by Jason Stotts
I found an interesting account of a woman explaining why she likes to be whipped. The post is from the blog Beautiful, Depraved (apparently now defunct) and is called ‘6’: The 400 Blows: Pleasure is Pain. (Warning: the site contains nudity)
I have a strong mind and an even stronger will. While I’d been waiting for years for someone who could subdue me, sometimes I wasn’t all that easy to subdue. Even if I wanted to be. Even if I wanted to reach that place of softness, of opening, of letting someone in, I couldn’t necessarily command it into being.
So he’d whip me.
There was an element of ritual to these whippings. A footstool was placed in the middle of his living room that he’d bend me over. I’d be on all fours, with my ass in the air, expectant. Scared. Sometimes the sweat would drip from my armpits, as I knelt poised on the edge of anything-could-happen. I could not move away or flinch or he’d whip me harder. The only recourse I had was acceptance. I could hear the whoosh of the crop through the air and its subsequent sting, slicing my ass, or my upper thighs, would reverberate through my entire body.[…]
There is a gift in someone who dares to be so rough with me. Most men would never dare. I need to know that a man will be so bold, that at least he is capable of this sort of wielding. Then I can trust him. The flimsy men, the ones who would never dare to hurt me, to see me flinch, to bend me over and take me anywhere, anytime; I have no use for. Their trepidation is suffocating to me. And reflective of their behavior outside the bedroom. It always is. You can tell a lot about someone by how they fuck: Timid or decisive. Experimental or staid. Hard-driving and fierce or languid and droopy. My selection criteria is all about this crucial element: Can this man take charge? Does he dare?
Now, I don’t think that there is anything wrong for two people who want to consensually use pain for pleasure. In fact, I think that pain can be used to heighten pleasure and can be a valuable part of a sexual encounter. However, what I find more interesting in this article is the psychological confession of its author.
In the article, the author says that she is a strong and independent woman. Further, although she sometimes wants to submit to a man, she just cannot always do so. Consequently, her partner whips her to force her into the place of submission to him. The problem is, though, that if the only way she can submit to him is via whipping, then it means that he is unable to dominate her in the way she actually wants: he cannot get her to submit to him as a man and so must get her to submit to him as a master. This says to me that her partner is not masculine enough for her, otherwise they wouldn’t need whipping for her to submit to him. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with whipping or that the masculine man could not whip a woman, it’s that he would not need to do so in order to get her to submit to him sexually.
Nonetheless, I really liked reading this psychologically revealing account of whipping and I think that there are interesting things to be learned by looking at people’s deep reasons for doing the kinds of sexual things they do.