. If I'm to be an object from the get-go, I get bored. The one kind of objectification I nearly always like is sexual objectification - I love to be reduced to a body or even a body part for use. (The feminist in me is pitching a fit as I write this, but deep down, she loves that I'm owning my sexual desires this way.)

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So, patient readers, there you have it. My own personal breakdown of the age-old Humiliation vs. Shame vs. Embarrassment vs. Degradation vs. Objectification question.



(*)The top in me goes: "Attracted to AND repelled by? Internal conflict! HOT."

6+ reasons why FetLife threads aren't safe spaces to talk about consent

UPDATE: I've made several edits based on constructive criticism offered and lots of processing

Of course we should all talk about consent; and of course we all should be constantly working to maintain our understanding of how consent works, and also working to maintain a high community bar for the understanding of consent; and of course individuals and communities need some way to talk openly and educate about consent standards and violations, and to find some way to compassionately and effectively deal with instances of consent violation; and of course we should be sure that supportive resources are in place for anyone who might feel the need for advocacy, legal aid, medical aid, safe haven, or counseling because of abuse and/or consent violations; and nobody is disputing any of these things. We are nearly all in agreement about these things.

And but one of the worst and most ineffective place to talk to one another about consent is on various FetLife threads. (Originally cross-posted, with utmost irony and really awful results, of course, on FetLife.)

1. Perception isn't perfect
Human beings are, for better or worse, really bad at believing there is more to something than meets the eye. Our daily living experiences validate that our 5 senses and the cognitive skills attached to them are normally right. But the farther away from an experience one gets, the less likely our perception is to be correct, and even our direct senses can come into conflict with one another when more than one of them is stimulated at once - and that's not even accounting for memory or emotions, and how skewed those can make things. In other words, there are normally more than two sides to every story. What one person perceives as consent, another can perceive as non-consent, and vice versa. This gets even more complicated when you bring sadomasochism, D/s dynamics, and sexual arousal into the equation.

Additionally, you might think you understand why something was written, or why someone is reacting in the way they are, but it's nearly impossible that you actually know. And that's because human beings are complex and have complex histories. It takes an awful lot of commitment, vulnerability, and giving energy to really listen and try to understand what another person's honest perspective is. None of us can truly understand another person 100% of the time; not even the most intimate among us can come close. 

2. Moral relativism
Reasonable people can disagree on how to define "right" and "wrong." Even when we are trying to agree on a standard of consent. An example: Many people take it as an absolute that consent can never ethically be re-negotiated mid-scene. I personally disagree - I believe there is an ethical way to approach re-negotiation and extension of consent mid-scene, and I have practiced it in the past to most agreeable results. I will continue to practice it - but only as a bottom. As a top, I would be absolutely terrified to take even the most trustworthy-seeming bottom's word for a consent re-negotiation mid-scene, in the current climate - even if they had expressly negotiated that it was OK. (Which means, I suppose, that I can't expect to continue practicing it as a bottom...)  I can guarantee there are other kinky people who feel similarly on issues surrounding play and consent right now. That discourages me to no end, and it should be discouraging to anyone who believes in the YKINMKBYKIOK* axiom.

3. Online Disinhibition
The next several reasons are covered under the umbrella of a tidy little theory in cyberpsychology (yes, it's a thing) called Online Disinhibition. The principals of Online Disinhibition are as follows:

     a. You don't know me (dissociative anonymity) - a good number of the people with whom we find ourselves debating things like consent are people we don't know. And they know we don't know them, and we know they know that we don't know them. When a person believes he is unknown, he is likely to perceive himself as less responsible for his words and actions.

     b. You can't see me (invisibility) - Pretty self-explanatory in terms of disinhibition - we all act like disgusting apes sometimes when we think nobody's looking. But also, when we can't see one another's facial expressions or body language, hear one another's tones, or regulate our own, we miss out on the vast majority of communication (varying statistics put the amount of communication which is non-verbal at between 60-90%).

