Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Kaelah's Corner:
Seeking Out Pain

In my recent Kaelah's Corner post From Bottom to Top I wrote about my change from someone who played only on the bottom side when I started living out my erotic spanking fantasies to someone who usually only prefers the bottom role in explicitly sexual play today and the top role in more formal scenarios. One thing that has changed, too, over the past years, is my relationship with pain.

When I began to play as a bottom, pain of a certain intensity used to turn me on (in the context of erotic spanking). It didn't work when the pain was too strong and when I didn't have any time to get used to it, like, for instance, during our first very severe scene which we made for a video clip. But with pain that started out moderately and became stronger in the end it worked out well.

It seems like I have lost the ability to be turned on by pain during the last years, though. Maybe it has to do with the fact that part of the attraction that kink has for me comes from the feeling of being tough and strong. Maybe that desire was what made the feeling of pain attractive for me because I knew it would make the experience feel real and it would bring me Ludwig's admiration and the admiration of others as well. I also wanted to be able to keep up with Ludwig's admired friends like Niki Flynn and the Mood Pictures and Lupus Pictures models in regard of the severity of the scenes which I had done and my pain threshold.

Maybe the attraction of going through painful scenes ceased when I had the feeling that I had done everything I wanted to do in this regard and that I didn't have anything to prove to anyone anymore. I am not sure whether feeling pain ever was something I wanted intrinsically. Maybe it was only something I needed to go through in order to get the feeling of strength and admiration that I sought out.

And maybe that's why pain doesn't turn me on today anymore. Now that I can feel strong and happy through topping as well, I sometimes really wonder and ask myself why I should be interested in feeling pain? Even the idea of having marks to show around isn't as sexy anymore as it used to be. I've recently done one final severe caning as a bottom which Ludwig and I want to publish as a free video. It was a scenario that we both thought was missing and that we both wanted to do.

But still, for me the creative element was the most attractive part of the caning and the whole experience for me. The pain was simply pain and the marks were nice but my main concern was that they wouldn't take too much time to heal.

It seems like others have experienced similar changes as well. When Adele Haze did a fifty strokes video for the Backlash campaign, she admitted that she hadn't bottomed for more than a year. During the caning it also became clear that nowadays she obviously prefers to experience a kind of pain that is within her comfort zone and makes her feel good rather than pushing her to or even over her boundaries. When Niki Flynn left the scene, it also seemed that she had enough of experiencing pain and couldn't see any reason why she should continue to seek out painful experiences.

So I wonder, are others out there who have made similar experiences? Do you have any explanations? Please share your thoughts in the comment section!

8 comments:

Our Bottoms Burn said...

No explanations from here. Frankly, I never understood those who always needed to endure real pain. Those that always pushed for a more severe session. We never had anything to prove. We both like a hot sting, but not pain. I think it might be healthy that you no longer feel you have to prove you can take it. I think back to your first video's and recall the stoic manner in which you took the cane.

Gustofur said...

You know I enjoy your blog and your photos and videos. That said, I must define my fetish as classical spanking. That is hand to bottom contact. I personally do not like severe pain either as a top or bottom. The excitement is in the flesh to flesh contact. I do watch painful scenes, however, more out of curiosity than erotic enjoyment. Perhaps your change in preference will result in some different product for your blog before you leave us.

Svetlana said...

For me too, pain is only a means to an end. In itself, as a sensation, it is not uninteresting, but not something I sought out just for curiosity. I first accepted it as a necessary part of exploring the powerful emotions that come with corporal punishment and erotic discipline, not as something worth seeking out for its own sake. Since I don't have much of a comfort zone when it comes to pain, it did not have to be that severe to make it real enough for me.

However, overcoming my natural pain aversion in order to have these experiences gave me a sense of being tough and strong. I liked that, wanted more of it and got more of it when a beating was more painful. The contact I had with a few other spanked women (I never dared to explore the wider "scene") introduced a competitive element that can be compared with your desire to keep up with Ludwig's friends. Maybe seeking this sense of accomplishment from pushing oneself and keeping up with others is not kinky in itself, but merely human nature in a kinky context. For example, competing with others or beating my own time when running or swimming gave me very similar feelings.

