The Psychology of Being a DOM/ME or SUBMISSIVE (very serious subject)

[ViperGTS]

From dictionary.com
rape
1. the unlawful compelling of a woman through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse.
2. any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.

From dictionary.com
abuse
1. to use wrongly or improperly; misuse: to abuse one's authority.
2. to treat in a harmful, injurious, or offensive way: to abuse a horse; to abuse one's eyesight.
3. to speak insultingly, harshly, and unjustly to or about; revile; malign.​

Woman and Man are in a relationship. Woman tells Man that she has a fantasy of being raped (for what reasons are neither here nor there) and wants man to force himself on her sometime to fulfill that fantasy. A few weeks go by and Man hides in his own home as Woman comes in. Man grabs Woman, carries her screaming upstairs to bed, and begins stripping her of her clothes. She hollers and screams, but she WANTS it, therefore she does not resist too much physically, and hence she is not being FORCED. Man is fulfilling a fantasy that Woman expressed to Man, therefore he is not treating her in a harmful, injurious, or offensive way. In the end they cuddle in bed smoking cigarrettes and mumbling, 'that was great.'

This isn't a court of law and there's no one on trial for rape here. You don't have to tell us that rape is wrong; we know this already, but rape isn't rape if both parties consent to it, period.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it wrong (rough sex fantasies), and just because you're no good at it doesn't make it an immoral passtime (BDSM).

Now, hopefully Amnesiac will come back to this thread to post part two of his reply, despite you turning a very interesting and otherwise insightful thread into a hijacked circus.

 

[dvnc]

Drew, yer split hairs now, to enforce what intelligent folks have already acknowledged - your opinions differ.

Clearly, there are men and women here who disagree. So far, no one agreeing has been bold enough to post, but I'm betting there's someone who agrees.

Point of this thread is still the psychology of being Dom/me or Sub.

To those arguing with Drew - give it a rest. You've made your points, he's made his. They stand. Seen. Witnessed. Back to the thread's point, please, so I don't gotta do the mod thing, and yank a lotta stuff that AIN'T about said topic.

Amnesiac, good refocusing, man. Well done.

 

[Redmage]

The assumption that F/M DOMME/SUB relationships aren't abusive would imply that it is not so because the man willingly relinquishes his power to the weaker woman, whereas the woman has no power in the reverse to give up; feminism nurtures this idea despite the irony that it is predicated on the anti-feminist notion that women are weaker.

Just FYI, many feminists have no problem with BDSM from either direction - F/M or M/F. Those who do generally consider both to be wrong.

But the issue of detecting and separating the pretenders from the predators will one day have to be resolved.

You mean better than it has been already?

Most of the BDSM community despises us and tickling, and as I've already mentioned, BDSM members who practice tickling incorporate it as one of many tools.

The second part of that is true, but the first part is not. One of the common values throughout the BDSM community is "Your kink is OK." The idea is that even though I might not like what you like, as long as it conforms to the basic principles of Risk Aware Consensual Kink (formerly known as Safe Sane & Consensual) it's fundamentally all right. Kinksters treat these differences as no more important than one's taste in food: the fact that someone doesn't like sushi doesn't mean that they look down on those who do.

There are a lot of people in BDSM who don't eroticize tickling: either it's too much for them, or it's not got enough of the things they really like. But I don't know anyone in the kink community who despises tickling or tickle-philes.

There have been innumerable threads questioning the relationship tickling has to sexuality; those of us with lifelong fixations often either don't recall the event or memory that formed that first associations or we can recall the experience exactly to the point of even re-creating it in practice or in our heads whenever we get the chance. At least, this is the case for those of us with sexual connection to tickling. Since BDSM has a sexual element to it, I would also assume this is true for them.

If you ask a kinkster "How long have you been kinky?" most will answer either "All my life" or "As long as I can remember." Some will tell you when they figured out or admitted to themselves that they like BDSM, but for most of us that's a moment of revelation that puts many earlier experiences into context and makes them understandable. For example I can remember being fascinated by movies and TV shows that featured women in bondage when I was only 6 or 7 years old. It was almost 10 years though before I understood the root of that fascination. So I might say that I've been kinky "all my life" (or at least since about age 6), or I could say that I discovered kink when I was 15. Both would be true - different ways of describing the same basic reality.

Tickling, for me, has always been one of many ways of exploring that same fascination. It became part of my sexuality pretty much as soon as I figured out that I had sexuality.

Our sexual preferences, for whatever reasons--that's a whole different ocean of fish, not going into here--have their own limitations and specifications. It seems too, that in the case of sexuall-oriented "kink" attachments that this varies as well according to the individual. Giggle has commented that because she is straight, she preferes to be tickled by males; Bella, who is more flexible, prefers variant types of practice depending on the gender of the playmate in the act. I would assume that gay Acarophiliacs would also feel the same. I would like to urge BDSM community members to verify if this is an accurate assessment of the way their associations work.

For BDSM it's highly variable. Many people only swing one way - that is, whether they're top or bottom they share that aspect of themselves only with the same gender that they're sexually attracted to. Others may bottom to one gender but top another. Still others find that certain activities - painplay, for example - work equally well with either gender while others - orgasm play, for instance - work only with one or the other.

I had a play relationship once with a lesbian bottom who enjoyed a wide range of play with me, from bondage and tickling through force fantasies and orgasm play. However she reserved intercourse and oral sex only for play with other women (using dildos, obviously). Having a man inside her just didn't work for her.

I think BDSM shows this range of variability mainly because BDSM itself covers a broader range than tickling does. There's a much greater variety of activities for people to have preferences about, so you see a much more complex array of preferences.

The specificity of the people, acts, and power station involved in order for a tickling/BDSM session to take place and to have its desired effect make it seem like keys to unlock specific tumblers in a lock in order for something to open. Analagously speaking, these ingredients could be the "keys" to "opening the mind."

That's basically what any fetish is: a certain quality or set of qualities (in one's partner, activities, or both) that "unlock" or activate erotic sensations. More broadly speaking that's what any sexual orientation entails. Fetishes are separated out only because a "fetish" is usually something that doesn't unlock those feelings for most people.

At this point, I'm considering 2 hypotheses:

I. BDSM practices are specific acts that produce specific stimulation to specific pleasure centers that are hard-wired into our nature.

II. Vanilla conditioning has obstructed the pleasure centers in BDSM-friendly personalities and require ritualistic methods to bypass the inhibitions in order to stimulate the needed reliease.

The truth is probably a complex mixture of these two and others. For example, it may not all be hardwired. Some of it may be favorable emotional associations (especially with very specific objects or circumstances) rather than a way or bypassing negative associations or conditioning. A good deal of it probably relates to gender roles and one's gender orientation (for example my lesbian lover mentioned above).

Often times we're not aware of the things that we like until we're introduced to them, and often by accident. Like Bella, I remember the Olive Oyl-and-the-cats-on-the-Haunted-Ship scene as one of my first tickling cartoon scenes and though it may not have been the same as God talking Moses...it was pretty damn close. In this case, I seemed, like her, to pick up right away that this was something interesting and in need of additional material. My mind, like those of others, sought out something that just seemed "natural" to me, which is a sentiment many others can probably relate to.

But why would my brain know that this particular activity was something desireable? Or why would any of our minds feel that these strange images and sounds with indescipherable hidden undertones we're not consciously aware of yet stand out to us? Is it possible that, because of our unorthodox personalities, our minds are somehow aware of the kinds of stress we're likely to create--if we don't already possess small amounts of stress for it to learn about--and seeks out material that will effectively counter that stress by forming the proper associations? That as the stress becomes more complex in life then the acts themselves become more complex and intricate to compensate?

Possible, I reckon. Sexuality might be the most tangled knot in all of human psychology. Not only is it inherently hard to simplify, but even trying to give it a simple explanation is apt to miss some minor but critical element that gives it form.

For example it's possible that a person has a biological inclination toward fetishes in general, but that the particular fetish that shapes that person's adult life is determined by incidents in childhood. To take the case of Olive Oyl and the cats, it could be that you were predisposed toward fetishes in general but that you landed in tickling because you saw that particular cartoon at a time when your developing brain was forming those circuits. There's no easy way to distinguish cause from effect in a case like that.

The situation is muddied still further by people who have a broad range of sexual interests. Some people like tickling only. In fact some people like only a very specific type of tickling, or a very specific body part. For some people either a foot fetish or tickling can be erotic, but for others it takes a combination of feet and tickling. Then still others can enjoy tickling, spanking, bondage, and many other things - some with only one gender, others with both genders.

So do we have specific fetishes in some people and "umbrella fetishes" in others that can be satisfied in many different ways? Are the broader ones really "higher level" fetishes that can be satisfied by anything that meets some central need? Or are they really collections of more specific fetishes? If the latter, can the specific fetishes interact to some degree? Could it even be both - single broad fetishes in some, collections in others, or even both in one person (a broad fetish AND a separate collection of specific ones)?

You can see why it's so difficult to come up with a single answer. There may not BE a single answer. At this point in the study of human sexuality that's looking less and less likely.

The good news is that even if we don't understand exactly how it all works, we are getting a better idea of how sexuality behaves. I recommended The Topping Book by Easton and Hardy earlier in the thread. There's also The Bottoming Book by the same authors. And if you want a really broad look at all of this, check out Different Loving by Gloria Braeme and a cast of thousands.

 

[Headsnap]

I think all this talk about "hard-wiring" when referring to BDSM, sexuality, social interactions and whatnot is a load of bollocks. Admittedly my view is clouded by the notion that the human psyche is some sort of aberrant mutant that has developed on top of our original nature and that every "kink" and "twist" and facet of the psyche can be traced back to one or more of the basic human needs, and thus I can't accept that any fetish or fetishistic compunction can be hard-wired into a human being from birth. In order for that to work you'd have to be willing to accept that the compunction to fulfil an erotic desire is as innate and primal as the need to sleep, eat, procreate and keep warm, and I can conceive of no person who would willingly choose to starve/ freeze to death if it meant being able to fulfil their fetish. Yeah I know a lot of people say they would, but if words and will were the same thing we'd all of us be CEOs and no bank in the world would dare hold any cash.

Taking that as my starting point, let the opinionation begin!

Redmage and Bella both indicated here and in separate occasions (respectively) that there seems to be an inherently present affinity for the practices we're interested in. Our brains, no matter how screwed up, still operate by reinforcing beneficial things (perceived or actual) with pleasureable reinforcement to encourage us to continue. The pursuit and indulging of pleasurable activities relieves stress and improves emotional well-being. We're never taught these things, especially in sexually-hostile cultures, yet they're a part of us independent of our upbringing.

I think calling the affinity "inherent" is a bit off the mark. It becomes inherent in us as adults, but how many kids do you know that like to be spanked or sent to their rooms? I can think of a few adults who'd probably like that but every kid I've seen chastised in such a way has reacted with displeasure. Myself included.
This "affinity", for want of a more bombastic term, is, in my mind, a "thing" (again for want of a more pompous term 😀 ) that becomes ingrained within a person as he or she grows up; that the affinities and pleasures differ from person to person is a symptom of the individuality of human beings and perceptions, ideas (learned and self-taught) and conceptions. Thus, while nobody directly teaches us to like being spanked or to like tickling someone's feet, various factors that we perceive, ideas that we encounter and notions that we conceive on our way to adulthood come together to form the affinities we develop for such things, as they do for everything else.

It's possible AND probable that things we're taught to hate the things we naturally like and to like the things we naturally hate, and those things vary from person to person. If our personalities determine what we like, and our brains seem to be inherently hard-wired to recognize and seek out these things, is it possible that those of us in fetish communities are personalities susceptible to special stress that requires special, complex pleasures to relax?

I don't think the majority of people in the fetish community are necessarily under special stresses, but perhaps the same aberration that breeds within a person the affinity for fetish practises springs from an abnormal response to stressors that "vanilla" folk could cope with "normally", for want of a more fitting term (my vocabulary! the goggles do nothing!!). That's an interesting theory, if I do say so myself, and one which I can see evidence to support in both my own life and the postings of other folk on this board. For instance there seem to be a fair few (wouldn't say a LOT, but a fair few) members who have Asperger's Syndrome which, as far as I'm aware, is a condition that is like autism. There also appear to be a lot of folk who complain that they are depressed a lot, and more who either do not like to argue or like to argue far more than could be considered "normal". Speaking for myself I grew up in a house where communication of feelings was considered unnecessary and where conflicts were resolved by simply moving on from them and not speaking of them again. I grew up alongside friends whose idea of conflict resolution was a fist fight and where talking about feelings, even feelings for a female, was considered "gay". Try any of that new man metrosexual shit round my way and you'll likely end up as a laughing stock with a pool cue up your colonically irrigated arse. My concepts of conflict resolution is to run from a problem until it catches up to me, then meet it with aggression. If that's normal then I truly despair for the human race :-S

But I digress...

