The Voices in Our Head

Photo by Jonathan Beckley

Today I responded to an individual seeking connection and advice in a forum I participate in. It occurred to me while I was writing that I was speaking to multiple people who are or who have been in my life and thought, perhaps, my writing would be helpful to others.

For a little context (though I think these particulars may not be the most important part of my response): this person is young. They grew up in a home experiencing physical, mental, emotional, sexual, and spiritual abuse. They got out at a young age and in the few years since seem to have pursued a fair amount of therapy and are good at self-reflection (judging by how they write). The crux of their angst and the reason for reaching out is a common one: fear that their urge to be sadistic, and harboring “extreme fantasies” (their terminology) is problematic, or somehow that these things define a broken or irreparable spirit. It’s common for people with sadistic tendencies and desires to worry about them—I’d even say healthy that we do so. When the negative voices take over our thoughts, how do we re-find or truly know who we are, how do we heal, how do we become better and safer in our own skins and with others? These are some of my thoughts…

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It sounds like you have a really good understanding of your situation and yourself. In my experience intellectual understanding is not the same thing as “being ok”, and being ok is a lifelong process… you have probably started examining your behaviors, reactions, thoughts, and coping mechanisms at a younger age than most people do. That’s great. It’s also not the whole picture of what will be. I find that the cycles we go on in our lives are spirals, repeating the loop over and over again, familiar and not entirely always the same. The best part of that cyclical-spiral is when we’re onto ourselves, we’re given the opportunity to create space around the experience of trauma. We may never be able to lift ourselves completely from the center of our emotions, but if we can see it coming, or recognize it as it’s happening, we can choose a kind of softness to surround the negative moments with, knowing they’ll pass when they’re ready to: they are not the truth. I hope that’s an experience you can have.

To address (what I hear as) a certain amount of guilt surrounding the fantasies you have and potential play activities you engage in which you deem to be “sadistic”, I hope you know somewhere inside that having those turn-ons doesn’t make you a terrible person. It’s wonderful that you have connection to kink communities who can teach you safety, negotiation, and consent. Your explanation of how you associate with your sadistic thoughts and desires seems to be a healthy one (based on what you wrote).

Pain is part of a continuum with pleasure. I often think of “pain” as “extreme sensation”, as opposed to something inherently destructive. My masochism has taught me a lot about the resiliency of my body, my mind, my emotions, and my spirit—a true gift, as an individual with the need to do a lot of work around trusting the core of who I am, and better know what I am capable of. As a sadistic person (also), I’ve had the experience of witnessing the transformation of worry and fear, of tension and stress within my masochistic subs into voice, sound, movement, processing… much needed release.

The human mind is capable of incredible things, and I think one of the most brilliant aspects of this is our capacity to turn bad experiences, fear, and trauma into opportunities for pleasure via fantasy and sexualization. Of course it is on every individual to keep checking in with themselves to make sure that what we are up to is, indeed, not destructive to ourselves or others; however the impulse to press into what seems depraved or “wrong” is also an impulse to rewalk/redefine a path inside—a path that has been laid down harmfully, alchemizing it into one which might end in safety and pleasure for all. Without release such as these fantasies and adult-playground games, we hold on too tightly to what has been, at forfeiture of who we could be today.

It sounds to me like you’re on the long path of healing. Healing is messy and ill defined. We experience it at our individual paces, and sometimes the places we think we’ve long healed from will burst open again, or never fully come together as we wish… This life is full of opportunity to tend to ourselves, and learn to tend to ourselves we must. You did a good thing by reaching out. Know that you are not alone. You are not awful or wrong for thinking the things you think. You are on a road to somewhere else: somewhere where pain is chosen, survived gratefully and with intention, and accepted as the the gift it is to those who need it. Keep yourself questioning as you walk your path, stay skilled in your endeavors, and be as safe as your know how to be. Communicate. Those you love, those you play with, those who meet you in the place of your wants and needs are matches for you in this life. Walk beside them as you’re able to, and know that in the very conversation about what’s to be done, there’s more than healing: there’s light.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

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Surges of Love Amidst Brutality

Where I am at these days…

I updated my Fetlife profile yesterday with some new photos (@CreatureCrea if you’re interested). A couple of them are a bit on the brutal side, depicting around 90 needles as my tools of torture in a CBT scene. As scary as that looks though, the session itself was nothing but loving and kind. Brimming with surges of love and an exchange of exciting and sexy energy between my submissive masochist and his Sadistic and caring Dominants (two of us were emptying the boxes of needles that day). Honestly, the scene felt romantic and it was full of smiles mixed into moans. Pain/pleasure is a real thing, and the edges some people can get carried to are incredible. I feel lucky to work with bodies in this way.

