Humiliation

19 Replies

Well, alright, the picture doesn’t actually relate to the heading. But I love lense flare and I’m rather keen on the photographer. And, laaaaaa, it’s my blog, hoorah!

Before I start, thank you everyone for your extremely kind and lovely comments, emails and Get Well cards. You’ve helped me through a really weird, painful and frustrating time, and while I’m not sure if I’m on the mend or not at the moment, I’m certainly on less drugs for now, and my head is clear enough to blog.
Righty -ho, here goes. I hope it’s interesting, this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few weeks, and I’d love to know what other people think.
The reason I’ve started thinking about the subject of humiliation is because over the last few weeks, I’ve not been able to do so much of a lot of the things that make me feel ok about myself. Although I complain about being busy and rushing all over the place working, I really like being booked for lots of different jobs, and I’m proud of being able to do a good job for most of the different people I work for. I like being ok at housework, and I like it when I can cook for the BDM (which has never been all that often, TBH…) I’m quite proud of myself, I guess, for having enough energy to do a 4 hour drive, a day’s work, another 4 hour drive and then get up the next day and do it all over again. And I suppose I was proud of being physically fairly fit.
Having had a couple of months in and out of hospital, resting a lot, and not being able to work full-time has been upsetting and humiliating.
Now there’s no surprise that it’s not been very sexy, but it did remind me how absolutely horrible the feeling of humiliation is. And I wondered to myself, how I could possibly have ever found humiliation hot?
Then I realised, I actually don’t. It’s just that the things that lots of other people would find humiliating don’t happen to have the same effect on me. And this made me very interested.
I suppose being forced to take off your clothes in a roleplay might be awfully humiliating to some people, but I don’t mind being naked, and taking off my clothes feels like a symbol of the exciting things that are likely to happen next. So I have to act humiliated, rather than actually feel it.
Shooting pet-girl training, as I have quite often (most recently for the fab www.petandponygirls.com ) is definitely potentially humiliating, but I find it really relaxing not to have to talk, and I think I’m quite good at being a ponygirl (ego, hello) so I don’t find it humiliating at all.
Spanking (and other types of pain play) certainly doesn’t humiliate me either. Not really (though I enjoy pretending, definitely). I suppose that I actually feel proud rather than humiliated if I’m feeling anything other than scared and turned on…
Corner-time, which is surely specifically designed for humiliation doesn’t really have that effect on me either. I really like imagining that I feel terribly shamed, but I don’t actually mind it. Exposure doesn’t make me feel anything bad at all.
And so the list goes on in my head – all these things which look humiliating from the outside, but are in fact just hugely good fun for me. And I think they’re fun because they’re meant to be humiliating, but just happen not to be for me. Rather than happening to be fun in spite of the fact that some people would find them humiliating.
I wonder if that’d be the same for most other spanking models? I’m sort of guessing so, but some of us might actually genuinely be humiliated by those things, but maybe enjoy them because they are…
Then I thought about things which actually are humiliating for me. In the BDSM context, these include;-
1) Things which are presented to you as though they’ll hurt, and then don’t. Out of politeness, I tend to pretend that they’re really painful anyway, but that does make me feel ridiculous, and therefore humiliated. I’d much rather have the implement that actually hurts than the silly pretend-y Ann Summers version.
2) As I’ve talked about before, lame story lines that don’t match any character I could possibly hope to play successfully. Ohhhhh Lordy, that is genuinely, awfully humiliating.
3) Being tied up, and then given a task to do which is pretty much impossible. It makes me feel clumsy, uncoordinated and therefore humiliated.
4) Pretending to have orgasms. I simply won’t. Humiliating, humiliating, humiliating. I won’t have real ones on-screen either, but that’s for a different reason.
5) Peephole bras and crotchless panties. I don’t know why, but I’d feel hideously humiliated by having to wear them. Nude feels much better to me.
In a non-BDSM context, there’s a longer list. I won’t put everything down, because I think that might be dull. Some of the first that spring to mind are;-
1) Pronouncing words wrong. I quite often do this, having learned lots of words by reading rather than hearing them spoken. Ohhhhh the shame. I still blush if I think about examples from years ago.
2) Not being able to speak other European languages well. The shame! I’d feel much more like a proper international model if I could, but I’m rubbish. And the bits I can say, I don’t dare in case I get the pronunciation wrong.
3) Realising I’m being boring.
And on that note, I’ll jolly well stop.
Thanks for reading, if you’ve got this far!
A/a xx

19 thoughts on “Humiliation”

  1. Dana

    I’m relieved to see you’re well enough to blog. Now I really want to read that you’re successfully past whatever is messing with your health. Nothing would be better news than that.

