There is a misunderstanding about masochism and all it entails, often perpetuated by silly jokes (which I make as well, because, funny) and exaggerated ideology which has masochists moaning during surgery and having orgasms when we bump our toes. Then there’s the fact that people who think they might enjoy pain, come on here and see the pictures of banged up, deeply bruised, cut up, swollen skin and worry they might not be masochistic enough to endure that and choose not to try. There’s people who consent to experiences with sadists but aren’t able to communicate what it is they want or the sadists are shitty and end up having a terrible experience which turns them off from masochism for a long time. The definition of the term, in that you must be a person who enjoys pain (physical or emotional, but this is largely in relation to the physical pain variety of masochism) is too simplistic to contain all the answers and so we find answers in people who might know because they have been doing that for a bit. Sometimes that helps, and sometimes it causes further confusion.
Regardless, I think all masochists will agree, enjoying pain does not mean enjoying all pain at all times. There may be a case to be made for someone who has been conflating sexual arousal and pain for so long that any pain causes signs of sexual arousal in them physiologically, but not only is this person rare (and not at all the norm) but they are also being considered as an entity that is a function only of their masochism and absolutely nothing else. Discomfort can come in all forms and bodily responses can be set off and curtailed by physical stimulus as well as emotional/mental stimulus. Being a masochist does not mean wearing a coat of suffering at all times and all over your body, and one never has to justify their masochism by doing so. That’s what leads to ideas that pain tolerance is linked to the intensity of someone’s masochism or their “quality” as a masochist.
It’s not.
Pain tolerance is a highly subjective and variable idea. There are days when I literally cannot feel pain, and there are days when a pinch on the wrist feels like a gunshot wound. Sometimes it is related to my mood, my menstrual cycle (yeh, that won’t leave anything in my life alone), level of arousal, what else happened that day. I mean, there is a baseline of tolerance (not sensitivity), I won’t deny, but the baseline only developed because of regularity of pain. It’s like a stretch, somedays you won’t get the best hamstring stretch in a seated wide-angled forward fold because you ran too much and you’re too stiff, but if you do it everyday, you’ll still be able to put your chest on the ground without discomfort because your body has modified itself to that motion. It’s just regularity, that’s all. If I haven’t been hurt in a couple of weeks, it takes a bit for the baseline to recalibrate. If I do it every day then by the end of the week I could gleefully fuck a knife (this is an exaggeration, I am not fucking a knife, not a super sharp one anyway). It’s like any other kind of physical training but just because one hasn’t been training their muscles for years doesn’t mean doing it today for only the fourth time can’t be an intense experience.
The intensity of masochistic experience does not stem from how much pain you took. It could for some people, but it’s not intrinsic. I feel, maybe, the lack of understanding of this idea is what leads to sadists whose only goal is to get you to take more which is not what’s going to lead to that magical what the fuck kind of sexual engagement that makes you want to write and change the world and these days, actually live in it. I am not saying there is a lack of skilled sadists, I am saying that very often sadists aren’t as receptive as they could be to guidance because very often guidance is seen as undermining their authority or whatever. A lot of people believe that they are open to feedback because they ask for it but asking for it and even listening is not being receptive to feedback, not only must you apply it but you must apply yourself to the exact experience from which the feedback stems and participate in unpacking it enough to understand.
The truth is there are some elements of the sadist-masochist relationship that are similar to coach-athlete and a good coach can make a masochist’s experience with pain a wonderful thing. A bad sadist can lose a game with players of amazing potential. A lot of people like hurting other people, that’s sadism, but not each one of them is able to do so in a way that causes pleasant, positive experiences. Just like you can like tennis and be really bad at it, you can like hurting people but be bad at it. The only difference is that in the case of pain play, it’s more often only the masochist that is left feeling like they aren’t up to the task or good enough as a masochist.
The question is not good or bad, it’s skill, and here are my (very wordy) suggestions on how to be more skilled as a sadist (and no it doesn’t matter if you have already been doing this for ten years, it can still help to learn):
**1) Don’t try to do everything at once.**
Many will call this a “newbie” problem but it’s not. My partner will sometimes, even today, get overexcited and try to do 8-days of sadism in one night, and all that leads to is me being overwhelmed and him being unable to commit. Think of it like choosing what to watch on Netflix, you spend hours doing it and eventually it’s too late to actually watch what you have finally picked and all you’ve seen all evening are trailers to what could have been. Unless it is by specific design that you wish to overwhelm (and that’s hot sometimes), it’s best to pick an activity to centre yourself on and see what it leads to. Sensation is important as a masochist and when you constantly alter the nature of the sensation, it can make it harder to enjoy the pain. It makes it harder to trust the continuity of something you were enjoying and that is distracting enough to make it impossible to let go and relax into the pain.