What does it mean to take this amount of “torture” and enjoy it? Well, it’s not for everybody, that’s for sure, but I think it’s part of an internal conversation about desire which extends beyond the bounds of what we’re taught is “normal”. What do you want to do? What do you want to have done to you? What can you survive? What experiences are you curious to try? People tear their bodies apart mountain climbing, and we call it a sport, with admiration in our minds for those who persevere beyond. I think the mind and body of the BDSM masochist are wired similarly.

Reading about the brains and the visceral experiences extreme sport athletes share, I find myself nodding emphatically more frequently than not. Having been on the business end of a whip for hours on end (or any number of other intensely painful situations), there’s a certain place I get to where processing and taking the pain I’m receiving becomes a pleasure and an excitement I want to continue with. Focus, and an alignment of my body and mind takes over. The pleasure aspect to it is aided by a heightened awareness of my body. It feels a lot like “new relationship energy” to me. If I’m playing with someone who is mindful of pacing and physical cues, what we accomplish in scene can extend on and on and on, building and ebbing and building over and over again.

It isn’t just the activity though that makes this possible. It is the person on each end of the exchange, and the energy we’re willing to receive and let go of and send into one another in support of our sport. If I push a needle into someone with a specific intent, it feels remarkably different than if I push it into someone without, carelessly, or with a completely different intent in mind. If my submissive receives my needling and tenses up, or instead is breathing through it, or has the mindset of “being good” for me, or is resistant, we will both feel those effects. Energetic vampires exist and are horrible to scene with — but I’m a connection slut, so in general someone sucking all the energy out of the room and out of me without returning it for the benefit of my continued interest in play is my nightmare idea of a partner.

I’ve been lucky to find scene partner after scene partner, on this ride through BDSM, to be beautiful people who I feel lucky to jab/kick/pinch/hit and make howl. Perverted? Absolutely. Rewarding? Unendingly yes! Fulfilling and sustainable? Check! When BDSM play feels like love, paired with a giving partner, I never want to stop making my submissive feel as they’ve fantasized about wanting to feel. It works for us both.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Please support my work on Patreon. For one time donations click here: Support the Artist 
~Thank you.

Our Bodies are Amazing

Whip marks

Our bodies are amazing. It’s simply true. Our skin is this incredible material which holds our innards in despite gravity, tearing, impact, burns, and broken bones inside its casing. Pain is this amazing tool that our bodies offer us in conversation. It proves a malleable experience which we can turn up or turn off the noise of depending on our emotional fortitude, our expectations, and our perception of our safety in that given moment. BDSM plays with these things, allowing us to find newer and newer spectrums of control through sheer force of will, and with the survival intelligence we are gifted from experience. Trust is built through trial and error, and over time our lines in the sand about what we believe we can tolerate moves further and further into the wild. Humans were built for adventure, for physical fortitude, and for intellectual and emotional growth. We get bigger from trying new things and from digestible challenge.

Mummification

I am grateful that I’ve found these communities of people who are as interested in what their bodies are capable of, what their hearts are capable of, what their creative intellects and wills are able to accomplish, as I am. I am proud of what my body has shown me it’s happy (and sometimes unhappy but able) to take. New experience after new experience has taught me more about myself than comfort ever could over the years. I am repeatedly astonished when my desires shift from fear and rejection of an idea, to intrigue, to want, and oftentimes to ease.

There was a moment in time (just a moment) when I considered being punched and “rough body play” to be an awful idea, I thought “who does that?!?!”… The very next day I was punched in a scene and as I felt the deep reverberations echo through my torso, sending pleasure to parts of my body I hadn’t felt come alive for a very long time, I knew this was one of my favorite things. I was angry that being born female had taken these feelings away from me for so long. Getting beat in scene was a reclaiming of my own skin and bones, an emotionally powerful and moving new understanding that I was capable of so much more than I had known.

Needles

Another awe was found hanging 20 feet above a crowd of hundreds with only 2 hooks pierced through my shoulder skin holding me up. I felt my skeleton and organs trying to escape the meatsack I am alongside gravity. Epidermis, I kiss your virtues. Pain is a mindgame where fact and fear wrestle it out over intense sensation, and the journey is a classroom of information recalibrating one’s reactions for many future moments to come.

If you want it to.

The offer is open to everyone.

Dare to walk on fire with someone who knows how, and you’ll learn.

Recently I found myself with fistfulls of needles, pricking, suturing, and tying flesh in formations I hadn’t ever done before. It was beautiful. A love of blood satisfied for the evening, and my sadistic pleasure centers served well. Balls tied to the ceiling and pulled on with weights, labia and nipples sutured and strung up as well, two human animals who love one another and who offered me their flesh I tied together, then needled ribcage to ribcage, and corseted together with string on the bed which was our playground… The chemicals of connection, a practice of breathing, the fuel of trust and desire, and an electrifying sensation from every spark of energy in the room passed back and forth between us all as minutes turned to hours. From this I was high and happy and grateful.

Never cease to be amazed.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Please support my work on Patreon. For one time donations click here: Support the Artist 
~Thank you.

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