Monday, July 19, 2010

From the Top Shelf - Highlights II


Today I have another highlighted excerpt to share with you from
S-M: The Last Taboo, by Gerald and Caroline Greene.

Like the last selection, it involves pain, and expands on the notion of severity:
Memory can only preserve impressions as a whole; physical pain consists of a sensation and of a feeling. But memory cannot easily reproduce the definite sensation of pain, and thus the whole memory is disintegrated and speedily forgotten. It is probably true in general that a man who has known the cane at school might make a mental picture of a more severe type than a woman who had known only the infliction of a slipper. Indeed, most women might be well satisfied for masturbatory purposes with images of the ritual involved, bending over, raising the skirt, rather than any pain at all.
I agree with the part about the memory of pain being lost, and therefore is not remembered as overwhelming. But in my own personal experience, my fantasies and mental imaginings take on a much more severe form than anything I actually experienced in the past. What I find stimulating is something closer to hard canings than mild slipperings, to use the examples from the above passage.

What do you think?


From Hermione's Heart

4 comments:

turiya said...

Yeah, I've read about the memory of pain being forgotten, but in a different context. It was mentioned that if women remembered how horrible labor was, they'd probably never have another kid, so it was probably for the sake of reproduction that the memory of the pain of childbirth is forgotten shortly after. LOL

*hugs*

turiya

Daisychain said...

What I knew in the distant past, as a child, was just 1 spanking, at around 7years of age.
Yet it had a profound effect on me, of disappointing someone I loved dearly.
What I experienced in the more recent past with my ex, left me terrified of canes, to the point I hyperventilate at the thought...not nice.
My experiences with my husband, however, have shown spanking can take on many forms and when we are together, we will try them all!!!!!!!

ronnie said...

Hermione,

I've read the same as Turiya but also that pain can still be felt after an illness has been healed "memory pain" I think even scientists don't quite understand fully.
Not having had the cane or slipper at school my mental images were similar to yours of hard canings. I still have a love hate relationship with the cane but the more it's used the more I want.

Love,
Ronnie
xx

Em said...

Hermione - I also find that my fantasies often tend toward a level of pain (or control) that I don't wish to experience in real life. That's what makes them good fantasies!