Pleasure Not Panic

 
Pleasure Not Panic:
BDSM Informative
2008-10-13
Pleasure Not Panic
The Art of Welcoming Pain
by Joseph W. Bean


Introduction

Pain is mysterious stuff, and everyone reacts to it. If five people get more or less the same thump on the heel from the
same over-wound automatic door closer, one will glance behind himself, and go on to his next appointment: another will wince,
shrug, and limp a bit; another will need pain relief medication; another will take the day off from the office; and another will sue
for millions (or threaten to do so), limping and complaining and even actually aching for days. If the same five people see
someone else in pain, their reactions might range from smothering sympathy to the genuine belief that the only way to get
over the pain is to ignore it, and get on with what you were doing.

What is intolerable pain to one person is cozy welcome midnight reminder of a hard-played afternoon football game to
another. And yet, presented with the idea that there are people who seek pain, who get high on pain, and who get hard or wet
from pain, even the look-a’-my-bruises football player will usually react with disgust. In fact, if athletes could think of SM as
sports they'd always know who was winning. If executives who are willing to stare at columns of tiny numerals till their heads
are about to burst and their eyes are watering could think of SM as business, they'd understand the acceptance of pain, but
they'd always know who was profiting from whom.

SM, though, is neither a sport nor a business (not as such, not usually), so it mystifies and disgusts. Not that they're more
likely to understand, but it might be better to take the question of pain to a gardener rather than to athletes and businessmen.
He or she would understand the idea, if not the actuality quickly enough: Pain is the weed-word of sensation. Last years
carnations are unwanted when they push up among this years tidy rows of pansies. They are weeds. They are plants not
welcome in this place at this time. Just so, pain can be seen as a sensation that is not welcome in a particular time, coming
in the way it does. But just as the carnations are still flowers, pain is still a sensation, and, just as a gardener might choose to
accommodate or move the pesky carnations, a masochist is able to process and use sensations that others would dismiss as
pain.

So, the eternal question arises, the one that has to be asked at just about every SM demonstration-lecture: If a masochist
gets hit by a car, does he or she enjoy it? No. Its simple as that. No, a masochist does not enjoy being injured accidentally.
His experience with pain may make him better able than most people to understand how badly injured he is, to know what
kind of care he is likely to need, and even to bear the pain. None of which should suggest that an SM bottom wants, seeks, or
puts up with accidental injury any more than anyone else. That sort of sensory experience is a weed. It is pain.

SM bottoms learn very quickly what kinds of stimulation and sensation they do and donut want. They learn almost as
quickly how to encourage Tops to give them stimulation they want and to prevent Tops from providing sensations they want to
avoid. (The gray areas between what a person wants and what the same person wants to avoid are made up of the sorts of
stimulation that are negotiable, more often than not.) What bottoms learn less quickly is how to process the intense sensation
they get in SM scenes—0kay, the pain. The processing is necessary if they are going to bear sensation/stimulation for a
longer time, which means getting more pleasure that makes pain-seeking attractive. Of course. Being able to remain gladly
functional as a bottom in a longer (but not necessarily heavier) scene also leads to a bottom having a better chance of
attracting better Tops.

Processing pain, at least to a certain extent, is natural. If it were not, even a hangnail could bring the toughest bruiser to his
knees (come on guys, you wouldn't want that for yourself so don't go wishing it on the big boys). For some people—boys more
than girls—an additional degree of pain processing is taught from a very early age, but not always in the healthiest way. Then
there are the lucky few who, once they become involved in SM, intentionally continue their education in pain processing by
noticing what works, and developing that; noticing what others do, and trying that; and by asking questions or taking classes
to increase their pain-handling capabilities.

How a person goes about processing intense sensation into a tide of pleasure depends on what kind of person he is to
begin with. Some people respond to pain with nothing short of "Oh, boy!" These are true masochists, processing pain is not an
issue, what they need is to be told how to get more of the specific type of pain they want. Others react with "Oh, yeah." These
people are going to fight for the Top position (even if it is an obvious foregone conclusion who will win the fight, and it isn't
always). If they lose (was there ever any doubt?), these guys are going to "take it like men" (whether they are male or female),
which is very rudimentary and fairly ineffective way of processing pain. In fact, a lot of bottoms learn to give the impression that
they are toughing it out like good little soldiers when, in actuality they have learned and are using much more sophisticated
pain processing methods.