Often times we're not aware of the things that we like until we're introduced to them, and often by accident. Like Bella, I remember the Olive Oyl-and-the-cats-on-the-Haunted-Ship scene as one of my first tickling cartoon scenes and though it may not have been the same as God talking Moses...it was pretty damn close. In this case, I seemed, like her, to pick up right away that this was something interesting and in need of additional material. My mind, like those of others, sought out something that just seemed "natural" to me, which is a sentiment many others can probably relate to.

But why would my brain know that this particular activity was something desireable? Or why would any of our minds feel that these strange images and sounds with indescipherable hidden undertones we're not consciously aware of yet stand out to us? Is it possible that, because of our unorthodox personalities, our minds are somehow aware of the kinds of stress we're likely to create--if we don't already possess small amounts of stress for it to learn about--and seeks out material that will effectively counter that stress by forming the proper associations? That as the stress becomes more complex in life then the acts themselves become more complex and intricate to compensate?

In that example I don't think it's a case of "knowing" the activity is desirable; I think it's a case of seeing something that intrigues you in a pleasurable way and not being fully equipped physically or mentally to realise what that "way" is. The intrigue in this instance is likely born from experiences a person has perceived earlier in their life, and as a person grows up, maturing sexually, the pleasure can either be artificially linked to an erotic medium (either by chance or by choice) OR the person may recognise that the "pleasure" they experienced when first seeing Olive Oyl being tickled WAS actually sexual, an epiphany that only really becomes acheivable once a person becomes aware of themselves as a sexual creature and aware of sex and erotica.

Did our minds in effect, KNOW what we needed or wanted and through pleasure (endorphins) encourage us to pursue the material and practices to tend to our specific needs? Does this indeed make us preternaturally special even though we don't have superpowers?

For this to carry any weight, for it to apply to a prepubescent child, one would have to accept that both a proclivity to fetish practises AND a coping mechanism by which the body itself recognises and compensates for this proclivity (which would in essence be some sort of fetish mechanism) are innate parts of the human animal in the same way that the need for food and the presence of antibodies are, and it would also require an acceptance of the preternatural. The rope by which I suspend my disbelief is very short and has a low breaking strain, and I don't think it'd take the weight of this speculation. If, however, I'm considering the questions in terms of an adolescent they become far easier to answer.

My response to the first would be a regurgitation of the paragraph I wrote above; a person who has experienced something in life which has caused them to link seeing someone's feet tickled with "pleasure" would unconsciously recall that experience and the pleasure it created. It wouldn't be a case of the person "knowing" it was sexy in the same way that a person "knows" they are in danger, rather it would be an artificially created affinity that manifests itself in a way which an adolescent mind, not yet fully aware of it's sexuality yet gradually becoming exposed to it, finds difficult to grasp. Hence the endorphins and the rush. If you recall your first truly erotic experience with your fetish you'll probably recall the "rush" being similar to the rush you got when your first girlfriend agreed to go to see Independence Day with you, or the first time you stepped over the threshold of her bedroom knowing that sex was on the cards.

In response to the second; no. It makes us creatures with a strange and thoroughly alien intellect that is so unfeasibly complicated it's almost impossible for a person to truly know their own mind, but it doesn't make us pretenatural beings. 😀

That's the first hypothesis looked at. I am now bored of typing things which could be construed as productive or contributary, and so I shall now go and deface a picture of Colonel Sanders. I'll have a go at the second hypothesis later. Or tomorrow.

A final point on the rape argument; Viper, mate, chum, buddy-gar... you're describing rape. There can be no other interpretation of it, and as someone who enjoys "rough" sex I do not appreciate you drawing a comparison between rough sex and rape because they are not the same thing at all (unless you happen to be a rape fantasist and you're likening the two acts in the same way that organised criminals seek validation by likening themselves to Robin Hood). What you have described in your scenario is rape and it's illegal no matter the whys and wherefors, in the same way that me entering someone's house and removing their toaster is still unlawful burglary. If, however, the house and toaster belong to my brother and I've borrowed his while he was at work because mine is broken he is unlikely to make a police report (though he would be wholly within his rights to) and thus the crime will go unprosecuted. Ergo, if Woman has consented to Man raping her because it is something she enjoys then she is similarly unlikely to report Man to the police despite the fact he has, by the letter of the law, done a crime.

As someone once said in some foppy Romantic poem; "The world is never black and white, But likened shades of grey". Just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong, and because something is wrong it doesn't mean it is necessarily illegal.

 

[BellaRisa]

I think all this talk about "hard-wiring" when referring to BDSM, sexuality, social interactions and whatnot is a load of bollocks. Admittedly my view is clouded by the notion that the human psyche is some sort of aberrant mutant that has developed on top of our original nature and that every "kink" and "twist" and facet of the psyche can be traced back to one or more of the basic human needs, and thus I can't accept that any fetish or fetishistic compunction can be hard-wired into a human being from birth. In order for that to work you'd have to be willing to accept that the compunction to fulfil an erotic desire is as innate and primal as the need to sleep, eat, procreate and keep warm, and I can conceive of no person who would willingly choose to starve/ freeze to death if it meant being able to fulfil their fetish.

I can understand your stance on this. For me, my kinks are indeed hard-wired. My needs and desires for them are by no means as insistent as eating and sleeping, but they don't have to be in order to be considered innate and primal. I believe I can speak for many folks when I say that 'hard-wired' simply means that it was there since birth, not that it's a life-or-death need.

I think calling the affinity "inherent" is a bit off the mark. It becomes inherent in us as adults, but how many kids do you know that like to be spanked or sent to their rooms? I can think of a few adults who'd probably like that but every kid I've seen chastised in such a way has reacted with displeasure. Myself included.
This "affinity", for want of a more bombastic term, is, in my mind, a "thing" (again for want of a more pompous term ) that becomes ingrained within a person as he or she grows up; that the affinities and pleasures differ from person to person is a symptom of the individuality of human beings and perceptions, ideas (learned and self-taught) and conceptions. Thus, while nobody directly teaches us to like being spanked or to like tickling someone's feet, various factors that we perceive, ideas that we encounter and notions that we conceive on our way to adulthood come together to form the affinities we develop for such things, as they do for everything else.

For me, "inherent" is spot-on. I was a little girl that loved to be spanked and sent to bed without supper by dominant little boys when playing house (or in our case playing Hall of Justice ) and I know a LOT of other people with my kinks that were the same way as children. Heck, playing school or cops and robbers was nothing but preschool D/s for many, many little ones. Of course we didn't want to be punished by those in authority; that was truly painful, both emotionally and physically, and *against our will*. It had none of the fun, and dare I say 'romance' (on a 5 yr old level), that we wanted, then and now. I know of no 'lee who really, honestly wants some random thug to kidnap her and tie her down for obscene acts. But its a damn fine and popular role play. For *us*, not for everyone. And that's just it: many, many of us are exposed to the exact same environments and experiences as children. Only a handful of us are highly attuned to certain aspects of those experiences and have them emblazoned our our psyches. How many children saw that Popeye cartoon and never noticed Olive's feet being licked by those cats, while others are still in love with the image in our '30's and 40's and '50's? That's not due to various factors that 'came together'. They wouldn't have come together for us if we weren't inerently more subsceptible to them than other people.

 

[dvnc]

A simple observation - how we each get to our awareness of our interest(s) varies. Some are hardwired early on. Some get turned on to this by a lover late in life and it appeals. Still others are somewhere in between the two, etc.

There's no one way to such things, just as there's no one way to tickle. Even within this interest, there's obviously many ways it's seen, as evidenced by this thread.

Many will answer "all my life" but not know what their interest is.

Some will think it's X until they find Y, Z or Q, and realize THAT interest is theirs, and X is merely very good.

Point is still this - keep an open mind for how you view the interest in others, as it is very likely divergent.

 

[Markofatickler]

My feeling is that if it seems like there is confusion around the whole dominance and submission thing, you are probably making it way more complicated than it actually is.

The first myth that needs to be dispelled is the notion that a propensity towards tickling is no different that a prepensity towards pain. The two are completely antonymous with each other. Pain is a big part of self-preservation, the body's way of warning oneself that physical harm is occuring. Tickling is more like an overstimulation of the pleasure sense, which is why we laugh uncontrollably. Those who equate tickling with pain are either ignorant of the nature of the two, or they do so as a means to rationalize and justify brutality.

Sadists the world over have been desperately though unsuccessfully trying to justify their delight in inflicting pain as a "sophisticated" brand of sexual foreplay. The submissives who relish in the pain go along with it because they are...well...submissive. They go along with anything the would-be "master" decrees.

Sadists are an interesting breed of human animal. They enjoy subjugating women and abusing them physically. Some do this to satisfy their vast ego and over inflated self esteem. They feel that hurting women makes them more of a man, or even worse, feel that women are only attractive when miserable and in pain. Others do it simply out of cruely, much the same way a bully enjoys picking on smaller children or pulling wings off an insect.

Then there are the submissives. They look at the pain and injury they receive from their "masters" as acts of love. 🙄 So starved for attention that even the cruel beatings are welcome because they know that at least at that moment, they are the sole focus of the "master's" attention.

It's difficult to imagine a less healthy symbiotic relationship. The submissive feeding the master's ego and self importance while the master feeds the submissives destructive feelings of low self esteem and desire for punishment.

With the greatest of respect, this is one of the worst, most ill-informed and unfairly judgmental pieces I have ever seen written about BDSM.

It clearly displays a total lack of understanding of the dynamics of a BDSM relationship, never more so loudly displayed by the comment "so starved for attention that even the cruel beatings are welcome because they know that at least at that moment they are the sole focus of the 'master's' attention". This is so far off the mark it is untrue.

It clearly also displays a total lack of understanding of the role of the "master". Evidenced by the assumption that Dominant = Master = Sadist. Those words are not synonyms. They are not interchangeable. There are many of us in the BDSM Lifestyle, that would cringe at the idea that we are sadists, in the sense that you infer. ie the bullying child, or the sexually psychopathic monster, devoid of human compassion. You could not be further from the truth if you tried.

You paint a picture of submissives being a group of sub-intellectual, self destructive beings, almost devoid of the capability of rational thought. How dare you. Have you ever met any of these "creatures" to whom you refer ?

I am a Master in what is called a BDSM relationship. What feeds me ? I enjoy dominating the girl that is the other 50% of the relationship. But, and I need to stress this, I only dominate her to the extent that she wants to be dominated. We have agreed set "limits", and these have evolved over time, not by me forcing this evolution upon her, arrogantly or in a way offensive to her intelligence, but by mutual discussion, by her exploring her innermost thoughts, by me being there to help her and provide her with a cushion on which to rest her head. I lead, by listening. As a result she evolves. What has she evolved into ? An ape like creature, or an underling ? No, this highly intelligent girl (a specialist in a highly specialised medical field - who knows, she might even be helping your own child) has become so much happier in her life that she feels that she is adding value to the lives of those around her too. So, her submission to me (and I will only speak for my own relationship here) has helped her to find something better in her own life. And in our case, I am the dynamic behind that. What makes me special ? I've no idea. But it works for us.

So what, as a Master, is in this for me ? The dynamic for me, is that I take pleasure from seeing her pleasure. My domination gives her pleasure. The rules I set for her daily, often silly little things, not life changing or publicly humiliating things, give her something that she uses to please me. She knows I will be pleased by her desire and success in trying to please me. And then she is pleased herself. She is never happier than when we are both happy.

Up unto this point, I have dealt with the soft side. I don't expect everyone to understand all that. But, it is certainly not the picture painted in the quoted post above.

Now comes the tricky bit. Pain. Physical pain in a BDSM relationship is inflicted for just three primary reasons. Punishment ? Yes. Pleasure ? Yes. Experimentation (ie to see if it "works") ? Yes.

There is a golden rule in BDSM. "Safe, Sane, Consensual". Those three words ought not to need further explanation. But no BDSM "activity (including tickling, which, like it or not, IS a BDSM activity) should ever occur with one of those words missing.

To me the definition of the word "sadism" is the "derivation of pleasure as a result of the suffering of others". When I inflict pain upon my submissive, this clearly tells me that I am NOT a sadist. Why ?

Firstly, in her case the endorphin rush (caused by the pain) takes her to "flying" very quickly. She loves it when she flies. She is very sexually aroused, but this is not the main dynamic. I don't pretend to be able to explain all the biology and chemistry, but it IS biology and chemistry. Not a weak mind, not a blabbering mass of humanity, it is a chemical reaction. She LOVES being taken to "sub space". And that is why I am NOT being a sadist. Because she is not suffering.

