Pain or Pleasure?

What is it about pain that appeals to us spankos when we experience it on our nether regions? Why is it so pleasurable on our bottoms, yet quite unwelcome when we feel it on other parts of our body?

I had reason to ponder this anomaly last weekend when I was preparing dinner for some guests. I had filled some flattened chicken breasts with asparagus and cheese, rolled them up, secured them with toothpicks, and browned them in a skillet on the stove. Then I placed the skillet in the oven to finish cooking the chicken rolls. When they were done I removed the skillet from the oven, then decided it would be a good idea to remove the wooden toothpicks, so my guests would not injure themselves or accidentally eat them.

This proved more difficult than I thought. They refused to budge. I struggled to restrain a piece of chicken with tongs while I pulled at the hot toothpicks with my fingers. The pan started to spin, and in an effort to control it I grabbed the handle, forgetting that it had just come out of the oven. Yeowch! I let go immediately and rushed to the sink to put out the fire in my hand with cold water. But I couldn't linger; the food was cooling off.

"Ron," I called. "Can you get me the pliers?" I was determined to get those toothpicks out one way or another and put the meal on the table, in spite of the pain.

Ron came into the kitchen, took one look at my face and asked what was wrong. I showed him my hand and explained what had happened. After examining my burn, he obligingly fetched the pliers, but he was no more successful than I had been in removing the wooden objects. He declared that we would simply warn our guests about the embedded hazards, and together we plated the food. (I hope Gordon Ramsey doesn't find out about this. He would spank us both.)

While Ron carried the plates to the table, I ran upstairs, broke a stalk off my aloe vera plant, and pressed the jellylike interior against my blistered hand. It felt better immediately.

My hand throbbed all through dinner and for the rest of the evening. I endured it, but couldn't help wondering about the paradox. When I am spanked, the pain is much worse than what I was feeling in my hand, but pain from a spanking is also pleasurable. Why wasn't I enjoying my burning hand in the same way? Why was it just painful, but not in a good way?

I am always stoic about pain from injuries, and rarely make a fuss. I didn't tell our guests about my accident and did my best to conceal my discomfort. Spanking, on the other hand, makes me shout, squeal, and protest loudly. It's my way of showing my appreciation, I suppose. If I were to endure a spanking silently, Ron would probably think I wasn't enjoying it, and might even stop.

What about you? What are your thoughts on pain and how you handle it?

Bon Appetit!

 This week I have been reading Backstage with Julia, a memoir by Nancy Verde Barr of her years of working with the famous television cook, Julia Child. The book contains many personal photographs and other mementos, and to my surprise I found this one.

It's a picture of one of Julia's team members, standing in a doorway in Julia's home in France. Over the door is an ominously large wooden spoon, and to the right is a large balloon whisk under a sign that warns: "Pain". I can't make out what it says underneath, but it gives one pause.

Later in the book I discovered a description of a road trip that I really have to share with you. In 1993, Nancy and Julia, along with Julia's friend John and Susy, another member of the staff, are in Colorado, traveling from the Aspen Classic to a dude ranch. John is having breathing difficulties but his doctor has given him portable oxygen for the journey.

It was a long, eight-hour-plus drive from Aspen to the ranch, and we decided to make a stop in Denver at the Tattered Cover Bookstore to buy a book on tape for the trip. We wanted something suspenseful and mysterious, and Julia and I stood looking at the possibilities. I spotted Anne Rice's name on a box of tapes entitled Exit to Eden and I picked it up.

"I just read her Interview with the Vampire and I really couldn't put it down."

"I've wanted to read her vampire story, but since you already have let's get this," she said, taking the box to the register without examining it.

We climbed back into the car with me in the driver's seat, Julia riding shotgun, and John and Susy in the back, with Susy diagonally behind me, so I could see her gesturing directions to turn left or right. We didn't want unnecessary talking to interrupt the storytelling.

I must have been concentrating especially hard on negotiating the streets out of Denver because I don't remember hearing the beginning of the tape. My first clue that it was not about anything as pedestrian as vampires was when I looked in the mirror at Susy for instructions on which way to turn. Her eyebrows were arched high in her forehead and she darted her startled eyes from me to the tape. I tuned in just in time to hear something about black leather and chains.