Another initial reaction to pain in the playroom is "Oh, no!" This comes from people who, supposing they knew what they
were getting into, need help. They need to learn by heart the path from whack to heaven, and it will be hard if they can't shed
their oh-no attitude. And finally, there are people who react to the prospect of pain with nothing heartier than "Oh, well."
Chances are they will never be bothered to learn how to handle, use, and enjoy the ministrations of a good Top. Until they stop
soaking up the hot SM energy and go back to the excitement of word-search puzzles, they will be yawning while one Top after
another wears himself out at the other end of a whip or whatever.


Techniques

Strangely, the ways people process pain are often considered more personal than the most graphic details of their sex
lives. Maybe the highly-guarded privacy gathers around pain handling because processing pain seems to imply that the bottom
"needs help’ which he ought to be glad to manage without. Or, maybe the problem is simply that, because we don’t often
speak of it, we haven’t developed a comfortable language in which to tell each other about our pain-processing successes and
failures, methods and magic. Whatever the reason, most people prefer not to talk about the pain processing techniques they
use to use or the unconscious processes they observe in themselves. Nonetheless, it is not difficult to describe a few ways to
juggle pain while spinning into pleasure.


Breath

With TV motherhood in graphic and perennial bloom, you don’t need ever to have known a pregnant woman to know that
they are told to "breathe, breathe, breathe" in order to cope with the pains of labor and giving birth. Why they should have to be
told is another question since every little kid in the world seems to instinctive understand that huffing, puffing, and sucking
deep breaths changes the way a smashed fingertip feels. Not surprisingly, breath is the most common vehicle for pain control
in the SM play, too.

Generally, the ides is to breathe out the pain, and breath in a relaxed receptivity to the scene in progress. There is no point
in asking whether this, or any pain processing method for that matter, is more imagination or medicine, visualization or
self-delusion. The point is that it works. Engaging the palpable sense of bodily presence initiated by the introduction of the
painful stimulation, the process is simple: locate the breath within the body as a gatherer of the pain, deliver it to the lungs,
and release pain and spent air together.

If for no other reason, this method is bound to be effective with early stages and low levels of pain just because it stands as
a reminder to breathe, and to breathe deeply. When we breathe deeply, we are doing a more effective job of heat exchanging
between the surrounding environment and the interior or our bodies, and mild trauma is often greeted with slightly elevated
body temperature. Not that anything is explained away by that fact, bit it may help in the skeptic engage his imagination and
put breath to work in SM.


Fantasy

Some people find that pain is managed when they submerge themselves in the right fantasy role. A person being flogged,
for example, casts himself in the role of the Roman galley slave for whom the pain of flogging (historically be damned) is an
everyday experience. Since it is nothing out of the ordinary, it is nothing all that disquieting. In the end, it is tolerated. Whether
this path to bearing pain closes some of the doors to pleasure is very debatable. Some bottoms claim that they don’t notice
when the role ceases to be used, or necessary. For them, then, role playing (even if no one else knows they are doing it)
serves a purpose, very likely either keeping them occupied until the body begins to handle the pain in its own way, or acting
as a cover for unconscious pain processing methods they may not appreciate so much.


Heat, Light, and Color

Heat is naturally generated in the body most methods of stimulation. Whether it is slapped with a paddle, scoured with an
abrasive toy, pinched, stretched, or punctured, the body sends its investigative reporters (armies of blood cells) to the sight of
the trauma, and blood is the heat-carrier. So, it is not much of a leap to identify pain with heat. Just about everybody can do it,
and that is the beginning of a rather simple method of pain processing.

To experience heat as light is also a relatively easy step. Even speaking scientifically the distinction between what we call
light is a matter of perception as much as anything. Similarly, to assign a color designation to any experience of heat or light
is well within the realm of normal imaginative capabilities. So, pain processing methods that work with heat can also be
performed with light and color.

There are three distinct options available here, and combinations of two or three of them are not uncommon either. First,
heat (which will stand for color and light as well at the moment) can be generalized. Just as a towel is less "wet" when the
water in it is spread by the capillary action over a large area of it’s fibers, pain is less intense when it is experienced over a
larger area of the body. Some people find it very easy to recognize the pain of a single blow in a specific area, then to release
that pain so it can spread over a larger area, perhaps even being driven over larger areas with each successive blow. A good
Top, recognizing that a bottom is having trouble dealing with the immediate pain will often stroke the reddened skin outward
from the center, not to soothe per se so much as to encourage the generalizing of the pain over a larger area. For this
technique to work, the bottom needs nothing more intention that it should, and a modicum of imagination.