Secondly, I don't actually get sexually aroused by the infliction of pain. Her submission arouses me. But I have never taken sexual pleasure from seeing cane marks on her buttocks. Why do I do it ? Because she wants me to. She physically wants to go to the place where chemistry takes over. That is the pleasure derived from the pain.

What about punishment ? Why should there be punishment ? In our case it is inflicted because she has broken a rule that she, of her own free will, agreed to comply with. She doesn't have to accept the punishment, she knows that she can walk away any time. But she wants to take it. Because she knows that will please me. Thus, it will please her.

In my case I rarely use pain for punishment. Why ? Well, firstly, she normally associates pain with pleasure. The "mind fuck" that would result from painful punishment would be confusing, within our dynamic. When I do, rarely, use pain, it is something quite different to our normal routine. (In fact she actually gets long periods of foot tickling as part of her punishment, something which she describes as "far worse than pain". I also use written punishments.)

To me, the BDSM relationship is one of the strongest, most loving and trusting relationships there can be. Yes, it is different. No, it isn't for many people. But let's not judge it, without understanding it.

There are sexual sadists out there. But these people will exist on the outside of BDSM. These are bad people, with serious issues. But they are as removed from mainstream BDSM - remember that "safe, sane, consensual" almost disqualifies sadism, where sadism is understood to be a condition that ignores the mutual pleasure context - as many ticklers would consider themselves to be (although I'd argue that you aren't that far removed).

"Ignorance prejudice and fear walk hand in hand"

 

[Headsnap]

A simple observation - how we each get to our awareness of our interest(s) varies. Some are hardwired early on. Some get turned on to this by a lover late in life and it appeals. Still others are somewhere in between the two, etc.

There's no one way to such things, just as there's no one way to tickle. Even within this interest, there's obviously many ways it's seen, as evidenced by this thread.

Many will answer "all my life" but not know what their interest is.

Some will think it's X until they find Y, Z or Q, and realize THAT interest is theirs, and X is merely very good.

Point is still this - keep an open mind for how you view the interest in others, as it is very likely divergent.

The term "hard-wiring", to me, has connotations of a thing that is forced into the design of a more complex object and is both innate to and necessary for the correct functioning of that object. Fetish practises are not necessary for or innate to the correct functioning of a human being; you don't need to spank someone in order to respirate. Your central nervous system and responses to external stimulus will not cease to function if they are not subjected to tickling, and for a person to digest food and defocate the waste produced in that process does not require the presence of a partner willing for the turd to land on their face. Fetish practises, no matter how much we enjoy them or how deeply seated we feel they are, are always peripheral to us as biological entities.

I'm all for keeping an open mind as to how different people come to like different things because, like any other debate involving the nuances and subtleties of individual people, approaching it with anying other than an open mind puts you at a disadvantage. What I can't do is accept that some people are "born" fetishists; I can accept that there is a possibility that some people's brains may have formed in such a way that they cause a predisposition to fetishism, because genetic mutations and aberrations DO happen (though they are hardly the norm), but if you're trying to tell me it's possible for people to be born with a fully formed (if not fully realised) sexual/ erotic fetish for tickling, or spanking, or shitting on people, or rape, then I have to disagree until someone shows me evidence more compelling than some people saying "I've been this way all my life" or "as long as I remember".

I can understand your stance on this. For me, my kinks are indeed hard-wired. My needs and desires for them are by no means as insistent as eating and sleeping, but they don't have to be in order to be considered innate and primal. I believe I can speak for many folks when I say that 'hard-wired' simply means that it was there since birth, not that it's a life-or-death need.

The way I'm looking at it the human animal is a creature just like any other. Just because we have evolved an intellect that allows us not only to be aware of ourselves but indeed to examine ourselves and the world around us in ways that other creatures cannot, doesn't mean we didn;t come from the same primordial shit-pile as amoebas, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, Monkey-us Smelly-us and every other creature of every other type that inhabits our planet alongside us. I am, therefore, a believer in Darwin's theory of evolution, survival of the fittest and all that; if you're not a believer in such and are instead a Creationist, be satisfied with the answer that your God created you with your "kinks" and erotic desires in direct contravention of the moral codes he set forth for you to live by as some form of intergalactic practical joke, and read no further, because it's all just a load of blasphemous nonsense. If, however, you are a Darwinian type thinker, or are a Creationist whose mind is open enough to accept that there may indeed have been "another way" (in which case I would very much like to shake your hand and question what an erudite person such as yourself is doing subscribing to organised religion in the first place), read on and be amazed by Dr. Headsnap's Theory Of Huamnkind.

Because it is an animals just like any other the human animal has basic needs, things which are essential to the continued functioning of our biological processes; we need fuel (oxygen and nutrients) for respiration, we need to clear the waste products of those processes from our system lest they contaminate it, we need warmth because the biological functions of our bodies are impaired and can indeed fail if the temperature is not sufficient, and we need to sleep for biological reasons I'm still not totally clear about (though anyone whose ever done two twelve hour nightshifts in a row, and thereby been gifted the revelation of the Super Dancing Elf-Stars, will tell you that sleep IS essential 😀 ). Aside from these essential factors which we need to satisfy to ensure our bodies don't crap out on us there are also other things which, whilst not essential to the survival of the individual organism, are nevertheless primal and innate in the way that ants know to follow each other's pheromes to food sources or wasps instinctually swarm and chase away potential predators en masse. We have evolved as social creatures and as such these innate needs are centred around not only the success of the family unit or tribe in continuing the species but also to the success of the individual as a part of the family unit (territorialism, defending ourselves and others around us, the need to feel secure in one's surroundings, and suchforth). The primary motivating factor in all this, the "meaning of life" if you like, is up for debate, but in my mind procreation and the continuation of the species seems the most logical conjecture to make. That's the innate, primordial stuff; everything else, the intellect, the reasoning, the self-doubt, the need to accquire wealth and thereby goods, the appeal of martial arts, the appreciation of beauty and the myriad different things considered beautiful by the individual human being, all of those things are drives and compunctions that have developed on top of the original, "pure" (if you like) human state, and are things which are by their very nature not necessary and artificial but which, as human society has developed, have become more prominent to the detriment of the original human mind.

So yeah, that's the direction I'm approaching this discussion and other such discussions from. It's a bit boring when you consider all the other fantastic and wonderfully imaginative "elves maked us!" and "aliens maked us!" theories out there, but I prefer this standpoint because it is logical given the evidence around us and, indeed, the evidence we can see in ourselves if we look hard enough. Hopefully reading that little lot will give you a better idea of where exactly it is I'm coming from, and will aid you in understanding my scepticism when asked to believe that fetishism can be as "hard-wired" and "innate and primal" as things our species has had hard-wired into it's construction from it's very inception and things which, evidence shows, have not changed over several million years of humans being humans.

I'm not saying that the drive to fulfil a fetish ISN'T strong, or that it can't FEEL as compelling as the need to protect your family or to do a poo after eating a big meal, but I AM saying that in factual terms it is NOT as strong, it just feels that way because of this artificial intellect that we have accquired from somewhere.

For me, "inherent" is spot-on. I was a little girl that loved to be spanked and sent to bed without supper by dominant little boys when playing house (or in our case playing Hall of Justice ) and I know a LOT of other people with my kinks that were the same way as children. Heck, playing school or cops and robbers was nothing but preschool D/s for many, many little ones. Of course we didn't want to be punished by those in authority; that was truly painful, both emotionally and physically, and *against our will*. It had none of the fun, and dare I say 'romance' (on a 5 yr old level), that we wanted, then and now. I know of no 'lee who really, honestly wants some random thug to kidnap her and tie her down for obscene acts. But its a damn fine and popular role play. For *us*, not for everyone. And that's just it: many, many of us are exposed to the exact same environments and experiences as children. Only a handful of us are highly attuned to certain aspects of those experiences and have them emblazoned our our psyches. How many children saw that Popeye cartoon and never noticed Olive's feet being licked by those cats, while others are still in love with the image in our '30's and 40's and '50's? That's not due to various factors that 'came together'. They wouldn't have come together for us if we weren't inerently more subsceptible to them than other people.

I honestly, seriously, do not think it is a case that we are "attuned" or predisposed in any spiritual or preternatural way to being fetishists. It makes no sense to me. If that's true then why weren't at least some of the scribbles we did as 2 year olds crude depictions of ourselves being subjected to/ subjecting someone to tickling? If it IS a natural thing then where are the tickle-torture cave paintings, or the M/s idols carved from stag bones with a hand-axe by Gub, shaman of the tribe who once inhabited the land in south London now known as "Tesco's"?

I'd also caution anyone against saying "all my life" if, by their own admission (and by the very evidence of the human brain's limits) there are gaps in their memory. A tale from my own life; I have a large scar on my forehead, right in the middle of it, which is about 2 inches long and one wide and which at one point in my life stretched from my scalp to an area just above my left eye. According to my mum and granny I received the scar as a 2 year old, running to the bathroom after my mum had shouted me at the exact moment she was opening the door to shout me again thus cracking my head into the corner of the door, necessitating a very fraught trip to the hospital where they put some butterfly stitches on it. Stitches which I subsequently picked off on the trip back home, necessitating another trip to the hospital to have them replaced with butterfly stitches and a bandage so's I couldn't pick them. I recall not one solitary moment of this entire episode. Despite the fact that my mum and gran insist I was conscious throughout the entirety of it, a fact attested to by the fact my medical records relating to this incident containing no mention of concussion or a loss of consciousness. Yet, despite that, try as I might I cannot recall a jot of it.

Yet still, despite the fact I can't remember it, I still have the scar.

I would suggest that in the case of those who have been fetishists "all my life" or "since I was born" something similar has happened; some event has occured in early childhood of which you have not even the faintest memory which has coloured your perceptions and notions of the world in such a way that an act which to any "normal" person would seem mundane is to you erotically charged, a stain upon your development which your childish intellect was unable to denude itself of and was unable to convey to others in such a way that they could have taken corrective action. Given that I consider myself a "since I was born" fetishist, having been "interested" in feet and tickling (and possessed of a very specific notion of female attractiveness) since before I can remember, I would apply this to myself.

I would also like to state for the record that, as opposed and derogatory as some of my marks may appear, I assure you that's simply the limitation of my vocabulary manifesting itself rather than any judgemental disapproval tainting my words. Yeah I consider fetish practises "artifical" and "unnatural"; I consider MMA, and indeed the very notion of stylising and intellectualising combat in any way, "artifical" and "unnatural", but that doesn't preclude me from taking part and enjoying it. As for this "stain" on my development that I wasn't "cured" of, that's not a bad thing either. If someone HAD recognised a proclivity towards fetishism in me at an early age and HAD "cured" me of it, I wouldn't be "me" 😀

A final note; I am noticing that none of what I'm saying is really answering the question of why dom/mes are dom/mes, which is, I believe, the impasse at which Amnesiac is stuck, and is instead exploring the far more general topic of the inceptions of fetishism in the human mind. Being as I am as yet unable to provide a satisfactory answer to this question despite much cogitation and contemplation on my part, I will instead choose to say that God did it and exit stage left :-O

 

[BellaRisa]

The term "hard-wiring", to me, has connotations of a thing that is forced into the design of a more complex object and is both innate to and necessary for the correct functioning of that object. Fetish practises are not necessary for or innate to the correct functioning of a human being; you don't need to spank someone in order to respirate. Your central nervous system and responses to external stimulus will not cease to function if they are not subjected to tickling, and for a person to digest food and defocate the waste produced in that process does not require the presence of a partner willing for the turd to land on their face. Fetish practises, no matter how much we enjoy them or how deeply seated we feel they are, are always peripheral to us as biological entities.

We definitely differ on use of the term 'hard-wiring'. By your definition, only the acts vital to keeping us alive and functioning on a purely animalistic level can be considered innate. I disagree; I believe that we've evolved past that base stage, and currently we're capable of secondary and perhaps even tertiary traits that are equally ingrained from conception though they're certainly not as necessary. I see my kinks as I see being left-handed; I wouldn't perish if I had to learn to use my right hand, but use of that hand is not 'normal', feels horribly off and wrong, and would take quite a long time to unlearn because being a lefty is my natural, hard-wired state (I'm one of those children who failed miserably when they tried to 'correct' me into being a righty.) I could live the rest of my life without my proclivities, but such an existence would require suppressing needs every bit as much a part of me as the need for sex, which is absolutely hard-wired but *not* necessary for my survival and therefore a secondary (or even tertiary some nights ) need. Perhaps our species as a whole requires procreation, but we simply don't need it as individuals or half the folks reading this would be dead 😎.