**2) Impact play is not the same thing as beating a person and they should not be approached in the same way.**
Beating someone, like physical play involving punches and kicks and slaps and throwing around, is a function of adrenaline in a way that impact play just isn’t. There is a violence to beating someone that alters the reception and nature of pain. You cannot go at a person with a paddle the same way as you would go at them with a your fists because their body is experiencing something different in both scenarios. Impact play is usually much calmer and controlled as an experience which elicits a different response from the body and is better practiced with an escalating nature of dispension. You don’t have to start beating someone with full force instantly (again, unless that’s the specific purpose of what you are doing that day), it doesn’t matter if the first twenty strikes don’t even elicit a polite “ow”, that will be worth it when you are spraining your shoulder swinging and they still won’t ow because it feels so good. Don’t strike over and over in the same place in the beginning. Spread it out. Get comfortable. Let them get comfortable.
**3). Know the fuck out of the masochist’s body. Not of bodies in general. No. Know the fuck out of that specific body.**
Like with a lot of physical disciplines, masochism can make one hyper aware of their body and because of that knowing minute details about their experiences with their bodies will help you decide where to strike and where to avoid. For instance, I can be endlessly beaten on my back but if you swat my butt in the wrong place I will scream the house down. And on my back, there is one specific point where someone once struck me with a pair of earphones where I can never be struck again because it was the worst thing that has ever happened to my back and I cannot unfeel it ever, and while you cannot always avoid striking specific places that may cause bad reactions, knowing these places exist will cause you to react appropriately when you do hit them. As does adjusting the nature and intensity of pain according to where you are hitting someone. It doesn’t take a genius to know not to hit a boob and a cunt the same way, but it’s more specific than that, don’t hit a scapula and the the mid-back the same way either. Focus on responses, learn them. You have a body, apply thay knowledge to hurting someone else’s.
**4) Decide if you are a sadist or an asshole, and make that clear.**
I don’t mean that as a negative thing, some people are assholes in the fun way. Their style of sadism is about assholeism. They will only hit you where you don’t like it, they will only do things you don’t like, they will never let you be comfortable enough to enjoy it, they will always tell you they will make you regret your masochism and don’t get me wrong, I love these people, I enjoy their deeply unpleasant sexual company, but it doesn’t always make for a skillful sadist for a non-asshole seeking masochist. Unless you enjoy specifically feeling like you are being violated, you may not enjoy this style of sadist. In my experience they cannot even vocally admit that they care about your experience enough to give a fuck how you feel, again the is not a diss, I personally fuck these people, but they are who they are, and that’s lovingly, assholes. If you are looking to explore your sadism and masochism but have trepidation about how you might feel, don’t play with an asshole. If you are an asshole, represent as such. If you are a sadist you thinks you have to be an asshole to be a sadist, you don’t. You can hurt someone with great terror and authority without being an asshole. You can be asshole without really being a sadist. The two however are too often conflated. Speaking of which…
**5) We get it! You like to hurt people! Enough already.**
..you don’t have to be a cold, dispassionate or unaffectionate person to be a sadist. It’s not a personality trait, it’s a descriptor for a sexual preference. You don’t have to tailor yourself or your personality to it. It’s not a contradiction if you like kitty-cuddles and also people screaming. It’s okay to like both. You don’t need to remind the person you are hurting about the big bad wolf you are (unless they are into that) but for the most part, the pain speaks best. You don’t have to keep up the less than human thing all the time. Everyone is their own kind of sadist and that is much more fun than a tailor-made rendition.