     c. Time isn't real (asynchronicity) - People do not interact with one another in real time on FetLife. This allows for hiding from responses we are not ready to hear; it also allows for "hit-and-run" style, emotionally-charged messages.

    d. It's all in my head (solipsistic introjection) - Imagination is a powerful and underappreciated thing. When debating something with an unfamiliar, invisible person outside of real time, our imagination tends to fill in a lot of the blanks without our recognizing it (see: Perception). We can't have a really honest debate about something this way, since we can't really understand what the other person is communicating.

     e. It's just a game (dissociative imagination) - Many of us tend to view cyberspace as some sort of "other" reality. We do and say things in this other reality that we fantasize about doing and saying "in real life" but which we probably would never have the chutzpah to actually do or say directly to a person's face.

     f. We're all equals (minimizing authority) - There's something deeply appealing about the level playing field of the internet. It's entirely up to the individual to assign weight and status to any of the voices on FetLife - especially given it's an online forum where the method by which we view comments is in many ways even less sophisticated than YouTube. But while everyone may get to be a special snowflake online, in important discussion like the one about consent, should all voices be considered equally relevant? I don't think so. The voices of people who speak out as victims need to be heard, their subjective experiences respected, and their feelings honored. People who want to swoop in and pretend to speak for all victims, or people who are only interested in stopping the discomfort of unpleasant situations, should not carry the same weight.  But especially since on FetLife, the loudness of a person's voice is determined simply by the person's persistence in making it heard, not by the merits of what the voice is saying, or the direct experience of a person behind it.

Now, Online Disinhibition is a value-neutral phenomenon. Some of its effects can be really good and other not so good; it depends on context and goals. In one study, it was found that in anonymous settings, people are more likely to participate and take more risks with ideas - in other words, more people were being more creative. But also found that anonymity tended to lead to more hostile interactions, and that overall satisfaction and learning were less likely in anonymous settings than in face-to-face interaction. Possibly because, as another study points out, when people are more anonymous in a discussion, their comments are less likely to influence anyone else's opinion or thinking. It's great that people who might not otherwise have a voice can use FetLife, and more importantly, the network of people who comprise FetLife, to find those voices. But there is a difference between using your voice to speak your truth for yourself, and using it to speak louder than the other person rather than listening to what they have to say.

Finally
There are no universal, no-exceptions rules when it comes to when, how, why, and where consent ought to be asked for or provided when it comes to What it is We Do. Because really, the "we" isn't "We the FetLife community", or "We in the Chicago/Ohio/West Coast/etc scene" or "We, who hold these truths to be self-evident", or even "We are Siamese if you please" - it's only "we" the incredibly complex, unique individual people involved in a given situation, and the people they rely on for real-life support. On FetLife, the consent debate has none of the nuance or complexity it deserves, and all the polarization and calcification of ideas of a modern political debate^. 

If, as I’ve heard said, people are upset and they’re going to keep shouting about it until they feel heard and safe, then people seriously need to consider whether shouting and/or repeating themselves ad nauseaum on FetLife threads is the best way to feel heard and safe again – bottoms and tops, men and women and other-gender, accused and accusers alike.  Things keep happening; people keep shouting; this has been going on for years, and still people feel neither heard nor safe. If we're going to have these talks, we need to do them in person, we need to listen with compassion, and we need to learn to exist as adults with these other, real people in a setting where we have all five of our senses available to us. Or at the very least, on the phone, or via email where we can be focused on one other person and not worried about broadcasting our vulnerabilities to the entire kinky world. We need to all of us understand the "WHY" of consent violations - was it an honest misunderstanding? someone who actually thinks it's OK to do what they want when they want? something that happened which nobody was anticipating? someone who was coerced? someone or who has dysfunctional ways of asking for or giving consent? did something go wrong for just one person, or did more than one thing go wrong for more than one person? These are all very different, and they all call for very different responses. We'll never come up with the right answers if we're going about finding them the wrong way.


*Your Kink is Not My Kink but Your Kink is OK
^(hat-tip to a special someone for that metaphor)