I honestly, seriously, do not think it is a case that we are "attuned" or predisposed in any spiritual or preternatural way to being fetishists. It makes no sense to me. If that's true then why weren't at least some of the scribbles we did as 2 year olds crude depictions of ourselves being subjected to/ subjecting someone to tickling? If it IS a natural thing then where are the tickle-torture cave paintings, or the M/s idols carved from stag bones with a hand-axe by Gub, shaman of the tribe who once inhabited the land in south London now known as "Tesco's"?

We haven't seen any cave paintings of many human activities; that doesn't mean they weren't going on. And frankly I've seen several ancient depictions that seemed less-than-vanilla to me, based on level of the heads of the individuals in relation to one another among other indications. Not to mention more than one fertiility rite that seemed awfully D/s to me...but I digress:

I certainly agree with you on the spiritual or preternatural aspects, I believe it's more concrete than anything so ethereal. I believe that our kinks are natural for *some* of us, by no means all. Furthermore, I've been a preschool teacher for two decades; I have indeed seen very young children drawing (and acting out) such depictions. Crudely, but what do you want from a preschooler? Heck, my grandmother still has a drawing I did in 1976, before my 4th birthday, of a giant laughing Snoopy head with a human foot for his body (!) with little fingers and feathers all around it. She keeps the darn thing in her big huge Bible with other keepsakes, it was unsettling for me for years . I understand that your explanation would be as such:

event has occured in early childhood of which you have not even the faintest memory which has coloured your perceptions and notions of the world in such a way that an act which to any "normal" person would seem mundane is to you erotically charged, a stain upon your development which your childish intellect was unable to denude itself of and was unable to convey to others in such a way that they could have taken corrective action.

I don't disagree, I simply don't believe that this is the case for all of us. Furthermore, if we did indeed produce a bundle of 2 yr old tk or D/s oriented scribblings for your perusal, by your thinking those scribbles would simply be the manifestation of those early childhood events, not an inherent and perhaps even genetically programmed aspect of that young person, as I believe it often is.

 

[dvnc]

The term "hard-wiring", to me, has connotations of a thing that is forced into the design of a more complex object and is both innate to and necessary for the correct functioning of that object. Fetish practises are not necessary for or innate to the correct functioning of a human being; you don't need to spank someone in order to respirate. Your central nervous system and responses to external stimulus will not cease to function if they are not subjected to tickling, and for a person to digest food and defocate the waste produced in that process does not require the presence of a partner willing for the turd to land on their face. Fetish practises, no matter how much we enjoy them or how deeply seated we feel they are, are always peripheral to us as biological entities.

First correction - According the DSM IV, we're not a fetish. Likewise true in dictionary form, but the DSM IV is what's used for psychological and psychiatric analysis of the brain.

People into an object or who objectify someone are fetishists.

People into tickling have a paraphilia.

Do look it up. It's worth the analysis if you're going to use the word in a debate or discussion.

Second correction - Innate nature is where I'm going when I use hardwired. It's been something with me since birth, hence the use of the language. It's not arguable for me, nor for many here, as tickling for a sizable group here is something that has been an interest of keen focus since birth.

You, thus, mistaken my colloquial use of hardwired. That's all, brother. Hopefully the clarification makes my meaning clearer, and we can quit debating what's clearly true for several here.

I'm all for keeping an open mind as to how different people come to like different things because, like any other debate involving the nuances and subtleties of individual people, approaching it with anying other than an open mind puts you at a disadvantage. What I can't do is accept that some people are "born" fetishists; I can accept that there is a possibility that some people's brains may have formed in such a way that they cause a predisposition to fetishism, because genetic mutations and aberrations DO happen (though they are hardly the norm), but if you're trying to tell me it's possible for people to be born with a fully formed (if not fully realised) sexual/ erotic fetish for tickling, or spanking, or shitting on people, or rape, then I have to disagree until someone shows me evidence more compelling than some people saying "I've been this way all my life" or "as long as I remember".

Again leaving out that we're born paraphiliacs, save for those who also have a thing for feet or armpits, I'm telling you exactly this. So will anyone having studied psychology. It's available knowledge in books, and any psych 101 course will touch on it, as it keeps student attention for very obvious reason. I encourage you to check this out, as it will help to explain much in our subculture, here.

So yeah, that's the direction I'm approaching this discussion and other such discussions from. It's a bit boring when you consider all the other fantastic and wonderfully imaginative "elves maked us!" and "aliens maked us!" theories out there, but I prefer this standpoint because it is logical given the evidence around us and, indeed, the evidence we can see in ourselves if we look hard enough. Hopefully reading that little lot will give you a better idea of where exactly it is I'm coming from, and will aid you in understanding my scepticism when asked to believe that fetishism can be as "hard-wired" and "innate and primal" as things our species has had hard-wired into it's construction from it's very inception and things which, evidence shows, have not changed over several million years of humans being humans.

My argument that we ARE (some of us) predisposed to this DOESN'T conflict with Darwinian evolutionary theory.

We are a DEVIANCY. We deviate from the normal folk in our species. So do those into any number of deviancies. Again, check the DSM IV, attend classes, talk to shrinks, and get more info. You're clearly intelligent and halfway there, man. Your theory is accurate, but incomplete.

I'm not saying that the drive to fulfil a fetish ISN'T strong, or that it can't FEEL as compelling as the need to protect your family or to do a poo after eating a big meal, but I AM saying that in factual terms it is NOT as strong, it just feels that way because of this artificial intellect that we have accquired from somewhere.

I ain't arguing feeling. We feel what we feel to different degrees. Folks into vanilla pursuits feel them to different degrees.

Some of the folks here don't get aroused without tickling.

Some lose their drive for anything but. Met SO many of them through my gatherings. Feel for 'em, too. You gotta find a mighty understanding woman to solve that problem.

This doesn't FEEL as strong to you because it ISN'T. This has been in my make up since infancy. Strongest early memories include interest in this. Earliest social play included this. I wasn't the only one, either.

Some folks don't have a recall going back before school age. Some have pieces of their life earlier in their recall. Differences in development. I've friends far smarter than I who don't recall anything before kindergarten save for kind parents.

As a species, we deviate from a norm. Less than half do, hence the definition of deviancy in a species.

I do recall at 2. Knew the adult I has such a fascination for tickling for a long time.

Did you know we get sexual response far earlier than puberty? It's just not as strong a drive. Again, another weird topic that can be researched and thus proven. Mine was hardwired, present and linked very early for me. For others here.

Not for all. There are differences and degrees within similiarities. It's important to know and respect this. Keeps us from offending those in our interest.

would also like to state for the record that, as opposed and derogatory as some of my marks may appear, I assure you that's simply the limitation of my vocabulary manifesting itself rather than any judgemental disapproval tainting my words.

Appreciated, brother. I likewise mean no offense. Trying to provide data to back up theories CAN piss folk off who read it wrong. Just wanting to give you data more valuable than an old man yammering online.

Just 'cause I'm like this don't mean ALL of us into tickling are like me. There's some that come here that have only an intense fascination for this. They don't tend to stay, as they get argued into feeling second-class, 'cause they just like tickling, and not sex. Some like both. Some dig dominance mixed in, and/or bondage, and/or any number of other deviancies, and/or sex.

Yeah, met one who dug tickling like a desert. AFTER sex. Thrilled but didn't queue the need. The need was present and solved. *shrug*

Who am I to say that's weird? I'm into tickling. Bondage. Dominance. Female orgasm. Yeah, that's a deviancy, too. Ask any large group of women about the number of men who focus on their orgasm with a fascination. Another interesting paraphilia...

Given my perspective and B's, do ya dig this better? If not, do check out the references. The DSM IV, and a book or three on human sexuality. Worthy reading, to be honest.

Thanks for the thinkings!

 

[Lea28]

It's simpler for me...

I am normally and naturally a pleaser, and i like to delight the guy I am with, and if that guy wants / needs to Dom me than that's fine... i love what men do to me so it works. Even if he ties my hands and feet...

That means being tied, kissed, tickled, teased, et cetera.

I, however, if the guy likes to be Dommed then i adapt and can be the "girl on top" that talks very dirty, tickles him to near dear and f.... his brains out.

I love a man to tickle me as we make love, and i know just how to to tickle a guy and when... my lovers do not have limp penis'

So yes, switch / adapt when needed.... but either way it's wondeful 😉

Happy New year, Lea

 

[Headsnap]

First correction - According the DSM IV, we're not a fetish. Likewise true in dictionary form, but the DSM IV is what's used for psychological and psychiatric analysis of the brain.

People into an object or who objectify someone are fetishists.

People into tickling have a paraphilia.

Do look it up. It's worth the analysis if you're going to use the word in a debate or discussion.

At the very real risk of dragging the debate into semantics and sillyness I'd question these definitions; the way I was taught "paraphilia" refers to any aberrant or abnormal sexual practise, whilst "fetish" and "fixation" refer to different specific examples of paraphilias. For example someone with a "tickling fetish" attaches an erogenous gravity to tickling that is not present in "normal" folk whilst not necessarily deriving any sexual pleasure from the act itself, whilst someone with a "tickling fixation" derives actual sexual pleasure from the act of tickling or the depiction of it to the extent that they could actually replace penetrative intercourse and other "normal" sexual practises with the object of their fixation. I am also given to understand that a "fetish" does not necessarily need to be a tangible physical item, but can, as in the example above, represent an abstract notion; a tickling fetishist doesn't find the feather sexy, but rather the way the feather is used upon them. Sort of thing.

But yeah, that's semantics and when you're trying to define and label complex abstract notions it's inevitable that difficulties and conflicts will arise between sources.

Second correction - Innate nature is where I'm going when I use hardwired. It's been something with me since birth, hence the use of the language. It's not arguable for me, nor for many here, as tickling for a sizable group here is something that has been an interest of keen focus since birth.

You, thus, mistaken my colloquial use of hardwired. That's all, brother. Hopefully the clarification makes my meaning clearer, and we can quit debating what's clearly true for several here.

Again though I would question if it truly has been "since birth". If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you remember everything that has happened in your life since your inceptional moment of self-consciousness then I will drop my objection right now and go and sit in the corner. I'm not questioning that some people FEEL that they have been this way "since birth", and I am in no way suggesting those people are somehow stupid or ridiculous for feeling that way; if you'd have asked me when I was 18 about my fetish and it's origins I'd most likely have said "I've been this way since birth" myself, but as I've grown up and read more, exposed myself to ideas and formed my own opinions I've started to question that, and it's brought me to the conclusion I am currently toiling under.

Again leaving out that we're born paraphiliacs, save for those who also have a thing for feet or armpits, I'm telling you exactly this. So will anyone having studied psychology. It's available knowledge in books, and any psych 101 course will touch on it, as it keeps student attention for very obvious reason. I encourage you to check this out, as it will help to explain much in our subculture, here.

And again I would question the validity of such an assertion unless you are able to recall your own birth and everything that's ever happened to you. I know that seems like I'm throwing down some sort of $250,000 challenge but if you look at it logically I'm really not. You can't say "I have done x or I have liked y since z" with any real authority unless you can remember z, and you cannot downcast the theory that you have not, in fact, done x or liked y since z unless you can remember z and everything that has influenced you since z. You can conjecture that you have been a paraphiliac since birth because you cannot recall ever having NOT been a paraphiliac, but it cannot be assertive unless you have proof.

In the absence of such proof, to my mind at least, the more logical conjecture to come up with on the available evidence is that nobody is "born" a paraphiliac, but we are "made" paraphiliacs.

My argument that we ARE (some of us) predisposed to this DOESN'T conflict with Darwinian evolutionary theory.

We are a DEVIANCY. We deviate from the normal folk in our species. So do those into any number of deviancies. Again, check the DSM IV, attend classes, talk to shrinks, and get more info. You're clearly intelligent and halfway there, man. Your theory is accurate, but incomplete.

I understand your position here and to be quite honest I can see some merit to it; if we're talking purely physical evolution then yeah, it makes sense that the way in which a foetal brain develops into a proper human one changes with human society to compensate for various pressures and demands that will be made of us, but I can see no way in which developing a paraphilia would aid in the survival of the individual or the species (other than allowing a person to gratify themselves by staring at a girl's feet instead of her breasts or bum, thus assaying the likelyhood of her large boyfriend clocking you as a pervert and kicking your head in 😀 ). I would also question how "deviant" paraphilias and paraphiliacs really are; I know a few blokes who suck toes, handcuff partners and tug on ponytails who wouldn't class themselves as "paraphiliacs" or "fetishists", but they don't do those things purely because their partner enjoys them either. There are countless tudies, surveys and data sets which show that normal "vanilla" sex isn't as "vanilla" as most people like to think, or even as bland and boring as we in the fetish community seem to like to portray it to be.

I ain't arguing feeling. We feel what we feel to different degrees. Folks into vanilla pursuits feel them to different degrees.

Some of the folks here don't get aroused without tickling.

