Thank you Spanking Romance and Joelle Casteel for hosting today's Spanking Round Table Discussion! We have a great topic today:
Ownership vs. Humiliation.
For me it's not a versus as much as an and.
The first thought that came to my mind when I read the word humiliation was punishment. To me if I'm getting spanked, I'm being dominated. And getting spanked while in a loving relationship to me feels like my ass is my dominate's ass to spank or punish as he sees fit. In other words, I feel owned.
I don't think ownership is always black and white. Often there is gray area, and in that area lies the feelings being owned evoke. Or the feelings you want it to evoke.
I want to feel cared for and cherished, but...sometimes I want to explore the darker side of the gray area.
How much you will feel humiliated on any level, sexual or otherwise, depends on your concept of humiliation which differs for everyone.
Domination/Ownership and me: I really like the fight. I like to be made to submit. I want to feel my spanker/dominate's superiority and be annoyed by it. That's my thing. I don't want to come willingly. I'm going to do things to intentionally get spanked/punished in a way that is out of my control. This in turn is going to cause some humiliation with a touch of fear. That's the kind of humiliation spanking that is going to trip my trigger. I don't get into extreme humiliation, but I'm quite positive the humiliation and degradation I like would be a hard limit for someone else.
And really, it's a mind set.
Quite honestly when I read a punishment spanking scene the humiliation is implied whether the author intended or not, because that's what I would be feeling. That's were my mind goes. I"m often drawn to the humiliation punishments, even though my mind rebels against them.
Some of my favorite books--with or without spanking--have dehumanization themes. The three that first came to my mind were Maren Smith's Pets, C. L. Scholey Bay's Mercenary, and Cara Bristol's Breeder. Bay's Mercenary isn't even spanking or erotic, but it turned me on big time. And the heroine in Breeder, Omra, doesn't have a concept of humiliation in what is happening to her, but you the reader feels it for her nonetheless.
In all these stories the women are owned, and even though the women are well taken care of, they are seen as pets who aren't an intelligent species. They are made to do things they don't want to do. They are chastised/punished in ways they wouldn't choose, by men that feel they are superior to these women in every way.
The whole process is humiliating.
It's why I love sci-fi. The theme of humiliating dehumanization is a big one. Ownership is often horribly humiliating before it becomes liberating in these books. The owner always has a superiority complex.
Okay, I may have a thing for hunky aliens, too.
Humiliation before liberation is also something that really trips my trigger when reading dark erotica. Kitty Thomas's Comfort Food is a great example of a woman that is broken down in every way, fights against being owned, until finally she's liberated by being owned--by a sadist with a superiority complex. There's a twist to that, but what is dark erotica without a psychological twist?
Don't get me wrong. I also love books like Cherise Sinclair's To Command and Collar, which is an extremely loving M/s story with a Master who has an understated superiority complex. I'm just more likely to read M/s stories like Cari Silverwood's Make Me Yours Evermore, which is loving in its own f*&%ed up non-loving way. And Master is a sadist with a giant superiority complex.
So, yes to it all. I would like my spankings to be caring, humiliating shows of ownership by a loving man with a superiority complex. Easy peasy, right?
And since I feel weird not having at least one ridiculous meme;
Join the discussion! And be sure to check out all the Ownership/Humiliation posts!!
Wonderful post, Aubrey. I love how you touched on the idea of being forced to submit, not submitting easily. That is such an interesting bridge between ownership and humliiation, I think, although from a first hand experience, I don't get it. I don't actively fight, nor do I want, against a dom's authority; I like to willingly give it (sadly because most femdoms I've met have been stereotype) to Him. And of course :D the meme is perfect
ReplyDeleteThank you! I really had to do some inner reflection on this one. So many times I hear the word "humiliation" and have an automatic negative idea of it that I don't always realize that in some forms it's something tantalizing to me.
DeleteIronically willing submission, without the struggle, is often hard for me to wrap my head around.
good point on humiliation. I think of that with language choice- like "little girl" as someone pointed out on my post. While I don't even see it as humiliating within consensual kink relationships, the idea that humiliation is always bad doesn't make sense to me either. I mean, if it's consensual, you know.
DeleteRemind me the next time I need a book suggestion to come to you! I also feel like the ownership/humiliation aspect of a D/s relationship gets muddled and wrapped into one. This was a great post!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm here for you if you ever need a book suggestion! Be warned, quite a few of them may be sci-fi!
DeleteGreat post!! The section on domination/ownership had my shouting out in my head YES, YES, YES! That is me to a T.
ReplyDeleteI caught that in your post too, and I thought the same thing! I think we have similar views. Mine go a bit more to the left, but there are some commonalities. :)
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