Next, the heat (light, color) can be drawn to the surface. This operation may require more imagination, and it seems to
have less science in it than most, but it works for some people. Here in the experience of pain is heat, for example, is pressed
outward from within the body, leaving the heat on the surface. Superficial pain is, almost by definition, tolerable. That is the
primary force behind the effectiveness of this method, and a certain amount of its appeal comes from the fact that we have
seen superficial injuries heal all our lives, but we retain (and should!) a fear of internal injury. In fact, if a pain is only skin deep,
how could anyone possible find it intolerable, especially if managing that pain means that the scene goes on (with a Top who
happens to be hot enough to have gotten the scene going in the first place).

Heat, light, and—as a kind of light—color, can also be radiated. In fact, they actually are radiated from the body in their
various ways all the time. Where generalizing spread the transformed pain around the body, and superficializing brought it out
like a shell encasing the body, radiating expels the pain. There is, of course, still higher degree of imaginative capacity called
for here, but it is not beyond the sort of imagination required for most meditations. Whether it is sensed as heat, light, or a
defined color, the pain can be radiated outward from the source—however superficial or deep within the body. This not only
reduces the experience of pain as pain, but it tends to encourage the experience of joy in the leathersex scene, and to
connect leathersex with the most effortless kind of letting go, which multiplies the opportunities for SM joy.


Storage

A lot of people, especially novices, have trouble identifying pain with anything as welcome as heat, light, or color, they can’t
deal with fantasy roles, or let go enough to use them; and they find their breath more often pushing them toward weed-pain
than lifting them away from it. And yet, they are getting something they "know" they want. They wonder if they really want it,
but keep coming back for more or less the same thing. Sadly, they also blame their Tops for not teaching them how to cope,
or for not "doing it so it feels good."

For these people, one method of pain processing that I almost always accessible, is this: store the energy of the pain in or
near the site where it is being originated, let it build up without resisting it. Give your attention of full awareness of the
sensation and of the fact that it is exactly what you bargained for, holding on to it as long as possible. Then, having warned
your Top of this moment before the scene began, you can signal (perhaps with a safeword) that it is time to release the stored
energy. Release it by shuddering if that comes naturally, shaking if you need to, screaming, squealing, wriggling, or whatever
it takes, but remain aware that this is not meant to be a mad scene, just a complete release of stored energy.

Minor variations on this technique are obvious. Bottoms who scream and squeal, wriggle, and shudder all through a scene
without any encouragement are evidently performing energy releases all the time. This may be distressing for the Top. It may
even be distracting for other players in the room. It may even be destructive for the entire leathersex atmosphere. Or not. It
depends on the nature of the release activity, the intensity of it, and the attitude of the Top and others present. But the bad
thing is that it is probably stealing all the more intense experiences from the bottom. Releasing your pain-delivered energy,
stroke by stroke as it is received, is like spending your money dollar by dollar as it is earned: You never get to use it to buy
anything big enough to have been wished for.


The Working Bottom

There are endless possible combination of these pain processing techniques, and countless other methods as well, but the
idea is to process the sensation intentionally, engaging your attention. When you do that, you collect a kind of sensual
dividend on the processed energy. The very act of attending to(or even attempting) the processing of sensation has soothing
effects on the mind, and quiets fearful voices in the head. It encourages good habits of breathing and centered presence,
drawing you into the scene, opening you to its possibilities rather than letting you stew on its likely side effects.


Perhaps the most significant aspect of pain processing, apart from its involvement in the spiritual aspect of leathersex, is
that it gives the bottom the freedom to become a fully contributing partner in the scene. A person whose only concern is
bearing the pain, or thinking of when and how to stop it, is not cooperating. He or she is just wearing down a Top. The same
bottoms in the same scenes, when they’re engaged in handling the sensations for themselves, get a clearer picture of what is
being done to and for them. They have more consciousness free to communicate with the Top, instead of relying on the Top to
read the bottom’s mind (although good Tops do seem to be able to do this). A "working" bottom—one who is actively putting
the Top’s "work" to joyful use—has liberty where he or she imagined limits, permitting a longer, more intense, and more
satisfying scene for both (all?) parties.





The material in this article was originally developed for a class taught by the author at QSM in San Francisco. It was later
reworked for this article, and will appear slightly different from the author’s book on leathersex practices and techniques which
will be published this year by Haworth Press.
Joseph W. Bean was Managing Editor for The Sandmutopia Guardian from 1989 though 1992. He is currently editor of
Masthead and March and contributing writer for Drummer, having stepped down as editor of Drummer in December, 1992.


This article was taken from Issue Eleven of the Sandmutopia Guardian. In keeping with the copyright information in the
magazine, the following information is provided:
Sandmutopia Guardian subscription information as of that issue:
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