Some lose their drive for anything but. Met SO many of them through my gatherings. Feel for 'em, too. You gotta find a mighty understanding woman to solve that problem.

This doesn't FEEL as strong to you because it ISN'T. This has been in my make up since infancy. Strongest early memories include interest in this. Earliest social play included this. I wasn't the only one, either.

You are assuming here that you know how deeply my "afinity" (yay it's that word again!) for tickling runs. As I've said, if you'd have asked me at the age of 18 how long I'd been a ticklephile I'd have said "since birth". If you'd asked me at 15 why I got a hard-on from holding my girlfriend's wrists behind her back as we were snogging I probably would have shrugged and gotten all defensive and moody, as was my wont at the time. If you had asked me at the age of 6 why I tickled my female friend's feet in P.E class and gotten all excited when she laughed I probably wouldn't have been able to explain it; it just felt like a fun thing to do at the time, and she seemed pleased that I did it, and I felt a little bit closer to her afterwards. Why that should be, when all the other kids built bonds through hugging and touching and whatnot I was instead building bonds through poking and tickling, but nobody seemed to mind and I liked doing it.

Just because I'm able to look at something with objective eyes doesn't mean my passion for it is diluted or has been with me for a shorter duration than anyone else's ;D

Also, define "infancy" 🙂

Some folks don't have a recall going back before school age. Some have pieces of their life earlier in their recall. Differences in development. I've friends far smarter than I who don't recall anything before kindergarten save for kind parents.

As a species, we deviate from a norm. Less than half do, hence the definition of deviancy in a species.

I do recall at 2. Knew the adult I has such a fascination for tickling for a long time.

Did you know we get sexual response far earlier than puberty? It's just not as strong a drive. Again, another weird topic that can be researched and thus proven. Mine was hardwired, present and linked very early for me. For others here.

Not for all. There are differences and degrees within similiarities. It's important to know and respect this. Keeps us from offending those in our interest.

I did indeed know that we get sexual responses way before puberty, in fact that's part of my point; we get them, but we don't know what they are other than an exhilaration that is pleasurable, and I would argue that the strength of the exhilaration is not diluted by a lack of understanding or a physical incapacity to "feel" it for what it is. That can be proven and I wouldn't seek to disagree with it because I'm not one for flying in the face of people who some doctorate says are much more intelligent than me.

I would also say that I am not trying to offend or unnerve or belittle anyone with anything I'm saying; I'm contributing to a discussion I find interesting and hopefully giving people food for thought.

Appreciated, brother. I likewise mean no offense. Trying to provide data to back up theories CAN piss folk off who read it wrong. Just wanting to give you data more valuable than an old man yammering online.

Just 'cause I'm like this don't mean ALL of us into tickling are like me. There's some that come here that have only an intense fascination for this. They don't tend to stay, as they get argued into feeling second-class, 'cause they just like tickling, and not sex. Some like both. Some dig dominance mixed in, and/or bondage, and/or any number of other deviancies, and/or sex.

Yeah, met one who dug tickling like a desert. AFTER sex. Thrilled but didn't queue the need. The need was present and solved. *shrug*

Who am I to say that's weird? I'm into tickling. Bondage. Dominance. Female orgasm. Yeah, that's a deviancy, too. Ask any large group of women about the number of men who focus on their orgasm with a fascination. Another interesting paraphilia...

Given my perspective and B's, do ya dig this better? If not, do check out the references. The DSM IV, and a book or three on human sexuality. Worthy reading, to be honest.

Thanks for the thinkings!

I do indeed dig it better, insofar as I have a bit more of an understanding of where you're coming from even if I still can't find any real cause to support your position.

As far as things being "weird", who is anyone to say what's weird? There's a Brazillian tribe whose coming of age ceremony involves weaving bullet ants into sleeves and making young lads wear the fuckers for 24 hours; to them a bar mitvah with cake and presents is probably the strangest thing in the world. Things are what they are. De gustibus non disputandum est. Or something 😀

We definitely differ on use of the term 'hard-wiring'. By your definition, only the acts vital to keeping us alive and functioning on a purely animalistic level can be considered innate.

Well, erm... yeah. Hard-wired things, innate things, I would consider to be things we do instinctively, things our physical constitution is "hard-wired" to do. Stuff we'd be able to do even if nobody showed us how, like eating or pissing or copulating or seeking out security or finding food, in addition to stuff we've been doing since the days we were wearing bloody elk-skins and throwing our shit at each other.

I disagree; I believe that we've evolved past that base stage, and currently we're capable of secondary and perhaps even tertiary traits that are equally ingrained from conception though they're certainly not as necessary. I see my kinks as I see being left-handed; I wouldn't perish if I had to learn to use my right hand, but use of that hand is not 'normal', feels horribly off and wrong, and would take quite a long time to unlearn because being a lefty is my natural, hard-wired state (I'm one of those children who failed miserably when they tried to 'correct' me into being a righty.) I could live the rest of my life without my proclivities, but such an existence would require suppressing needs every bit as much a part of me as the need for sex, which is absolutely hard-wired but *not* necessary for my survival and therefore a secondary (or even tertiary some nights ) need. Perhaps our species as a whole requires procreation, but we simply don't need it as individuals or half the folks reading this would be dead .

I can see the sense in what you're saying here. I would also postulate that none of this is at odds with my viewpoint, and indeed may support it in a way; your desire for whatever it is you desire may indeed be as strong as your desire for sex, and it may be that way because it's no different FROM your desire for sex. You may have come to link whatever it is you like with sex in such a way that your paraphilias and sexual fulfilment are inextricably intertwined. What I would say, however, is that I don't think that's how "God", as much of a prankster as he is, made you; I think that's how you have, to an extent, consciously or unconsciously, made yourself. It would make no biological sense for your body to create itself in such a way that the same drive which presses you to continue the species can be fulfilled by other means; in biological terms it'd be similar to having a trip switch in your brain that would allow you to suppress the instinctual compunction to flee an imminently dangerous situation by flicking yourself on the nose, if you see what I mean.

What I'm saying is that I don't doubt your compunction to satisfy your fetishes is as strong as your desire for sex, but it has ben shown elsewhere that even an association THAT strong does NOT require a physical component, simply a strong enough developmental "deviancy" (a term I use in the absolute loosest sense for... you guessed it, want of a more appropriate one 😀 ). Between that and the lack of evolutionary survival logic behind it, you can perhaps appreciate why I find it difficult to accept that paraphilias can be developed physically and be present at birth.

We haven't seen any cave paintings of many human activities; that doesn't mean they weren't going on. And frankly I've seen several ancient depictions that seemed less-than-vanilla to me, based on level of the heads of the individuals in relation to one another among other indications.

Not to mention more than one fertiility rite that seemed awfully D/s to me...but I digress:

I don't know about cave paintings or D/s rites, but I have seen a few dodgy pre-Roman etchings in various school trips to museums; the sight of a crudely drawn Saxon matchstick man going down on what appears to be a large mop armed with a pizza is one that doesn't leave you easily, let me tell you.

Perhaps I should revise my list of biological necessities to include oral sex :-O

I certainly agree with you on the spiritual or preternatural aspects, I believe it's more concrete than anything so ethereal. I believe that our kinks are natural for *some* of us, by no means all. Furthermore, I've been a preschool teacher for two decades; I have indeed seen very young children drawing (and acting out) such depictions. Crudely, but what do you want from a preschooler? Heck, my grandmother still has a drawing I did in 1976, before my 4th birthday, of a giant laughing Snoopy head with a human foot for his body (!) with little fingers and feathers all around it. She keeps the darn thing in her big huge Bible with other keepsakes, it was unsettling for me for years .

A few points on this, the first of which you seem to have identified below. In my mind birth marks the end of the foetal development stage. All the physical components required to create a functional human being (i.e the "hard-wiring") is done in the womb, and thus is born a tiny little person only dimly aware of the world around it. From that moment onwards that little baby is developing psychologically, and thus, whilst I would not be so churlish as to dispute that you have indeed seen kids acting out what you would interpret to be crude depictions of fetishistic/ paraphiliac behaviours, those kids have been developing psychologically for three or four years before they get to you. You yourself were exposed to four years of "life" before you drew the Snoopy face. Is it so hard to imagine that, within those years, something, even something subtle, occurred that left a lasting impression upon the child's development that would ultimetely lead to it developing a paraphilia?

The second point I would make is something I touched upon earlier. I question how "deviant" our "deviancies" really are. For most cases all I see when I look at paraphilias are a load of people attaching sexual gravity to things which would not normally be considered sexual, or which are NOT by their nature sexual. D/s is basically the drive to dominate and lead (or in the case of subs the desire to BE dominated and led) given a sexual context by the mind of the practictioners, and therefore it isn't all that out of the question for a child to exhibit what one might consider "D/s tendencies" whilst what they are actually doing is simply expressing a natural behaviour. Because we are fetishists, to us the act of pulling someone's hands behind their back and cuffing them then telling them to sit down like a good girl and not move until I say so can have erotic undertones. To a kid doing that might not necessarily be the case; they might simply be copying something they've seen off the telly or even be expressing a natural behaviour in conformation with a stereotype they have formed in their heads. They may be doing it because they think that's how it SHOULD be done. Or something.

The other point to be made here is that the acts which paraphiliacs find erotic are not erotic in and of themselves for the most part; as you've said yourself, it's the CONTEXT of the act that makes it sexual. You liked being spanked and chastised by the tough, dominant boys, yet when you were spanked and chastised by parents or authority figures it was a profoundly unpleasant experience. Since it is the artifically created values, morals and facets of human society that give these acts context then to accept that one can be BORN a fetishist one would also have to accept that one develops knwoledge of these artificially created concepts during gestation within the womb and they are present at birth as well. Given the fact that you are a preschool teacher you will have more experience with kids and their poorly developed senses of right and wrong than I, so I think it's fair to assume that the above is not the case.

I understand that your explanation would be as such:
Quote:
event has occured in early childhood of which you have not even the faintest memory which has coloured your perceptions and notions of the world in such a way that an act which to any "normal" person would seem mundane is to you erotically charged, a stain upon your development which your childish intellect was unable to denude itself of and was unable to convey to others in such a way that they could have taken corrective action.

I don't disagree, I simply don't believe that this is the case for all of us. Furthermore, if we did indeed produce a bundle of 2 yr old tk or D/s oriented scribblings for your perusal, by your thinking those scribbles would simply be the manifestation of those early childhood events, not an inherent and perhaps even genetically programmed aspect of that young person, as I believe it often is.

Would that really be such a stretch? As I've said kids are developing psychologically from the moment they achieve consciousness, and it could be said are far more vulnerable to influence early in life than they are when they grow up, so it's not inconceivable that during those two years of development the trigger may have been triggered.

Holy Mary mother of God I didn't know I had that many words IN ME!

 

[EvenSteven]

one component of submission

i think that most BDSM people will never understand the Tickling community because they are so fixated on pain. i never thought of the tickle sensation of pain. Yet in my mind, it is clearly a component of the submission that i feel when a Woman tickles me. The act of tickling is an act of force; it is an expression of Her power over me. Knowing that She derives a thrill as a consequence of tickling me enhances my submission. Of course, i sincerely enjoy the sensation of being tickled. The forced happiness is an extremely pleasant feeling.

But for me, there is no way to dissociate tickling from submission. When a Woman tickles me, it reinforces Her dominance over me, whether She ties me up or just tickles me casually. This is always a wonderful thing because it is my nature to turn control of my will to Women. The process of turning over the control is an exciting, erotic and delicate advanture. It is accompanied by other facets of the relationship as it progresses. For example, a Woman may start persuading me to run errands for Her and then serve Her personal needs such as washing Her hair or painting Her nails. She may even decide to alter my appearance to Her liking. It is kind of insidious and that makes it all the more erotic. So Her dominance over me is not just for the bedroom. It eventually encompasses our entire relationship and i am always aware that She can exert Her control with tickling, even in public.

i would very much like to chat with Female 'Lers on this subject. Please reply to this, or send me a Private Message.

 

[dvnc]

At the very real risk of dragging the debate into semantics and sillyness I'd question these definitions; the way I was taught "paraphilia" refers to any aberrant or abnormal sexual practise, whilst "fetish" and "fixation" refer to different specific examples of paraphilias. For example someone with a "tickling fetish" attaches an erogenous gravity to tickling that is not present in "normal" folk whilst not necessarily deriving any sexual pleasure from the act itself, whilst someone with a "tickling fixation" derives actual sexual pleasure from the act of tickling or the depiction of it to the extent that they could actually replace penetrative intercourse and other "normal" sexual practises with the object of their fixation. I am also given to understand that a "fetish" does not necessarily need to be a tangible physical item, but can, as in the example above, represent an abstract notion; a tickling fetishist doesn't find the feather sexy, but rather the way the feather is used upon them. Sort of thing.

