Mainly for the reason that all stingy pain brings with it flashbacks of child abuse trauma. It’s just not something I can handle. But I can take thuddy all day long, and probably to the extreme.

So for me personally, yeah I could see sharing a statement like “I could never do that” as a true statement but not necessarily one of implied achievement. And yeah, maybe part of me kind of would like to be able to go that far just because it would be a new kind of consciousness alteration, but I’m totally not interested in the mental collapse that would come with it.

I’ve experimented enough to know exactly what lines I don’t want to cross. I guess it’s a matter of finding one’s own limits and then having respect for them versus trying to live up to some super sub standard that doesn’t exist anyway.

I’m probably rambling. But yeah, admiring someone just for their ability to take pain is questionable at best. Your ability to communicate is much more admirable, imo.

I remember a scene I […] came away with bruises. […] what I remember from that night is the number of subs who came up to me and cooed that I must have been so brave, and it must have been really intense…and the amount of behind the hand comments I overheard about how I must be messed up to “like the abuse.”

To me neither of these things is true, and is honestly why I’ve moved away from playing in public in general.

I can completely understand that motivation, and in fact would have considered leaving the public scene in favor of private play for those many years where all I felt like was the “respected punching bag” I describe in my post, but unfortunately the reality of my situation was that this was not an option because I had no possibility for private play due to a lack of intimate partners. The public scene was my sole outlet for both the physical intensity and the (however shallow) social connection, and so I simply had to grin and bear it.

If you keep reading through my posts, you’ll see the evolution of how it slowly gets better, at least a little bit. Nevertheless, this is clearly still a very big problem in all communities and I really hope we can change people’s attitudes on the matter for the better by example. For instance, some people get pissed at me because I don’t accord respect beyond basic human courtesy to many people that others think deserve said respect for all the inadequate reasons you mentioned.

I get labelled as an ass for doing this, but I think if enough people had the common sense to respect those who deserve it for appropriate reasons (not fearful ones), the tide will eventually turn on this point.

Anyway, I guess this is my intensely long winded way of saying, “Thank you, come again!” ;)

I remember a scene I did in LA, at a public club night, where I came away with bruises. Not little “oh, a stray hit” bruises, but that they’d been the intention. And what I remember from that night is the number of subs who came up to me and cooed that I must have been so brave, and it must have been really intense…and the amount of behind the hand comments I overheard about how I must be messed up to “like the abuse.”

To me neither of these things is true, and is honestly why I’ve moved away from playing in public in general. I don’t want my identity to people “in the scene” (which is a whole different topic) to be based on how hard I play, whether it be a respect granted identity or an aversion granted identity. I far more value the people who’ve developed an identification of me that has to do with the personal/political in kink, or my knowledge of safety skills, or the fact that I have pushed for various dungeons to include aftercare monitors (to do things like make sure there are enough blankets, or pitchers of water out).

I guess this is my intensely long winded way of saying, “Yes. This.”

What I enjoy in my own submissive isn’t that he can take extremely hard blows or whatever (which he basically can’t) but that he can go so far past his own comfort level for me. As a bottom, I actually have (I think) a higher pain threshold than he does, but I won’t travel nearly so far past it. And that is sexy.

But, feh. Respect should be based on knowing people anyway, or watching them play a few times to get a sense of their style. And even then, what does my respect mean to anyone but me?

Which made me think that another thing going on here is perhaps about the D/S aspects. That if one is doing a scene which is about taking pain because that’s what the top wants, then there’s scope for the bottom to feel bad if their ability to deal with pain puts limitations on that.

Of course, what’s actually going on in a scene like that is more about subjective experience (making it hurt X much – where X is perhaps more than the bottom wants, but less than will have them safewording) than it is about objective experience (hitting Y hard). But the mental first approximation when people are thinking about such a scene is perhaps more likely to be about the objective assessment.

OK, now I want to go hit someone with something, or possibly get someone to hit me with something, & make Observational Notes :)