The pain is the glory

"I don't get the whole being in pain is pleasurable thing. How do you get all these bruises and why do you like it? If you don't mind me askingg......" [asked on tumblr]

Oh, darlin', the answer to this has been written in books and tomes and encyclopedia-length writings.

For me personally? Geez, even that's a book-length novel. Well, to give a synopsis while withholding learning opportunities...? I hate to explain it without offering links or books or references for your own exploration or learning, because frankly I'm not fond of giving my own version of the facts without supplying you with alternative comparisons. Although, for now, I don't have the time to search it out for you --- I hope commenters will suggest things, or you'll go a-looking on your own.

So, here goes my personal interest part:
Endorphins.

Just like smokers dig on nicotine and heroin addicts dig their drug and runners relish their highs, so is pain in the body. It jogs a part of the brain to "feel." Granted the aforementioned is more hazardous, the same principles apply. The brain is the center of transmitting feeling, sensation, perception. And the body reacts.

I wasn't into pain much for most of my bdsm life, but I've come to enjoy it more. It's like, for me, an ass spank can be a snap-to, a wake-up-call. It's taking the brain away from thinking and into feeling, focusing on the senses. I like morphing from a sitting girl in a chair crunching numbers or plotting over programs into a girl reacting to how my body feels and goes. A slight tweak of a nipple, a pinch on a cheek, a spank, a paddle to the ass, flogger to my back, a lit cigarette to my breast, a face slap -- all these things re-focus my brain from abstract ideas and into a place where flesh matters and is foremost.

And, once that sting - of whichever kind - hits or happens, then my brain changes. Forget schedules or ideas, confusion or analysis, dreams or interpretations - and focus on what is actual. It's in some way, a retreat to a primal state of being. When humans hunted and gathered, speared and sucked poisons from our bodies.

I've read about the days when we used to hunt our own food (and many still do), we'd feel the flesh of the goat/dinosaur/deer and kill it. Blood would flow. People would skin it. It would hang in the foyer of the habitat, people would see it. Then, it would be cooked and eaten.

Shit's not like that now. Now, it's pre-packaged, arranged, dressed, presented. We have no idea what came before or middle. We just consume the end.

I want to feel the beginning, middle and end. Granted, not as a delectable item, but as a part of life. And, I've read about people reenacting these hunting scenarios to go back to those days, those feelings. Or, enacting kidnapping scenes (mostly the bored rich do this) to feel the throttle of surprise.

It's rather similar, in my mind. A primal urge, a hunger, a genetic curiosity and interest.

Sure, one can find this kind of pain in bicycling a long distance (as I have), weight lifting (as I have), getting a deep massage (as I have), etc... It's the same thing really.

But there's more.

It brings in the domination/submission (top/bottom, master/slave) aspect wherein someone who has the control and someone else gives up the control of the situation. Another aspect of the above, I suppose. I would prefer to be the hunted than the hunter. (Although that's fluid to a point.) And brings in trust - that the person wielding the pain instrument will respond to the person receiving so there's "just enough" --- which varies person to person.

It brings in the beautiful side of competition. Not the ugly "I'll fuck you over you bitch" side, but the "Can I take more than my own best?" side. The upping of a person's own ability. The challenge to be and do better than before. To take more cycling up the hill (Lance Armstrong), to box harder (insert a famous boxer), to beat the time and distance and strength of the last time.

It also brings in the beauty of visuals. To see my own flesh formed. I might wear a hood (as I did recently at a play party where my tits and ass were pained) and miss seeing the actual action, but after, I get to look at my body and see colors. Reds and blues and pinks change to purples and roses and greys. And they change over days into other paintings.

So, I guess this all can explain my own perspective on pain as pleasure. It's invigorating, it's enlivening, it's rich and real, it's instantaneous, it's sustainable, it's beautiful. And it's so freeing.