Simpler definition - fetish is for inanimate/unthinking objects. If one digs feet, and could achieve complete sexual gratification without interaction with the thinking end of said pedal objects, that's a fetish.

Paraphilia, literally "other loving" involves a focus with others in a fashion that is not "normal" (majority of populace defining the norm). Those of us that dig only the act of tickling still have to have a partner (hence the lack of "tickle dolls" that function like sex dolls).

It's an interesting topic, and very much related to the thread topic and the forum area.

But yeah, that's semantics and when you're trying to define and label complex abstract notions it's inevitable that difficulties and conflicts will arise between sources.

Amen.

Again though I would question if it truly has been "since birth". If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you remember everything that has happened in your life since your inceptional moment of self-consciousness then I will drop my objection right now and go and sit in the corner. I'm not questioning that some people FEEL that they have been this way "since birth", and I am in no way suggesting those people are somehow stupid or ridiculous for feeling that way; if you'd have asked me when I was 18 about my fetish and it's origins I'd most likely have said "I've been this way since birth" myself, but as I've grown up and read more, exposed myself to ideas and formed my own opinions I've started to question that, and it's brought me to the conclusion I am currently toiling under.

Logic flaw - we don't fully develop, cerebrally, before birth. We're still in developmental stages long after.

Hence, the brain continues to evolve after birthing. It IS possible to have latent changes.

Even crazy folks ain't always crazy from birth. A small percentage hold such damage and have it kick in later, like MS does in adults, after a LONG wait.

In the absence of such proof, to my mind at least, the more logical conjecture to come up with on the available evidence is that nobody is "born" a paraphiliac, but we are "made" paraphiliacs.

That's an arg present in psychology STILL. Born versus made. Both are true.

Some of us were always.

Some of us convert to this.

This is my belief.

I'm respectin' your approach, too, FWIW.
As for the soceital changes that define what's aberrant, that too constantly changes. It was normal to slap women once. Don't make it right. It's a statement of the society that was.

I don't pretend to assume your particular interest. Just that it may or may not be in line with mine. It's cool regardless. It's yours.

Some kids have this focus. You did, by description. I did, too. Others here didn't.

Some NEVER have it enter into their sexuality. Some people HERE are like that.

Some can ONLY deal with it sexually. That's rougher, 'cause they can't even tickle their babies. Imagine how that would affect parenting? It's a basic interaction with a child, and you couldn't do it 'cause it was sexually hardwired?

Personally, I respect the clarification and the objectivity. I just differ in my believe and am basing it on different data and experience. So far, you're justifying my belief.

You're also lettin' out a good thought. One that others here are bound to be thinkin'.

Well, erm... yeah. Hard-wired things, innate things, I would consider to be things we do instinctively, things our physical constitution is "hard-wired" to do. Stuff we'd be able to do even if nobody showed us how, like eating or pissing or copulating or seeking out security or finding food, in addition to stuff we've been doing since the days we were wearing bloody elk-skins and throwing our shit at each other.

I was tickling a relative sitting me before I could speak full sentences. I remember her. I remember the fascination. Innocent though it was, my predisposition for tickling followed through my school years, thankfully without disrupting them.

It's ALWAYS been there. There's never been a time where I wasn't into tickling and have always sought such.

I've been into eating sushi for a long time. Wasn't showing when I was born, though. Found it and thought it was missing for too long when I did.

I can see the sense in what you're saying here. I would also postulate that none of this is at odds with my viewpoint, and indeed may support it in a way; your desire for whatever it is you desire may indeed be as strong as your desire for sex, and it may be that way because it's no different FROM your desire for sex. You may have come to link whatever it is you like with sex in such a way that your paraphilias and sexual fulfilment are inextricably intertwined. What I would say, however, is that I don't think that's how "God", as much of a prankster as he is, made you; I think that's how you have, to an extent, consciously or unconsciously, made yourself. It would make no biological sense for your body to create itself in such a way that the same drive which presses you to continue the species can be fulfilled by other means; in biological terms it'd be similar to having a trip switch in your brain that would allow you to suppress the instinctual compunction to flee an imminently dangerous situation by flicking yourself on the nose, if you see what I mean.

In that logic, I'm made as one who has always held tickling to be a fascination. I've also always lead. Seldom do I follow, and never without knowing fully what I follow.

Submissives can follow far easier. I respect THAT, too. It's just not my nature.

Also, by your logic, dominance and submission are learned, yet some folks can NEVER submit, while others are only happy when submitting, and there's a WIDE spectrum in between.

I'm pullin' a section of this out, 'cause we're iteratin' the same points. I think we disagree, brother. I understand your logic, but believe that the inception of interest in this as a sexually-aligned paraphilia is at birth, and whether it's realized day one or after conversion from someone else's interest, it's there, waiting, like the spots that develop in old age. We come out mapped for a spectrum of possibilities.

It's what we do in them that make us who we are.

Some lead. Some dominate. Some can do such without offense. Some can't.

The diversity of who we are is born to us, and we work within the spectrum of possibility. If we were all exactly the same, life simply wouldn't be as interesting, and people would all behave within a narrow scope.

And this site would either be normal or would not exist.

i think that most BDSM people will never understand the Tickling community because they are so fixated on pain. i never thought of the tickle sensation of pain. Yet in my mind, it is clearly a component of the submission that i feel when a Woman tickles me. The act of tickling is an act of force; it is an expression of Her power over me. Knowing that She derives a thrill as a consequence of tickling me enhances my submission. Of course, i sincerely enjoy the sensation of being tickled. The forced happiness is an extremely pleasant feeling.

You're over-generalizing. Folks in this thread have already pointed out where there's folks in the BDSM community that don't have issue with us.

Some do, some don't.

Some have issue with F/m, others, with M/f. Some are cool either way, or respect the differences.

In your mind, it is as it is for you. You're able to give and receive and enjoy both. As the rest of your post said, you associate submission with it. That's true for you.

Can be true for me, but I ain't wired for submission. I don't enjoy it. Is as it is.

Nothin' wrong with those that DO submit, in my head. Nothin' wrong with those women that WON'T submit. I still dig a woman in our community that is wired like me, a dominant. She's not even ticklish. I dig her nature and her way of playin', and find her attractive and intelligent. We could never be long-term lovers, though. Not without a third person to submit to us both, and THAT further complicates an already complicated scene.

G'luck in your search.

 

[BellaRisa]

Well, erm... yeah. Hard-wired things, innate things, I would consider to be things we do instinctively, things our physical constitution is "hard-wired" to do. Stuff we'd be able to do even if nobody showed us how, like eating or pissing or copulating or seeking out security or finding food, in addition to stuff we've been doing since the days we were wearing bloody elk-skins and throwing our shit at each other.

Erm...yeah. Things we do instinctively. The way many of us have found ways to indulge in our kinks from the very beginning. Tell me, how would you explain an infant who derives great pleasure from touching/rubbing his or her genitals, as many do? Masturbation is quite the innate activity in many, many people and it can start very early in life, but they never ever saw anyone or anything to put the act into their wee heads. Orgasm is the physical reward for sex so that we seek it out for procreation. How do you explain why so very many women cannot achieve orgasm from intercourse and could cheerfully spend their lives without it, but need to have their clitoris or other parts attended for sexual satisfaction? Seeking pleasure is a hard-wired trait of our species; how we derive that pleasure varies from person to person. Why is it difficult to believe that the way in which we find pleasure and satisfaction can be part of our individual genetic makeup rather than learned? Just as we need eyes to see but the color can vary, so too do we need pleasure (sexual or otherwise) but how we achieve it varies.

your desire for whatever it is you desire may indeed be as strong as your desire for sex, and it may be that way because it's no different FROM your desire for sex. You may have come to link whatever it is you like with sex in such a way that your paraphilias and sexual fulfilment are inextricably intertwined. What I would say, however, is that I don't think that's how "God", as much of a prankster as he is, made you; I think that's how you have, to an extent, consciously or unconsciously, made yourself. It would make no biological sense for your body to create itself in such a way that the same drive which presses you to continue the species can be fulfilled by other means; in biological terms it'd be similar to having a trip switch in your brain that would allow you to suppress the instinctual compunction to flee an imminently dangerous situation by flicking yourself on the nose, if you see what I mean.

Again, I return to the myriad ways we instinctively derive a sense of satisfaction and balance that are by no means necessary in biological terms but are definitely instinctual; masturbation, non-intercoursal orgasm, etc. It makes a great deal of sense biologically to have us bind to one another emotionally, for the survival of the species; and an important way of doing just that is through physical pleasure, which humans do seek out instinctively.

In my mind birth marks the end of the foetal development stage. All the physical components required to create a functional human being (i.e the "hard-wiring") is done in the womb, and thus is born a tiny little person only dimly aware of the world around it. From that moment onwards that little baby is developing psychologically, and thus, whilst I would not be so churlish as to dispute that you have indeed seen kids acting out what you would interpret to be crude depictions of fetishistic/ paraphiliac behaviours, those kids have been developing psychologically for three or four years before they get to you. You yourself were exposed to four years of "life" before you drew the Snoopy face. Is it so hard to imagine that, within those years, something, even something subtle, occurred that left a lasting impression upon the child's development that would ultimetely lead to it developing a paraphilia?

First: the children in which I've observed such behaviors came to me at just six weeks of age; I have them daily, 7:30am until about 6:30pm, until they attend Kindergarten at age five or six. Am I with them 24/7? Of course not. Am I with them enough to have a rather strong idea of their daily environment? Yes indeed. But you've touched upon something that no one with your point of view can ever answer for me. Let's say that something subtle did indeed occur for me that would lead to development of my paraphilia. Why me? Why is it that so many, many people can be exposed to the same stimuli and yet only a precious few of us are susceptible to it? How many billions of children are tickled/spanked/what have you, in remarkably similar ways to those of us with these proclivities, without it meaning a blessed thing to them? Seriously, this is something I'd love to have explained to me if genetics and predisposition play no parts. This:

Because we are fetishists, to us the act of pulling someone's hands behind their back and cuffing them then telling them to sit down like a good girl and not move until I say so can have erotic undertones. To a kid doing that might not necessarily be the case; they might simply be copying something they've seen off the telly or even be expressing a natural behaviour in conformation with a stereotype they have formed in their heads. They may be doing it because they think that's how it SHOULD be done. Or something

Is basically my point: because we *are* fetishists or paraphiliacs the play that meant nothing to other children meant a great deal to us. I agree that there are triggers when we're young; but how is it decided whom amongst us will be aware of those triggers? We all saw the telly shows with the damsels in distress; why is it that some of us carried the image while it simply faded for others? I believe some of us are inclined from the beginning to be highly aware of such scenes. Not all of us; I do *not* disagree with your theories. I just don't believe that they apply to all of us; not every tickling enthusiast developed our interest due to outside forces. The specifics of the interest I do believe come afterwards, but not always the base desire.

 

[BellaRisa]

Forgot this bit:

The other point to be made here is that the acts which paraphiliacs find erotic are not erotic in and of themselves for the most part; as you've said yourself, it's the CONTEXT of the act that makes it sexual. You liked being spanked and chastised by the tough, dominant boys, yet when you were spanked and chastised by parents or authority figures it was a profoundly unpleasant experience. Since it is the artifically created values, morals and facets of human society that give these acts context then to accept that one can be BORN a fetishist one would also have to accept that one develops knwoledge of these artificially created concepts during gestation within the womb and they are present at birth as well. Given the fact that you are a preschool teacher you will have more experience with kids and their poorly developed senses of right and wrong than I, so I think it's fair to assume that the above is not the case.

Being spanked wasn't sexual for me as a child. Stimulating, yes, but not sexual; that came later. Context was certainly important early on and enhanced the situation, but only in the most elementary sense: real punishment involved fear and real pain. Just as it's rather rare for anyone to enjoy such innate activities as intercourse or food or sleep when they're frightened or under true stress but finds those activities pleasurable otherwise, so would a young spanking enthusiast find zero pleasure under duress. Lack of fear and anguish is pretty base, it doesn't require the morals and facets of human society for a child to recoil from suffering.

 

[drew70]

With the greatest of respect, this is one of the worst, most ill-informed and unfairly judgmental pieces I have ever seen written about BDSM....

Not to worry. I'm used to this particular brand of "respect." I take no offence.

It clearly displays a total lack of understanding of the dynamics of a BDSM relationship, never more so loudly displayed by the comment "so starved for attention that even the cruel beatings are welcome because they know that at least at that moment they are the sole focus of the 'master's' attention". This is so far off the mark it is untrue.

Actually, in far too many cases, it's spot on.

