At the dawn of my spanking experiences, play was all about head-space and role-play for me, and the idea that it was possible to enjoy spanking for the sake of sensation was pretty alien to me.
Nowadays, more and more I catch myself fantasising about the pure sensation of pain: clean and sharp, or perhaps warm and enveloping. Something that’s not about an emotional experience, but pure physicality.
It’s an interesting change, and I have no idea where it’s come from, but I’m enjoying it a great deal.
How about you? Does physical pain with no headspace behind it appeal to you at all? Have you always felt like this, or has this changed recently?
Haron! I can so absolutely relate — it’s been happening the same way for me: in the beginning it was solely about the psychology and mental aspects (and it still very much is about them, but not entirely any more).
In the last few years, I have begun noticing that same intermittent craving… Not all the time, but every once in a while, the physical sensation is what I find myself fantasizing about, more than the mental aspects…
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that in the beginning, I really didn’t have much of an idea of what a spanking or caning actually felt like…? 😀
I think a headspace of some kind is always involved, even if it’s simply that which always accompanies the profound exchange of trust and power between partners. Role-play can engender head trips, but head trips don’t necessarily need role-play. (Also role-play is a safe delimiter of what may take place in a scene. E.g. No need to worry about a cat-of-nine tails across your bottom or genital whipping in an authentic 1950s English school scene.) Interestingly, mid-session it has happened that the role-play palette felt limiting and both partners wanted to use more “sensation-hues”. Have you felt this too?
I see our brains and bodies as means to impart or receive exhilaration. Pain is amoral. Pointe’s question to her friends puts it succinctly, “What does extreme sensual stimulation mean for you?” Pain is just another sensation, and coming from a profession where distinguishing between positive and harmful pain is fundamental to progress, it doesn’t take a great leap to use positive pain to exploit our pleasures.
After an ad hoc, but very testing scene (non role-pay, but with plenty of head-trips), where I received, a dear friend, thanking me for my gift of trust which enabled her to exploit her sensual sadism to the extent she wished, said, “Your trust and vulnerability empowered me and the suffering ‘ennobled both the giver and the receiver.(1)”
You wrote, “Something that’s not about an emotional experience, but pure physicality.” I don’t think our brains’ pleasure wiring is sufficiently sophisticated to discriminate when it comes to elation, be it engendered by sensual, psycho-sexual or purely emotional impulses. While the sources or triggers may be many and varied the ensuing pleasure and afterglow are very similar. The key issue is trust during moments of irrationality.
To your final question, my very first ‘pure SM’ experiences were sensual and totally free of any guilt or illicitness, so I’m sure that colors my perspective.
R
(1) Alan Rickman in ‘Closet Land’
It always happens with a longer post, and I wish I’d improved earlier words before hitting the enter key…
To your final question, my very first ‘pure SM’ experiences were sensual and totally free of any authoritarian atmosphere, guilt, or illicitness. Using, amongst other things, the equipment of corporal chastisement, I was encouraged to explore another’s limits and intense sensual stimulation and my own. I’m sure that influenced my perspective.
R
@Redhead — Thank you for reminding me of Alan Rickman, and of Closet Land! 😀 Very intriguing film 😀
for me it varies depending on mood. Sometimes it’s just sensation, sometimes I want the whole fantasy attached
Sometimes the physical pain is all that I experience in a scene. The head space time comes before the session. I wonder what it will be like. I do enjoy going into full head space. I never turn down the opportunity of a spanking. When my wife asks me if I want a spanking there is always only answer. Even if a session is not as enjoyable as I was expecting (the rarest exception) I still am very glad of the session. Looking at the effects is always a great turn on. If we haven’t played for a while my comment is that Pam has not forgotten how to do it.