Emotional Masochism

HMP over at Her Majesty’s Plaything pointed me at an interesting thread over on Max Fisch’s forum. The initial posting by Miss Darcy was mainly about submissives over-committing and going too far in trying to please. But it then evolved into a discussion about drama, emotional involvement and boundary management with Miss Darcy, Irene Boss and alx. The relevant posts are here, then here, then here, and…well you can probably figure the rest out.

HMP’s original post quoted at length from the thread, and I don’t want to simply repeat his post. Instead I want to pick out a particular aspect of the play they’re talking about.

Moths to the flame, they will be attracted to the scenes that upset them the most. It’s just the nature of things when emotional masochism is part of a person’s psycho sexual makeup. Unfortunately if you are going to practice within the extremes you can expect this behavior to continue
Irene Boss

…..forced bi, cuckolding, and full toilet are three of my favorite things. With my emphasis on humiliation and mind control I seem to both attract and be attracted to the delicate, fascinating psyches of slaves, some of whom inevitably gravitate towards emotional masochism. It is the psychological play that grips me, and in some ways I think that is the most dangerous kinky activity out there.
Miss Darcy

It seems strange, but I realized as I was reading this, that I’d never really thought about emotional masochism. I’d only ever thought about it as a physical concept. This is no doubt because that’s the way I’m wired. Any anger, insults or humiliation in a scene really kills the mood for me. Cruelty and objectification are great, but being insulted quickly pulls me out of submissive mode and into ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ mode. However, regardless of my personal wiring, in hindsight it seems pretty odd that in years of thinking about femdom I’d never really pondered emotional masochism.

Now I do come to think about, I realize how incredibly difficult it must be to explore, on both side of the D/s equation. When I play the thing I’m trying to ultimately optimize, my emotional state, is not the thing that’s being directly messed with. A great session might be very cathartic and leave me emotionally on a high, but it’s not always necessary to get there. I can just have a good session and end up feeling happy and lightly buzzed. In contrast emotional play seems far more risky and volatile. It could be fantastic if you have a cathartic breakthrough, but terrible if you don’t reach that tipping point. To use a slightly odd but apt analogy, it seems a little like flying from an aircraft carrier. Once you commit to it there’s either going to be a plane in the air or a big expensive splash. There’s no middle ground.

The other thing that struck me was how differently the same activities can be viewed. For example, Miss Darcy talks about cuckolding as an example of emotional masochism. I find cuckolding an intriguing idea, although I’ve not had the chance to experience it. But if I was to do it, I’d always think about it in the context of tease and denial. A case of – “He gets to enjoy the greatest pleasure while you’re frustrated.” I could never do it as – “You’re not enough of a man so I need this guy to satisfy me.” That would just be annoying, and life is already too full of annoying things.

Similarly any forced-bi play would have to be in the context of a hot sexual scene enabling her pleasure. Doing it as a kind of punishment or humiliation would just seem weird to me.

I guess I can be grateful that, through no skill of my own, I got lucky in the nature/nurture dice game that molds our kinks. Physical masochism just leaves me with some odd marks to explain. I don’t have to risk an emotional rollercoaster or a nervous breakdown each time I play.

– Image removed on request –