It clearly also displays a total lack of understanding of the role of the "master". Evidenced by the assumption that Dominant = Master = Sadist. Those words are not synonyms. They are not interchangeable. There are many of us in the BDSM Lifestyle, that would cringe at the idea that we are sadists, in the sense that you infer. ie the bullying child, or the sexually psychopathic monster, devoid of human compassion. You could not be further from the truth if you tried.

Oh really? Have a look at this "gem" if you have a moment.

http://70.85.147.102/showthread.php?t=74303

This is a thread in which an SM clip is attached. In this clip, a man who is unencumbered and free to move about, is torturing a woman who is naked and bound with a device he calls a "Wasp," as well as a buckknife. I can't imagine a better description than your own words, "sexually psychopathic monster, devoid of human compassion." It might not be how you operate, hopefully, but it is part of the world of BDSM which you insist is so benevolent and nurturing.

You paint a picture of submissives being a group of sub-intellectual, self destructive beings, almost devoid of the capability of rational thought. How dare you. Have you ever met any of these "creatures" to whom you refer ?

Yes, many times. Most do not fit the description of the picture you say I paint, but I've met one or two that do.

I am a Master in what is called a BDSM relationship. What feeds me ? I enjoy dominating the girl that is the other 50% of the relationship. But, and I need to stress this, I only dominate her to the extent that she wants to be dominated. We have agreed set "limits", and these have evolved over time, not by me forcing this evolution upon her, arrogantly or in a way offensive to her intelligence, but by mutual discussion, by her exploring her innermost thoughts, by me being there to help her and provide her with a cushion on which to rest her head. I lead, by listening. As a result she evolves. What has she evolved into ? An ape like creature, or an underling ? No, this highly intelligent girl (a specialist in a highly specialised medical field - who knows, she might even be helping your own child) has become so much happier in her life that she feels that she is adding value to the lives of those around her too. So, her submission to me (and I will only speak for my own relationship here) has helped her to find something better in her own life. And in our case, I am the dynamic behind that. What makes me special ? I've no idea. But it works for us.

It sounds like the kind of psychotherapy involved in Earheart Seminar Training (EST) back in the seventies. They basically break you down, and build you back up, and then you're this incredibly happy person for coming through the ordeal.

So what, as a Master, is in this for me ? The dynamic for me, is that I take pleasure from seeing her pleasure. My domination gives her pleasure. The rules I set for her daily, often silly little things, not life changing or publicly humiliating things, give her something that she uses to please me. She knows I will be pleased by her desire and success in trying to please me. And then she is pleased herself. She is never happier than when we are both happy.

Rarely have I read anything more disturbing. This environment of control is a recipe for codependency. It's great for you, you get to call the shots, but for her it's unhealthy and degrading. Can you honestly sit there and justify this grossly imbalanced symbiotic relationship by the grins you each wear on your faces? Alcoholics are very happy when they open a bottle, but that doesn't mean it's good for them.

Up unto this point, I have dealt with the soft side. I don't expect everyone to understand all that. But, it is certainly not the picture painted in the quoted post above.

Now comes the tricky bit. Pain. Physical pain in a BDSM relationship is inflicted for just three primary reasons. Punishment ? Yes. Pleasure ? Yes. Experimentation (ie to see if it "works") ? Yes.

Ego stroking ? Yes. Delight in cruelty ? yes. Sadism ? Yes.

There is a golden rule in BDSM. "Safe, Sane, Consensual". Those three words ought not to need further explanation. But no BDSM "activity (including tickling, which, like it or not, IS a BDSM activity) should ever occur with one of those words missing.

Who exactly enforces this "Golden Rule"? If you make the rules, what stops your from interpreting the Golden Rule in whatever way you see fit?

To me the definition of the word "sadism" is the "derivation of pleasure as a result of the suffering of others". When I inflict pain upon my submissive, this clearly tells me that I am NOT a sadist. Why ?

Firstly, in her case the endorphin rush (caused by the pain) takes her to "flying" very quickly. She loves it when she flies. She is very sexually aroused, but this is not the main dynamic. I don't pretend to be able to explain all the biology and chemistry, but it IS biology and chemistry. Not a weak mind, not a blabbering mass of humanity, it is a chemical reaction. She LOVES being taken to "sub space". And that is why I am NOT being a sadist. Because she is not suffering.

That depends on what you are doing to her, which at this point, I don't even want to know. But most actions that cause pain, also cause damage, so even if her mind isn't suffering from the pain, her body certainly is.

From Dictionary.com
Sadism
1. Psychiatry. sexual gratification gained through causing pain or degradation to others.​

By this definition you sir, are indeed a sadist.

Secondly, I don't actually get sexually aroused by the infliction of pain. Her submission arouses me. But I have never taken sexual pleasure from seeing cane marks on her buttocks. Why do I do it ? Because she wants me to. She physically wants to go to the place where chemistry takes over. That is the pleasure derived from the pain.

It's one thing to inflict pain only as a desire to give her what she wants. I wouldn't exactly call it healthy, but at least your heart would be in the right place. But if you take pleasure in any aspect of the act, then you can't really say you are doing it only for her

What about punishment ? Why should there be punishment ? In our case it is inflicted because she has broken a rule that she, of her own free will, agreed to comply with. She doesn't have to accept the punishment, she knows that she can walk away any time. But she wants to take it. Because she knows that will please me. Thus, it will please her.

It seems silly to me to make rules for her to deliberately break in order to get the punishment you love to give her and she loves to receive. You could circumvent a lot of unnecessary drama and just get right to the punishment, but I suppose the drama is like foreplay.

In my case I rarely use pain for punishment. Why ? Well, firstly, she normally associates pain with pleasure. The "mind fuck" that would result from painful punishment would be confusing, within our dynamic. When I do, rarely, use pain, it is something quite different to our normal routine. (In fact she actually gets long periods of foot tickling as part of her punishment, something which she describes as "far worse than pain". I also use written punishments.)

"far worse than pain." But I thought pain was pleasure for her? Ecstacy even, going by your description. Generally when somebody says A is worse then B, it presupposes that A is bad, just not AS bad. This seems inconsistent with your claims that she doesn't suffer from the pain, which, if you'll forgive me, I'm having difficulty accepting.

To me, the BDSM relationship is one of the strongest, most loving and trusting relationships there can be. Yes, it is different. No, it isn't for many people. But let's not judge it, without understanding it.

I understand everything you've said, but I'm afraid my observations stand. You see a strong, loving, and trusting relationship. I see one based on asserted superiority, ego stroking, vanity, and subjugation.

There are sexual sadists out there. But these people will exist on the outside of BDSM. These are bad people, with serious issues. But they are as removed from mainstream BDSM

I understand that what they do is not what interests you, but you really shouldn't judge them without understanding them. Food for thought?

 

[Anna6-9]

I'm fairly dominant in personality, at least when I'm comfortable with the people I'm around, and especially on this forum. I have a hard time showing any kind of weakness in my normal life.

So, depending who you are, the fact that I'm submissive kind of makes sense.

Like those CEOs of huge companies that like to go to fetish clubs and be humiliated and spanked.

I guess it's kind of appealing to me to have someone make all the decisions and me just take it. I don't know.

But the process of going from regular Mairead to submissive Mairead is a strange one. I'm pretty tough as a 'lee, or I'd like to think. When I'm getting tickled, I growl, bite, and generally fight back a little. I've been somewhat "trained" not to squirm or thrash around too much by some experienced 'lers. So it's not much of a fight, but actually when the tickling starts I get kinda mad. It's weird. I'm frustrated at first at the thought of being forced to do something, but after a while, that starts to break down and I'm kinda swallowed up by submissive-ness. I will pretty much do anything or say anything at that point (that point being restrained, nearly naked, tired, and sweating profusely).

The submissiveness lasts anywhere from a few hours to a few days where I'm quiet, shy, and almost sweet. Almost.

But I soon go back to being the SAM, I am.

Hope this helped, somewhat.

I agree completely! Its nice to not be responsible for a little while. To let go and not be in charge or make decisions. I fight the change from Dominant Day Mom to Submissive Tickle Slave hard but I crave it. At times I beg for it. But I have days where I want to be Mistress Devine (thats what he calls me).

 

[Icycle]

I have a very submissive personality, and I naturally prefer a submissive or bottom role, sexually or otherwise. Until recently, I have not had much opportunity to explore this aspect of my sexual personality very deeply.

My wife LindyHopper is a lee/bottom. When we go to gatherings or in private tickling play, she is the one who gets tied up and tickled. I am not a true tickling enthusiast like most people here, so for me, the experience of tickling her, while fun, doesn't fill any core need in me. And relevant to the topic of discussion here, the role of top/dominant feels very awkward and unnatural to me. Therefore, my favorite tickle sessions involving Lindy are usually group scenes, in which I can essentially "follow" one or more dominant lers in the scene.

Last night I volunteered for my first time as a lee at local tickle gathering, and it was a great experience. Although I still don't think of tickling as my fetish, the experiencing of being a lee clicked for me in way that being a ler never did. And interestingly, it wasn't so much about the tickling per se, but about ceding of control to my lers.

In some ways, I was a very cooperative lee, as I gave my lers plenty of feedback as to the best places and techniques to tickle me most effectively. I wanted them to use this information ruthlessly. I wanted to lose control, and I wanted to make sure my lers had all the tools to accomplish it as best they could. I think for me, this ceding of control was the core of the experience, and the tickling, while pleasurable in itself, was merely a means to an end.

The best part of the experience for me was when my lers were nailing different sensitive spots simultaneously, leaving me completely helpless.

Afterwards, I was high for hours from the experience.

 

[Amnesiac]

Thread Ain't Dead Yet!

Through most fault of my own, I've kinda directed this thread into being a defensive argument that's driven away all but the most long-winded of us. Aside from some damn interesting arguments by Headsnap, I think it's time to revert back to the original intent and to detail or describe the subjective experience of being a SUB or DOM/ME, and the possible individual reasons as to why it is.

I say forget trying to argue the true nature of BDSM relationships: the fact is, nobody knows enough about the human brain to truly answer that, even if a team of Nobel-Prize winning neurologists were on this site. Secondly, even if we HAD the answer, it wouldn't be universally applicable; some SUBs and DOM/MEs would feel the answer conflicts with their interpretation of their own subjective experience. Thirdly, as people such as drew have indicated, truth would not be able to supercede beliefs--the day the homosexuality question is answered is the day the Monotheists secede from the world into sectarian societies--and regardless of how consentual supposedly harmless behavior is, it isn't enough to undo centuries of Interventionist moral philosophy. So it's a bit pointless now to try.

What I will say about the biological imperative arguments that seem to be going on here--and I won't go into detail because it's a hellofalotta quotes--is that there's the commenting on the disparity between inherited hard-wired behavior as instinct and as accessory; that is, how can ticklnig as a pleasure response be necessary for survival? Mutation? Aberration? other? I argued (unsuccessfully) that the HARD-WIRED potential of fetishes/philias may be instinctive...but the specific fixations/associations/inrepretations (tickling, bondage, pain, etc.) are up to external factors (although I might suggest that individual neurology might favor one or the other depending on sensitivity). I didn't mean to say that tickling was HARD-WIRED as a fetish in the HARD-WIRED argument. I meant to say that maybe the absolute BASE of tickling was among many thousands of potential aggregates that ARE HARD-WIRED into us, and any one of them could become a pleasureable fetishistic (or philia) association, each depending on the unknown aspects of personality and interpretation. After all, ticklishness varies, but it still possesses an unknown natural purpose (reflex against insects has been hinted) inherent to our survival as something OTHER than sexual/platonic gratification, but that doesn't exclude it from BECOMING one...the fact that it does AND doesn't is, I think, a mathematical matter.

There are thousands of gradations of pain, all of which contribute to survival, but those same gradations also seem to apply to BDSM practice. So, as far as the HARD-WIRED THEORY GOES, I would imagine, after reading these responses, that IF the hard-wired theory is correct, that tickling and pain are PRIMARY SURVIVAL TOOLS that become haphazardly incorporated into SECONDARY purposes (like a screwdriver being used as a chisel) as a requirement for a certain personality through a combination of experience and association.

As far as "deviancy" is concerned--not DVNC, he's cool--I hold that in doubt. Reason being that we've never had a blank slate to start with, so we've only really had ONE norm to "deviate" from. This is why I despise Queer Culture and Queer Politics because to me it seems like a deliberate and somewhat elitist exaggeration of natural impulses. In a civilization whose morals ATTACK and DEOMONIZE sexual activity outside of the oppressively utilitarian context outlined in Scripture, OF COURSE those belonging to an oppressed community will be labeled deviant, even if Mother Nature and Uncle DNA might argue otherwise (albeit in secret). It's a historical certainty that after a while, oppressed communities become inured to their sub-citizen status and adopt their "deviancy" as not only a sign of pride, but also as a definition of self and identity; the very act of homosexual sex in Western society has been transformed into a political act, an act of rebellion. But imagine a society where homosexuality never WAS demonized or attacked: the gay community over there might look at the gay community over here and perceive them as raving lunatics who pervert the sexual act by turning it into a pretentious political expression instead of an expression of personal feeling. So therefore it's hard for me to accept any "deviancy" or "perversion" claims or any other outgrowth of "queering" language because we've never seen these practices, homosexual, BDSM, tickling, other/all in a neutral environment. The whole self-proclaimed "deviancy" attitude may be more perverse than the "wholsomeness" attitude ever was.