Still, in the past two years or so, I've not been as keen to push my boundaries in terms of enduring pain. The passion is still there, but the balance in my life has shifted and I no longer spend as much time indulging it as I used to. The same happened to the handful of other spankees I know personally as they began to start families and pursue their careers. We now meet them only infrequently and, when we do, there's as much catching up and reminiscing as actual spanking. I still get spanked by my partner, but other aspects in our relationship are much more important now. In short, the sense of adventure that I used to have about spanking during my 20s is more or less gone. It still fascinates me and I still take pride in enduring a punishment "well", but I now watch clips of really severe discipline like some of yours and many from Lupus or Mood (which, indidentally, I first came across through Ludwig's movie reviews) like I watch professional athletes: full of admiration, but not unhappy to have avoided the sacrifices required to compete on that level.


Bob S said...

There is a phrase in America "Been there, done that, got that tee shirt". With a lot of things in life often the inherent joy/desire goes down with repetition. Maybe it is just the desire to experience new things or maybe it is a tiring of the former experience. I think that you are talking about a totally normal and probably healthful thought.

Anonymous said...

We are approaching our sixties. We started playing before we got married 33 years ago. On the night of our honeymoon I got such a spanking from her and today I spanked her, the thrill has never waned. There has never been any competitive element, its just pure erotic kinkiness. Last weekend we played out a fantasy; I was caned in time with the Ludwig's Comeuppance video. My caning was not as severe as Ludwig's but the bruises are impressive. Delicious! She likes a stingy spanking but insists on the cane on herself only to please me. I administer love taps mostly as there is quite simply no pleasure in inflicting unwanted pain. She does get soundly spanked however and paddled along with it. I suppose we are mostly OBB players at heart, love their posts.

This blog has been such a pleasure to follow however I have always harboured a nagging concern for you (both) for a whole bunch of reasons. Sounds as though you are having a wobble. I hope the journey still has pleasure and novelty to surprise and delight you with. Thanks as always.

Simply

Brian8862 said...

Whilst I started as a bottom, it was only because caning a professional girl here in the UK was an expensive business, assuming you could find a willing bottom to chastise. In Hamburg and elsewhere on the continent, a different attitude seemed to prevail and girls were much more willing to accept the sting of the cane.
I found little satisfaction in causing pain however. If I could have anaesthetised her buttocks before whipping them, I would readily have done so. The fun for me was in the sexual stimulation of both parties, the gentle restraint of the bottom and the exciting swish of the cane or whip. Cutting and tearing open her nice clothes was a sexual bonus for us both if it had been agreed beforehand and if I could steel myself to do the deed.
Relative values change and perspectives alter as the years go by, as we all know, but I'm glad to say that the old urges live on, albeit less intense. It is the physical equipment that lets us down. Peter

Jimisim said...

Pain is an extremely complex thing. to utry to understand it one must recognise that it is a series of nervous and chemical reactions. This can be shown by very pianful ops on legs being performed by spinal block.It is induced by nervous and chemical transmission to the brain. On contact there are a number of complex chemical reactions, these give rise to the histaminic triple weal of caning amongst other things.
When talking about spanking pain or any S&M pain it becomes extremely complex, involving the higher brain in psycho-sexual emotions as well.
While I find receiving a very stingy and mild caning, and occasionally something more severe very stimulating and enjoyable, one has also to be in the right mood and surroundings.
The pain I suffer from my arthritic knees is at best extremely uncomfortable ranging to almost unbearable agony. There is no pleasure in that at, at all, but it is mediated by the same mechanisms as an enjoyable and very stingy caning.
So my advice is to stick to what you enjoy, and remember that a sane consensual spanking should be enjoyable for both partners.
Real brutal pain is probably only enjoyed a psychotic sadist, or a masochist.

Jim

Kaelah said...

Thank you all for your insightful comments and for sharing your personal experiences! It seems I haven't explained one aspect very well, though. It's not that I don't want to do scenes of a certain severity any more whereas lighter scenes still turn me on. Like Svetlana, I always needed a certain intensity of a spanking in order for it to feel real enough to turn me on (it doesn't have to be ultimately severe, but as some of you called it, there has to be at least a certain sting). During the last years, though, it has become more difficult for me to combine the feeling of being spanked with fantasies that turn me on. As a result, all that is left is the feeling of pain / sting. Today, three months after I have written this post, I don't think that the thrill of bottoming is lost forever, though. I just think that I will seek it out less frequently because topping gives me a thrill, too, without the difficulty of having to get into the right headspace to combine the pain with kinky fantasies. Interestingly, my spanking fantasies (which usually involve fantasy figures only) are as severe as or maybe even more severe than ever. Only the urge to live them out with me on the receiving end has decreased. I think the "been there, done that" aspect as well as the fact that in Ludwig's and my relationship other aspects than kink are more important these days both play a role here.