    I do think this post is interesting. Humiliation is a very meaningful subject to me, and to the point where it seems anything I’d say about it would be inadequate in explaining my feelings. In the BDSM context, I think humiliation (more like embarrassment) is a feeling that stirs the drink for me, so to speak. In that context, the quality of humiliation is very different than the feeling of being incompetent, boring, unattractive, unintelligent, cowardly, or anything that actually makes someone feel less of themselves. In the BDSM context, the feeling that I call humiliation, that stirs the desired emotions, is really about being attractive as a vulnerable human being. Forced to react to physical pain, to be obedient, to be exposed, to be humbled under power and authority is good when it’s good. It’s good when it satisfies the person who has the feelings, but not for me if the person feels degraded.

    I think what you’re saying, though, is that humiliation (embarrassment) is not your kink. You don’t feel that way when naked, spanked, submissive, etc., and you don’t want to feel that way? If getting a spanking and being put in the corner actually made you feel humiliation, you wouldn’t be involved in that scene?

    It’s interesting to know what kinds of things do make you feel humiliated. Obviously, you want to feel competent, talented, and graceful in a scene, and you don’t want to be involved in a lame production. I’m betting you’re much harder on yourself than your audience. That makes you better at what you do, but from your perspective, you’re likely not able to see how wonderful you are.

    Get well, get well, get well!

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  2. Billy

    I’d think you’d feel utterly shamed that much older, slower, clumsier people are able to run rings around you at composing, reading and answering email. I’d think so, but I’m guessing you aren’t—not really. 🙂

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  3. Martes

    Could this absence of humiliation stem from the fact that you know your audience? You know that we, who watch your work, appreciate the genre and what you are doing.

    Just as a thought experiment, would you feel perfectly at ease with having a few random videos of yours running on a giant screen on Piccadilly Circus or to go knocking on the doors in your neighbourhood, handing out DVDs? The answer may very well be no.

    Language seems to be very important to you (which of course should be expected of an actress). I recently accused you of flinging mangled sentences about on Twitter but I seem to have missed the mark somewhat. Lucky you who speak the world’s most widespread language and don’t really need to learn anything else.

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  4. Anonymous

    When I first started reading this post, I THOUGHT I knew where you were headed with it — I thought you were going to express some variation of an insight I’ve long thought was useful — which is, to draw a distinction between embarrassment and humiliation. Embarrassment is blushing and wanting to hide because everyone can see how good you look. Humiliation is blushing and wanting to hide because everyone can see you looking terrible. Embarrassment is equivalent to the safe fear we go out of our way to feel on a roller coaster. Humiliation is equivalent to the true fear we feel in the middle of an auto accident. Embarrassment (within the kink) is like good pain — what a spankee feels during a well-done spanking. Humiliation is like the bad pain of dropping something on your toe AND then hitting your scalp on the counter when you bend to pick it up.

    But that does not seem to be what you were after at all.

    If I understand your point, you are not distinguishing as I do between embarrassment and humiliation, you are lumping them together. But you are KIND OF making the distinction, because most of your examples of things that are meant to be humiliating, but aren’t, are what I would call embarrassing. So, in my context, what you are saying is, in situations where you are expected to feel embarrassment, you actually feel nothing — you have to simulate the embarrassment. However (again, using my distinction) in humiliating situations, you darn sure do suffer the humiliation.

    Of course, my distinction only applies within the kink. Vanilla people would probably feel humiliation in my “embarrassment” situations — like being required to strip for a punishment, or being put in pet-girl apparatus. But what I hear you saying is that you don’t even feel the embarrassment, and to me, that seems a shame, because it’s part of the fun — part of what gets your adrenaline going, part of what gives you the “safe danger encountered and survived” rush so essential to our kink(s).

    So as for what I call embarrassment, I guess you are just so well-adjusted (by which I mean, such a total perv) that it’s well-nigh impossible to embarrass you by ordinary means.

