Pain…
…hurts


Question posed by my wise friend on StrictlySM yesterday:

Why do you want to receive pain?

Want is such a strong word…..

But, I suppose, an accurate one. C and I don’t do a lot of SM. We did, for awhile, when we first got back together, but (as you’ve heard me go on about ad naseum), our time and circumstances lately prevent much of anything in that realm anymore. Do I miss it? Truthfully? Yea, sometimes.

I’m not a masochist. For awhile, I believed I was. I truly thought that I “got off” on pain. But after some self-examination, and experiences, I can truthfully say – that’s not it.

Between the time that I was with M, and before C and I got back together, I went a little wild. I started attending some play parties and groups up in the San Jose and San Francisco areas, and started to play with some different people. I started playing with a man I’ll call G., who became a very good friend to me. Even without realizing it (him – or me), he helped me come to the realization that I am not a pain slut – and what it is about pain that does beckon to me sometimes.

Pain hurts. Pain causes me to focus on the moment, and to be able to stop letting other thoughts cloud my mind. Frankly, it takes every ounce of energy I have to “live through” the pain, and it doesn’t leave any room for worrying about my family, the dishes that need to be done, the bills that need to be paid, or how I feel about how fat my thighs are. I’m not even remotely concerned about how I look naked – if my hair is messed up – if I cleaned out the dishwasher. I don’t have time to think about how worried my mother is, how infantile my sister is, or if my Dad is taking his diabetes seriously. All I can focus on is the pain, and getting through it. I have one of those minds that never shuts up. There is always something that needs to be done, and always something I feel guilty for not getting accomplished. During those minutes of painful play in a scene, my focus is on survival. And after the scene – at least until the next day – my mind is beautifully clear and not at all busy with the minutiae of daily life.

Pain causes me to cry sometimes, which is something that I don’t always ‘allow’ myself to do. As a child, and even into my early twenties, I allowed myself to be conditioned to believe that crying was a sign of weakness and emotional immaturity. It’s got to be a pretty big deal for me to let myself do that. (Funny side note here – for humor’s sake – C and I have discussed several times how he wants to be able to make me cry during a scene. The night before he left on deployment, we were sitting on the bed, and I was – you guessed it – crying. I looked at him and said “Well, you always say you want to make me cry.” And he said “Well, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”)(Also, I’ve always wondered, without asking, why C wanted to make me cry. I mean, I wondered if it was an emotional turn on, or a physical one. I don’t have an answer for that yet, but since I’m sending this to him, maybe I’ll have one for you later.) Crying makes you vulnerable. It shows an emotion that – if you’re like me – you don’t share with just anyone and you don’t share often. There’s a wall that has to be removed to make me share that with someone. Pain will (at least temporarily) sometimes take that wall out.

Expect me to come back to rambling about this at some future date. I believe there’s more to it, but that’s all I have right now.