**6) Everything is not a choice between trigger and turn-on.**
Masochists deal in triggers and turn-ons but there is a vast expanse of activity between these two things. If something is not a trigger for a person that doesn’t necessarily mean they would enjoy it. Don’t choose what you do with a person based on a system of elimination. It’s easier even to discover new things if you go by the route you enjoy as opposed to a thing you barely like or are at best, ambivalent towards. There is a tendency (though I believe this is just the assholes) of eliminating exactly everything a masochist likes to land on what they might do. This happens even more in power exchange based sadist-masochist dynamics where the tendency to make your slave enjoy things just because you do so is high, but..why? If you have a good reason, godspeed. Of it’s just an idea, think about it. If you just do it because you think that’s right, stop it. It’s dumb.
**6) You must be able to retain control.**
This is a show. The lion (which is obviously the masochist) is the star but you are the ringmaster who cannot afford to fuck up. Struggling to retain control and vocalising that and even asking for help or guidance is much better than pretending to be in control of a situation that you are unsure about. This is 100% of leadership. If the other people in the room (or person) feels safer and able to let go because of your presence in the room, you have done your job. This is hard and it is not just about telling the masochist not to move or to count each stroke. It’s about empty moments and unsure silences. It’s about first response after something, however mild, goes wrong. It’s about nor forgetting to wash something and resisting the urge to do something simpler that is undiscussed with your partner and doing the harder or maybe even less pleasurable thing that you have discussed.
**7) You don’t have to approach limits, hard or soft. That is not the key to an intense experience.**
Intensity is a lot about connection and is not a fixture of edge play. In possibility it encompasses all life experiences in every realm and sphere, and it comes not from extreme physical experience, but extreme commitment to whatever experience you are undertaking. You don’t have to play at the edge to have an intense experience with a masochist. Fear doesn’t necessarily have to factor into pain play either. These are allied concepts, they do not necessarily have to factor into your style of sadism.
**8) If your reason for anything is “I don’t want to ruin the mood”, reexamine immediately.**
A lot, I mean a lot of bullshit could be avoided if we just said the things in our head without worrying about the ambience and proper situation. If you have doubt, ask. If you have misgivings, vocalise. If you want to check if something was okay, ask. If you really really need to make a joke, make it. It’s not going to ruin the moment, in fact, trying to choreograph the moment is what will ruin the moment.
**9) “Breaking” a person is not proof of your sadistic prowess**
The goal of hurting a person doesn’t have to be to get them to their safeword or in the absence of one to get them to a point of breaking. That can be fun, if that is the specific intention or your dynamic, but in general a lot of sadists labour under the delusion that an experience cannot be amazing if it doesn’t end in safewords or tears. A better goal is to extend the capacity to bear pain in a manner that is pleasurable to all involved. The only way to do this is quiet escalation balanced with arousal and if it’s your style, intermittent tenderness applied to sore parts of one’s body (in my experience this extends my endurance exponentially). Breaking a person is more edge play than sadism and can be achieved in many ways that do not necessarily involve pain, if that is your goal, do not confuse it with pain-play and miscommunicate. If that is the goal with which you play, don’t barrel towards it. If it is not, don’t believe that it has to be.
**10) Don’t take “pain is pleasure” literally (and definitely don’t get pissed off if they don’t start coming while you flog them)**
Seriously. The number of people I have been with that treated slapping me like they were rubbing my clit is too high to be real. Yes, pain can be pleasurable but they are not the same thing. One can have a response of pleasure to the stimulus of pain (get hard, get wet, moan, whatever) but the sensation of pleasure and pain are different. Don’t dispense one as a replacement for the other. It’s not. They are distinct things that are processed differently by bodies, and that is best kept in mind when playing. Pain can be exhausting to bear and in a continued state, it is complex to process. Don’t rush to give your feedback of the situation or to demand it, don’t take every reaction on just face value.
**11) Do NOT play for marks.**
Unless marks are a specific fetish, do not play for them. Marks are the social media of masochism. They do not represent the complete truth of the experience. Not only because some people bruise and others don’t, and some people bleed a lot and others don’t, and some people swell and others don’t, and all of that is biological, but also because if the experience is judged by the marks alone the potential for disappointment is very high. If you come out of play judging yourself based on whether your masochist is black and blue, it’s likely they are doing the same. Base how you hurt on response. Decide how and where to hurt someone based on response and not at all on where it would mark the most. Marks are incidental to pain, and contrary to what you might think based on pictures you see, it’s not that easy to bruise a person. It’s hot if it happens but making it the goal undermines the experience of pain.
Happy hurting!
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