Chasing the High

How many times can I say it before it becomes a cliché? I love pain! There is nothing more refreshing, and calming, and liberating than being guided into position, holding still, and then being thoroughly hurt. It takes me to a clear space inside, where there is nothing but the sheer sensation and Master’s will, inching me closer and closer to nothingness.

The secret, I’ve discovered, is to say “yes” to it. Don’t brace myself, if I can help it. Relax, and feel the pain. The reflex is to flinch away and mentally try and make it stop – but I can’t. So the secret to freedom is to accept it, and concentrate on the pain and how it feels and to want only that. Of course, given enough pain, there is a phase of resistance where I do want Master to stop – I will beg him to stop, eventually. But beyond that, there is a deeper acceptance still – pure submission becomes effortless. Bliss.

I heard a lecture recently about the pursuit of ecstasy. I justified it as relevant to my work, but of course, I was just as motivated by curiosity about what the presenter might say regarding my own unconventional experience. He argued that it was simply a matter of brain chemistry – people addicted to dopamine. I love pain because it alters my consciousness by flooding my brain with feelgood neurotransmitters.

I can agree to a point. I am aware that, over time, as I’ve been exposed to more and more pain in play, I’ve developed a liking for it in many ways. I can endure an uncomfortable dentist visit, or an accidental injury, by focusing my mind more strongly on the pain, instead of wishing it gone. I don’t really enjoy it, in those contexts, but I can take a small compensatory degree of pleasure in it by putting myself in the right frame of mind. I can suppose that I have learned to purely enjoy that chemical change.

But there is something important missing in that idea. Something very important: my Master. Without someone inflicting the pain on purpose, the experience is dull and shallow. With a random sadist, it can be decadent and gratifying. But if the sadist is my Master, it becomes ecstatic – even transcendent. I love pain, but in and of itself, it is nothing compared to my Master’s will on the other side of the whip or paddle. That’s not just dopamine – its chemistry of an entirely different sort. When Master hurts me he penetrates my mind and wraps his hands around a deep, animal part of me. It’s more than just pain: it’s a kind of rich, perfect intimacy – surrendering my deepest self to him in joy.

I would have liked to hear what the lecturer would say about that. But it might have made too strong an impact on question time.