Breaking the fear barrier

Being a psychologist, it’s no surprise to know I’m a deeply caring sort of person who has a natural ability to empathise with others.  I’m the kind of person who goes out of her way to care for others, and sometimes at my own expense.  So how on earth could I get my head around BDSM?

One of the first sessions I watched was a woman who is referred to as a “pain slut”.  She can take one hell of a caning!  It took every mental effort while watching her to fight my automatic empathic responses and NOT to put myself in her place and feel her pain and turmoil.  Watching her scream out in agony, begging her mistress to stop, and sobbing, I found it very difficult not to feel I was watching someone actually being tortured, and thus I knew I was effectively experiencing vicarious “trauma”.  I felt sick in the stomach with worry and concern and I fought back the tears (though later succumbed).  The other dungeon master, and my Dom for awhile, caring whispered explanations in my ear throughout her session.  I told him my thoughts and concerns and he helped by predicting the things she would say during her session, and what she would say afterwards. He reassured me that her begging to stop was part of the experience for her. It wasnt “real”, it just created the experience she needed to get to subbie space.  After her session she was apologising profusely when she saw me crying.  She was worried that watching her play had upset me.  She talked to me and told me that she loves what just happened to her in the session and that she could even have taken more.   Hearing her talk helped my brain to marry up the torture-like appearance with the fact that it was play.

Then came the issue of tackling my “look after others” approach to life.  Here I was, falling in love with a beautiful man and wanting to nurture him, and yet I was holding a paddle knowing he wanted me to hit him? At first it was very difficult. Now, I wasnt hitting him only because he wanted me to. I like the Domme role. There was something sexy about it. It just happens that it a polar opposite to my core personality.  When we played I didnt play very hard with him. I knew he wanted pain but I didnt want to hurt him – you know – hurt him more than he wanted. I was frightened of hurting him. Inside I just wanted to wrap him up in cotton wool and protect him from all the stresses in his life.  I spose thats partly what helped me over come my fear of causing him pain – a good spanking HELPED him deal with stress!  Knowing that helped me have the motivation to push through my fear of hurting him. But I really struggled.

We explored ways to help me push through the fear barrier. Now everyone who plays knows you have a “safe word”, but most people would also know that when youre in the hot spot you do everything you can not to use it. I knew, from experience, it was possible to try not to use the safe-word and realise later you should have. I didnt want this to happen when I played with him.  The safe word wasnt enough for me. I could not rest easy just relying on that. 

After a while we settled on a system that worked brilliantly. 1-10 pain rating.  To help me learn where his limits are and how hard to play I would ask him to rate the intensity of the pain on a scale from 1-10 after each hit, or after each of my “hard” hits.  Times I thought I might have hit too hard I was surprised to learn it was only a 7.  This meant I felt comfortable to push him further and had a better idea when to stop. I wasnt stabbing around in the dark anymore, I had some guidance.

These days I only infrequently ask him for the pain rating. I dont like to ruin the play session by bringing him out of his head space to answer that question. But sometimes I will. And sometimes I think it can help his head space.  Should he tell me truthfully that the pain was only a 7 when he knows this means I will go harder?

Having a much better understanding of which implements cause which amount of pain now, I am far more comfortable playing harder.  I’ve fought back my desire to care for him, knowing that he adores me giving it to him as hard as I want, and I am now able to leave that fear aside and a risk reaching a 10.  In the end, even if it does hurt him beyond what I may wish to, I know mentally he would get off knowing I had done that to him. We are now comfortable and strong enough to handle breaking the fear barrier, and now he knows there is no longer that barrier I bet you it makes him more anxious and heightens the experience.

 

Sacale 1-10

1 = “Did you even hit me you lame arse b!tch?”

7 = the minimum level I like when administering reprimands “I’ll make you sorry boy”

9 = “Hail oh mistress take mercy”

10 = safe-word level – stop