Humiliation is a vaccine

Probably the single most difficult thing for me to explain, to myself or anyone else, is my taste for humiliation. It is an uncomfortable topic, but central to my submissive life, so it needs addressing.

First, let me say that I don't enjoy humiliation in which I am not a consenting partner. I am not saying that out of any sense of protectiveness towards the "SSC" (or "safe - sane - consensual") ethos, but just because I am sure there *are* men and women who enjoy random public or private embarrassment. For example, and I use this example with trepidation, I was a bed wetter well into my teenage years. More than once, when away from home, there were accidents and discoveries. I have never, ever, been able to look back on those experiences with anything but sadness.

On the other hand, an email Domme once ordered me to take a crap on my kitchen floor, photograph it for her, then clean it up with my hands. I am not into scat at all, but I am becoming aroused just thinking about it. The thing is, when humiliation is requested and provided it has a surprising effect, at least on me: I feel better about myself. You see, I get a woman or man to say the worst possible things about the stuff that I am most ashamed of (my weight, my penis size), to mock and laugh, to set me degrading tasks, and the world doesn't end: I hear and experience the worst and I'm OK.

It leaves me stronger and better prepared for the uncertainties and struggles of real life.

Having just said that I don't enjoy non-consensual humiliation, let me immediately contradict myself a bit and say that I think a secondary effect is allowing me to eroticize bad experiences. Once, in high school, a female classmate of mine observed in front of the whole class that if she were to cut me open, a river of blubber would come pouring out. No one, including the teacher, came to my assistance, and I was easily bullied in those days. She was a still-pretty piece of white trash, and through the magic of the human mind I have been able to look back on that bit of public humiliation almost with lust. In fact, as I know, I should look back with homicidal rage: She really was loathsome, the teacher should have been fired for allowing that to go on in his classroom, my classmates were cowards at best, and why couldn't I have learned at an earlier age that the best way to deal with bullies is to punch them? You may or may not win the fight, but they'll never bother you again (in her case, there was a way scary boyfriend to deal with. I would have lost that fight, and probably some teeth, too). Oh, and I wasn't really that fat, just a bit chubby, but America's obsession with leanness is a topic for another blog.

Something to remember when trying to figure out why the hell someone would choose to engage in a particular behavior is that on some level, they are doing it to protect themselves. It may not be the way you would do it, but we all make our own way in the world. My way involves ritual verbal and physical humiliation.