    And as for genuine humiliation, it’s good for nothing, so I suggest you try not to feel it. For instance, there’s no shame in being sick and not able to work. That should be annoying and frustrating, not humiliating. As for not being able to speak other European languages — ALL of them? You’re going to feel humiliated until you can speak Bulgarian and Portuguese? That’s a high hill to climb.

    Last note, not to interject myself in someone else’s relationship, but you just wrote a post about how you’ve been too sick to work, and the first comment complains that you are behind on correspondence? Seems … picky.

    Michael

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  5. Lou

    Less drugs is good. When I was in hospital, 3 long weeks, a serious illness (see my postings elsewhere here) I was on pain meds for a long time, and as a result, I became dependant on some of them. In the end, I made the decision to stop all meds, except for the odd panadol, (Paracetamol), and that helped me get away from needing them.

    On the subject of humilitation, are you sure its just a humilitating feeling? could there be a bit of frustration there, at perhaps the inability for you to continue your normal day to day duties, or special work, at the interruption to your ‘life’.
    Sometimes your body asks you for an interruption, and if you dont take your body’s advice, one is forced upon you.

    Everyone has to make time for themselves and their spirit. If we all continued on, and on we’d have to be all superhuman, almost robot-like beings.

    I try to live my life not necessarily by societies expectations, but by my own rules (subject to the law, of course!) Just a couple here, as I’m quite sure I could waffle on for pages…

    This is a part of something I remind myself of, all the time..:

    thou shalt schedule time for thyself, and for thy supportive network
    thou shalt switch off and do nothing regularly
    thou shalt be boring, untidy, inelegant and unattractive at times
    thou shalt not even feel guilty
    especially, thou shalt not be thine own worse enemy, but thy best friend

    and a couple of ditties..:

    there’s no such thing as a free lunch
    always have a plan b
    if its too good to be true it probably is
    it is not the what, how or when, but why

    On another point, you are good at what you do, and if thats your way of dealing with whatever happens in life, or its your way of being you, then good for you.

    I feel if people dont wish to accept you as you are then its their loss.

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  6. Anonymous

    Greetings from Texas,
    I do understand what you are saying here. Personally, I have had enough pain and humiliation in my own life I don’t find it a turnon to see others suffer either. I take nothing away from you, that’s just me.

    I hope you get better, being sick is no fun.

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  7. Anonymous

    Very interesting post. It is always fascinating to learn how ostensibly similar kinks can be very different subjectively for different people. 🙂

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  9. Anonymous

    Fascinating post. Humiliation in the context of BDSM is such an interesting subject. Physical and mental pain ought, to my mind at least, be inextricably linked but somehow they’re not always. I absolutely agree that being asked to do something “humiliating” in the context of a CP roleplay for example, can be an enormous turn on and contributes substantially to the overall emotional and physical experience. So, for example, being told to undress or being undressed by someone else, is not at all humiliating, but is indeed something to be relished. Similarly, being spanked or caned can be immensely exciting and not in the slightest bit humiliating. Both of these things would, from a vanilla perspective, surely produce a most upsetting reaction.

    So whilst the physical pain of a beating is often difficult to endure and not inherently “enjoyable” for me, I suspect that it is the mental context of a role-play, that often makes the pain tolerable and it is the mental experience that makes it exciting and pleasurable.

    However, and for me this is where it gets interesting: being made to do the so called “humiliating” thing only works if I find it a turn on. There are plenty of things, which I know many people find immensely pleasurable but for me don’t work at all…….to each their own of course. However, if I were asked/told to do some of those, I’d find it difficult and unfulfilling.

    Where does that get us then? Well, I think it means that whether as top or bottom, but more so as a top, it behoves us to be sensitive to what works for the other person. A sensitive top should try their best to understand what “works” for them, doesn’t necessarily work for the other person. It is so easy to get carried away in your own fantasy that you lose track of the other person. I’ve done it myself and when I’ve realised what I’ve done – well I did find that deeply embarrassing and humiliating.

    Clearly, this is not an exact science and trying things which I thought I would not enjoy have definitely led me to have some amazing experiences. But, and I applaud you AJH, for making clear what absolutely doesn’t work for you and trust everyone is taking note! 🙂

    Thank you for the post. We all miss you so much and hope you’re back to your “full-fat, strawberries and double-cream, vintage champagne” self before too long.

    Paul
    x

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    Interesting is the way you have shared this one. Submission and spanking is the way of increasing intimacy in relationships and give them a long last. The same thing can also be a good way of living out fantasies.

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