Masturbation is quite the innate activity in many, many people and it can start very early in life, but they never ever saw anyone or anything to put the act into their wee heads.
-Bella

Actually, scientists have discovered masturbation activity on ultrasounds, so an argument could be made about masturbation being natural. But I'm not going there here.

It sounds like the kind of psychotherapy involved in Earheart Seminar Training (EST) back in the seventies. They basically break you down, and build you back up, and then you're this incredibly happy person for coming through the ordeal.
- drew70

Keep in mind drew, that ALL current methods of training utilize this practice, including and ESPECIALLY educational ones. The fact that children are partially blank to begin with (an argument you hear a lot from parents and moralists who perpetuate the belief that children are empty vessels who can be modled by anybody) only means that less effort is required to building them back up than an adult. And also keep in mind that the various forms of discipline we use in child-rearing--spanking being the oldest--can fall under the definition of a breaking stressor, especially since pro-spanking people argue it's necessary to dealing with "willful" children. Just because you can find sexual exploitation of this kind in SOME (not all) practitioners doesn't make it the EXCLUSIVELY evil version of this.

This environment of control is a recipe for codependency. It's great for you, you get to call the shots, but for her it's unhealthy and degrading.
-drew70

Uh, hate to tell you this drew, but that's kinda what the relationship between God and humans is. The Book of Job is a SCREAMING BDSM relationship story, and I'm surprised it hasn't been adapted into a more bondage-oriented erotica. Think about it, God, the ultimate master who can never be subdued basically beats the shit out of his subordinate who still loves and bends to his will no matter how much abuse he takes. In fact, the story indicates that Job's eventual near-rebuking of God for His acts as the WRONG thing to do. The moral of the story is to trust God no matter what because He always loves you no matter what He does/allows to happen...that's pretty much kinda what a SUB and DOM/ME have...only without the death and abusive shit.

*please send hate responses to an alternate thread...make one up if you have to, I don't mind, just not here.

NOW THEN, ON TO THE NEW OLD DIRECTION.


The original purpose of this thread was to get an insight into the inner feelings of SUBS and DOM/MEs as they played and to what pivotal NEED or PURPOSE it fulfilled so that it could give vanillas insight into what it is to be one or the other. Since then, we've gotten a lot of feedback, at least BEFORE THE ARGUING from the SUBS about what it is like to be them (except KittenToes, who I hope comes here soon), and a general idea of the process involved in being a SUB, but it still is missing a few things. We have BARELY heard at ALL from the DOM/MEs on this matter--maybe because the need to be in control prevents them from elaborating on their inner intimate thoughts--and I'd like to see that change.

Part of the problem is what I mentioned from the beginning: some people have great difficulty describing an extremely abstract thing in concrete words. After all, when you're in the throes of ecstacy or head-space--where time itself loses meaning--you don't necessary examine your own thoughts and feelings and write them down in a Kerouackian fit of writing. I do, but that's because I'm weird. Doing it afterwards when the chemicals subside ruins precise memory recall.

There's been a few recurring characteristics, mostly from the SUBS like Giggle and Bella, and the following from Anna:

Its nice to not be responsible for a little while. To let go and not be in charge or make decisions. I fight the change from Dominant Day Mom to Submissive Tickle Slave hard but I crave it.
- Anna 6-9

which all seem to revolve around giving up control to another person to escape the stress of being in control. Which is what partially fueled my theory of BDSM stuff being a form of stress relief for specific personalities: most of those answering are personalities instinctively seeking out a stress-inducing lifestyle that forces them to seek out a unique scenario to FORCIBLY coerce them into relinquishing control. Odd isn't it?

Cloudgazer alluded to the almost spiritual qualities of BDSM exchanges; that they created a stronger trust and deeper bond that made the pleasure so much more enriching and powerful, thus making the experience more satisfying. Bella mentioned that subbing made her feel more relaxed because someone else took charge of the environment and that made her "melt" and feel secure. Giggle mentioned that she's dominant in most every way except the one thing that she REALLY needs (apart from cigarettes), where being submissive is the key ingredient to making the physical pleasure work.

So this is where the key ingredient of NEED comes into play, and why DOM/MEs need to chime in, because comparing the two natures seems to be important.

One could almost expand on Cloud's statement by suggesting that our society has been so closed off to vulnerable, intimate contact that extreme activity like this is the only strong bond left that is purely mutual and devoid of superficiality. But this is likely a subjective experience and not everyone probably makes the spiritual allusion.

But I would argue that the release is a more universal constant in the BDSM world, because it seems to happen regardless of practice and form. But what develops this NEED and how does each need apply to each individual?

When I tickle a lee, there's inevitably a sexual arousal (whether I act on it is up to the victi-I mean 'lee); but there's also 2-3 other components. One, I'm obsessed/intrigued with exploring flesh, especially girlflesh; to touch and experience all kinds of flesh with all kinds of different textures and sensitivities and to touch another perosn's pleasure centers and see what makes them work is AWESOME to me; which is probably why I'm so sexually greedy. Two, I'm a reaction junkie and seeing a woman writhe in exhaustive laughter is a very appealing reaction for me to see. When I look at the face, I have to imagine what choas must be going on inside the walls on her skull. I'm forcing her brain to experience sensations that invoke a (perhaps duplicitously so) pleasureable sensation but to a degree that she has trouble managing and must acclimatize herself in some way. I'm also constantly intrigued by the various facial contortions that denote various stages and intensitities of pleasure. In short, the tickling session FEELS to me like I am forcing someone to endure unspeakable pleasure to the point where it's unbearable yet somehow they persist in feeling it. That feeling of having made someone else feel pleasure gratifies me in a conscientious way...watching other people be happy makes me happy so this is the non-sexual NEED that is being met. The NEED to see other people happy, even if torturously so. The sexual aspect is a combination of personal experience with tickling (maybe there's a little vicariousness to it relating to the extinct lee in me), and the extreme excitement that someone else is being made happy BY me as a result of my own skill. So in a way, it is a slight ego boost.

But notice how that while RELEASE is present in my confession, control is not. I don't feel dominant, and I don't need to feel dominant. All I need to feel is the flesh moving under my work and the reactions from the 'lee. The reactions denote sensation and that verification of sensation lets me know there's a connection. It doesn't make me feel powerful, just successful. More "I done a good thing George!" than "I am your master now!" But for a DOM/ME who's in control 100% of the time (like Libertine and LeeAllure) who are not only in control in life but also in play, the ACT of being in control serves as the release itself. So how does this variation of release and NEED work? What is it like to be in control, what is the process of getting into the mood and what slips away to sweet release during the domination?

So with this slight musing at hand, what other addendums do you SUBS have to bring about your own experience or feeling of being submissive? DOM/MEs are priority here for now, but SUBs please chime in all you want with more insight.

 

[LindyHopper]

I think it's time to revert back to the original intent and to detail or describe the subjective experience of being a SUB or DOM/ME, and the possible individual reasons as to why it is.

Dude! Icycle bumped your dead thread with a post that fits this criteria perfectly, and you totally ignore his comments. Not cool, man.

Anyhoo, participating in Icycle's first 'lee experience, and discussing it at length with him afterwards, has helped us both clarify what bottoming is like for us, and that we each approach the experience in very different ways.

I have a very submissive personality, and I naturally prefer a submissive or bottom role, sexually or otherwise.

For context: this is probably the single biggest personality difference between us. I am naturally a very dominant person, and this quality is apparent in virtually everything I do. Yet I'm a 'lee. Since Icycle and I are different people going into a tickling scene, this sets the stage for different sorts of interactions.

...interestingly, it wasn't so much about the tickling per se, but about ceding of control to my lers.

In some ways, I was a very cooperative lee, as I gave my lers plenty of feedback as to the best places and techniques to tickle me most effectively. I wanted them to use this information ruthlessly. I wanted to lose control, and I wanted to make sure my lers had all the tools to accomplish it as best they could. I think for me, this ceding of control was the core of the experience, and the tickling, while pleasurable in itself, was merely a means to an end.

This is very different from the way I approach 'leeing. Generally speaking, when I get tied down on the bed, I'm still my usual dominant self. I resist the tickling sensations, resist giving in, for as long as I can. I don't actively cede control to my 'lers. Aside from complaining when there's something I don't like, I don't offer feedback (at least not verbally) about how to tickle me effectively. I'm one of the least cooperative 'lees that I know. 😛

Yet I also want to lose control. I want to reach the point where I'm utterly helpless, laughing hysterically, pleading for mercy. But for me, an important part of that journey is being taken there, forced there almost, by my 'ler(s), as if against my will. I enjoy trying not to laugh, or not reacting when it tickles, because feeling that laughter take over me shows me that I'm no longer in control. That awareness, to me, is part of the rush.

Of course, by the end of a great scene, I'm usually putty. The slightest touch anywhere will get me giggling, and I might be too tired... and yes, submissive... to try to get away. I treasure those end-of-scene, post-orgasmic tickles, because those are the ones happening while I'm in that mental space of submission, which was my goal in the first place.

Afterwards, I was high for hours from the experience.

Yes, I can certainly relate to that feeling. And so while it's fairly obvious to me what bottoms get out of submission, it's less clear to me what tops get out of domination. It doesn't appear to me that there's an equivalent high. So I agree with Amnesiac that it would be great to hear from more Doms about this. What does topping do for you, psychologically?

 

[Amnesiac]

Dude! Icycle bumped your dead thread with a post that fits this criteria perfectly, and you totally ignore his comments. Not cool, man.
- LindyHopper

I wasn't TRYING to ignore him, I was just trying to put an end to all the back-and-forth that had been going on (and for which I had been responsible for). I was worried that comments LIKE his and Anna's would be buried under further posts unless I did something.

Besides, his post DIDN'T get ignored. YOU brought it back to attention😀

 

[notcoolzeus]

This is VERY VERY interesting to me, mainly because I'm currently majoring in psych and the human psychology really interests me. My interests in tickling, probably isn't in the majority. To me, I don't get off on the torture aspect of it, but the flirting and teasing of it all. Because of this, I prefer to watch videos with a women tickler because guys don't seem to be very flirtatious and are more into the torture aspect it seems. When I see tickling randomly in real life or on TV, it REALLY turns me on. I'm not a big fan of watching videos that I already have seen because the buildup turns me on almost more than the tickling and if I know whats going to happen I guess it loses some of its appeal. I remember before when I was younger randomly stumbling upon a howard stern tickling episode and I cummed before the tickling even started! I guess tickling probably isn't my main fetish, almost a subfetish for me.


Anyway, I'm a ler and a lee. I probably like the lee aspect because I'm not really the leader type or a very take charge person. I love this because I get the teasing and flirting but without the responsibility of being in control. The ler option probably turns me on because it's a rare change to finally be in control. I just really love the ability to have so much power over someone, in a fun, flirtatious kinda way.

I'll probably contribute more to this thread later but it's time to read the other 46 posts now...

 

[LindyHopper]

I wasn't TRYING to ignore him, I was just trying to put an end to all the back-and-forth that had been going on (and for which I had been responsible for). I was worried that comments LIKE his and Anna's would be buried under further posts unless I did something.

Like bury it yourself under three pages of recap about the back-and-forth that you're supposedly trying to end? In case you hadn't noticed, it was already over, man, four days dead. Icycle was getting your thread back on track, and you just dragged it back down again.

Besides, his post DIDN'T get ignored. YOU brought it back to attention😀

Yes, I did. Because if I hadn't, no one would even have seen it. You pushed if off my very-large monitor four times over.

If you want to keep a thread on a certain topic, devote your attention to the content you want, not the content you don't. Don't give the hijackers more attention than the people who post on-topic. Simple, yes?

 

[tickles]

Fascinating thread...too much "splitting hairs" ....I think the individual "spinning" of the definitions of buzz words like...torture, abuse, rape, consensual, innate....is creating some of the controversy. Typically, these words are used in a setting of violation, against the will of another. When the words "consensual" are put alongside the word "torture" a gray area is created. I like the original intent of the thread...it is helping me integrate these definitions.....very interesting and I learned something about myself. Ticklishgiggle's posts and Vipers first post are great info.........thanks. I hope this thread becomes more informative again instead.