I'm not a crier by nature (those animal commercials don't count) and when I do cry it's rarely in front of other people. Emotions were not a big thing in my family, and as a kid who got picked on a lot I learned that showing people any form of weakness gives them power over you. To this day if I find something sad or emotional I'll detach myself until I'm alone and can cry in peace. This rule holds exceptions of course: funerals, my cat getting ill, and kink.
I'm fairly new to bdsm but I feel like I've had decent exposure to the physical possibilities. I've been tied, spanked, flogged, gagged, slapped, whipped and choked. I've experienced verbal and physical humiliation, pleasure and pain. I've screamed, moaned, struggled, sighed, begged and squirmed, but never in all this time have I cried, until now.
The first time it happened I was incredibly embarrassed and confused. CP and I had only been going out for a little while, and we were still trying to figure each other out. We had discussed limits and safewords and we were testing. He wanted to see how far I could go and I wanted to see how far he would push it and we got to a point where he was slapping my face quite hard, repeatedly. I started to cry. I had no idea where it came from and why it was happening but it was overwhelming and I couldn't get it under control. He stopped the scene and held me until I stopped, and we waited until I was ready to keep going.
The second time it happened I was being spanked harder and longer then any time before, and it just broke out of me. The third time was last night while I was trying not to resist when I knew he was about to do something I didn't like. Each time it was unexpected, confusing and embarrassing.
Here I am, a girl who takes pride in her ability to remain emotionally aloof and yet this one man can reduce me to tears time and time again. (Guaranteed he gets an ego boost from reading that) I couldn't figure it out. Was it the pain? Am I crying out of fear? Out of frustration? Is it an emotional release? The first time threw both CP and I off so much that we had to stop. The second time he realized what was going on and after giving me the option of an out which I rejected, continued to beat my ass until a cool breeze was enough to make me cry out in pain. That may sound a bit harsh but it was a learning experience. He learned that he liked having the power to make me cry, and I learned that the crying actually felt good. It helped ease the pain, it gave the built up energy a way to release, and it relaxed my body entirely. A physical response to overwhelming physical stimuli, it made total sense. And then last night happened.
Last night wasn't much different from anything I'd experienced with CP before. The tears began when I was struggling to obey a difficult demand and they continued when I was coping with pain. The thing that changed about last night was the way he spoke to me. More than ever CP was reinforcing the idea that I am a submissive person, making me aware of all of the things I was willing to do, and how far I was willing to go to please him. (I'm discovering that I have issues with being submissive. It's something that I've always known I've wanted, it's something that I've always actively pursued, and yet I have a very hard time accepting it. This is a topic for a separate post, but it's an issue that we've been discussing a lot lately.) I had been enduring a spanking and crying into the couch when he stopped for a minute and just talked, and I realized later that the more he talked, the harder I cried. It was my epiphany.
Yes, the tears help with pain and releasing tension and all of those wonderful things, but that's just a helpful side effect, not the cause. When I cry, it's because I'm letting go. Every time the intense wave of emotion hit me I was enduring something I didn't like. I wasn't safe wording, I wasn't running away, I was enduring because I knew it's what he wanted and my desire to obey him outweighed my desire to have him stop. Every time that I cry it marks a physical turning point in the night. My body relaxes, my brain starts to focus on single things at a time, and I become almost physically incapable of resisting, or of wanting to resist. The safe word is still there of course, but only for if I truly become incapable of continuing. It's why his words made me cry harder than his hand did. When I cry, I'm giving in to what I am.
Now this may be a chicken or egg scenario. Do I cry because I'm submitting, or am I submitting because I cry? That one is going to take longer to figure out. And just because I have an idea of the whys, it doesn't mean I'm completely comfortable with it. I'm still of the belief that emotion equals vulnerability, and this is a level of being vulnerable that I very rarely touch on. Still, understanding at least a little part of it is only going to make the rest of my explorations easier. It's scary, since I'm only just starting to touch on my submissive self and already am being hit upside the head (excuse the pun) with emotional puzzles. I can't imagine what I'll be dealing with six months, or six years from now.
So this was my epiphany. My little breakthrough. I hope you're all as impressed with my emotional sleuthing as I am, we're talking crime novel levels of detective work. I'm off now to try and crack the case of how one giant hand can cause so much pain when coming into contact with bare skin. Unfortunately some more experiments will be required. The next time you read a post, read it with the knowledge that I'm most likely squirming in my seat with two large hand prints on my ass.
You're imagining it now, aren't you?
