By Sir Alex - (See other posts by Sir Alex):
Thanks for the questions about humiliation play. I’m so glad I get to answer more of these!
First, I’m so glad that you understood the intent in my post. I’ve already heard from experienced submissives missing the point entirely which is... aggravating. But I hope anyone who misunderstood the original message reads your first paragraph here in case it better explains what I had been trying to convey. Regardless, let’s answer your question but I’m going to put in some background first because if it isn’t helpful for you, it could be helpful for others. If you get bored or just want to skip to the part directly about humiliation, look for TL;DR below.
Defining terms - Just in case we need to toss this in here, let’s start with a quick definition of humiliation vs degradation. They often overlap a bit, and I’ve seen kinksters use them interchangeably when they don’t quite mean the same thing.
• Humiliation - “I find what you’re doing embarrassing to me, and feeling the exposure of embarrassment in this way is sexual for me.”
• Degradation - “I get off on feeling like I’m less than or less of a person because of what my dominant does, or how he makes me feel.”
What if I don’t find humiliation sexy? - You may be sitting there and saying “But that’s not sexy.” Fair. For you it’s not sexy, but for others, that is what’s sexy about it. It’s ok not to find everything sexy as long as you don’t make anyone feel shitty about their kink. In fact, I’d actively encourage you to talk to people with kinks you don’t like and ask if they’d explain what makes it sexy for them.
I wasn’t into flogging or pain play until I talked to someone in a dungeon about what the appeal was. Even if you still don’t find that play sexy, talking to someone who loves it is probably the best chance you’ll have at discovering a new side to yourself.
Almost all kinks have a variety of flavor specific to an individual, so as a dominant part of my exploration of whether a submissive is a good fit for me is asking that person to talk about their kinks and what about them is sexy for that person. As a result, I have a lot of anecdotal tales around different ways kink is expressed in different people.
Intro to transgression and societal transgression - Your confusion actually seems to be right on point in terms of understanding humiliation. I think your primary confusion is that you don’t understand why it’s arousing to others because it’s not arousing to you. Humiliation is a belittling sort of play and intentionally so, that’s where the arousal comes from! I think one of the important aspects of sexual arousal to understand is transgression. People often find that they have sexual feelings about things they profess to hate or dislike expressed in masturbation.
Transgression can be against society, for example, sex in public is transgressing against society because it is illegal and people could have strong reactions of shock if they caught someone having sex in public. For this hypothetical person, the risk of getting caught and the potential negative reaction add a big sexual charge for them.
Transgression against the self - Transgression against the self is actually much more taboo and much more personal. Transgression against the self tends to have more roots in degradation than humiliation. Here’s a couple of examples of kinks I’ve seen in my journey through the tumblr and bdsmlr space that transgress against the self (and sometimes society): political play (someone expressing what they consider taboo political thoughts and sexualizing it), race play (someone expressing taboo thoughts around race and getting a sexual charge from it), or gender roles roleplay (playing out misogynistic roles between genders for sexual gratification).
I chose particularly taboo fetishes to really illustrate the nature of personal transgression. There likely are democrats out there who really believe that republicans are doing a lot of awful things to the country and sexually play out fantasies of losing control of the country to their political opponents. There are men of all colors that have had awful experiences of race, yet still find sexual satisfaction from it behind the bedroom doors but still take to the streets to fight injustices against their community.
There are feminists out there who sexually enjoy the idea of being treated poorly by a misogynist man that would never express it outside of the bedroom. All of those people have in common strong personal beliefs or ethical codes outside of the bedroom that inside the bedroom they play out. In fact, there’s an extent to which the roles and kinks described above are a caricature of how they imagine people who actually believe in conservative values, misogyny, and racist attitudes towards POC.
Often the role of sexual transgression against the self, is one of catharsis. Getting to control an experience they have in the world that’s negative and use it for sexual gratification for a short time can purge the buildup of negativity before delving into the outside world.
TLDR; Referencing your original observation: “However, the word seems to me to have the meaning of disparagement or debasement.” Humiliation as defined earlier does have an embarrassment aspect to it. You are also correct that it can be something that the submissive finds embarrassing such as “men who dress in women’s clothes” because they find it humiliating to do so.
You’re also not wrong that subs and doms play with the idea that the sub is forced to do it by the dom, but the truth is if humiliation for “being dressed up in women’s clothing” is your kink? There’s little to no “force” actually involved. Just the play of “force”. Any kink or BDSM play has to be consensual or it’s rape, so always understand that underlying principle when you see play that looks particularly harsh. I think one of the important things to understand for yourself is that there are other betas who want to be respected for their role but that enjoy the transgression against themselves, of having just one man in the whole world they’d allow to treat them that way. If there’s any way that humiliation is likely to appeal to you, I’m betting that’s it.
Conclusion - I don’t know you well writer, but I’m betting that your confusion around humiliation is coming from either a curiosity of “should I look into this?” or maybe a curiosity of “I’m into this, and it doesn’t fit my self-image.” If you’re curious about humiliation, I’d encourage you to explore it more. There’s plenty of blogs here on tumblr and bdsmlr that will be happy to explore that space for you. If you explore it and find that it’s really not for you, that’s a good thing. Knowing what you want and don’t want is really important for submissives. It helps dominants know where your boundaries lie and makes you unique as a sub. Now if you’re already found that you’re into it and having complex feelings around your need to be respected vs your need to be disrespected? That’s only natural when you have conflicting desires. If that’s something you need help with, write me back. I think I’ve rambled enough for one answer.
Have a question or need a friendly ear?
Ask me anything about BDSM at BDSMadviceAlex AT gmail DOT com!
And please, repost my answer if you liked it so others who need to hear this can find it.
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