"What's this?" I asked, fumbling for and then ejecting the tape. "There must be a mistake. Do all the tapes say Anne Rice?"

It turns out that Rice writes explicitly erotic and wickedly pornographic stories that in book form appear under a pseudonym. On tape, they carry her name. At the time, we only knew we had something that seemed highly inappropriate to everyone but Julia.

"Well, let's listen to it anyway," she said, pushing the tape back into play position. Susy looked aghast, and I'm sure I heard John pulling extra hard on his oxygen tank. Meanwhile on the CD, two characters named Lisa and Elliot were pushing the envelope on the limits of pleasure at the Club, an exclusive, hidden resort devoted to the fulfillment of forbidden fantasies.

"What's he doing to her?" Julia asked. Was that John gasping? Susy was giggling.

"Look, Julia, we--we can listen to it, but I'm not explaining it to you." It wasn't so much that I was embarrassed; I wasn't exactly sure what kind of forbidden fantasies Lisa and Elliott were engaged in, and I wasn't sure John ever wanted to know. But Julia wanted to figure it out, so Susy and I did our best to offer commentary. John rolled down his window.

Spank that turkey, Julia!

How they handle pain

Last week I read a newspaper article in which top athletes were asked to describe how they handled pain. I've selected some of the pain-beating answers that seemed to be quite applicable to us spankos - tops and bottoms alike.


A mountain biker: "...I write a power word somewhere on my bike so if my eyes go down I see it. Other times I ask my coach to remind me of it. He even coined 'disciplined thought' for me for those times when I...need to stay focused."

A cross-country skier: "I've leaned into pain and pushed harder thanks to a quote...'There's more in there'. In a sport where pain is a given, the key is to prepare a response in advance for when it comes. You know it's coming. What are you going to do about it? I...hang on for dear life."

An Olympic marathoner: "I tell myself, 'Just two more...just two more strokes.' And I count 'one, two, one, two' as many times as needed..."
An Olympic gymnast: "When the going gets tough, I remind myself that I am doing this because I like to, and it's my choice. I want this."

An Olympic boxer: "I energize myself by hitting real hard."

An Olympic canoe-kayak medalist: "My muscles can only afford to do so much work. So for years I put them to the test: I paddle harder and farther and faster every day, albeit by a small margin... All this training, not in an effort to reduce the pain...but effectively to increase it."

Friday FAIL

Today's FAILs are on the subject of pain - the bad kind, not the kind we love - and how to relieve it.

The contents of Dalley's Magical Pain Extractor are unknown, but probably either ineffective or dangerous. The text reads: "Molly Pitcher, the heroine of Monmouth, avenging her husband's death."

Wolcott's Instant Pain Annihilator is "A speedy & permanent cure for headache, toothache, neuralgia, catarrh and weak nerves." Contents also unknown.

We Aim for Pain

I donate blood on a regular basis. In some countries, donors are compensated for their blood, but in Canada we give it without any thought of recompense beyond the knowledge that we have saved a life. Oh, yes, the coffee and cookies afterward are good too.

So, I reclined in the big, soft easy chair while the phlebotomist searched for a likely vein. I waited for the inevitable stab of the needle, and wasn't disappointed. Still, it wasn't so bad.

"I hope that didn't hurt too much," she apologized as she loosened the tourniquet. I didn't bother to tell her that I was on comfortable terms with pain, so merely said I had hardly felt it.

"That's good," she replied. "I aim for pain-free."

I swear there was a pause between the last two syllables. Isn't that a lovely slogan for a spanker's business card or website?

I Aim for Pain

When "Ouch" Just Won't Do

The latest scientific study related to pain suggests that swearing after an injury eases the sting. There seems to be a link between bad language and an increase in tolerance to pain.

So it is perfectly justifiable to swear at your top while you are being spanked. It increases your tolerance so you are able to stand the increased attack on your bottom that the swearing will inevitably provoke.

Sounds like a vicious circle to me. Vicious, but fun!

Friday Fail

I know of a better way to have instant pain, and it doesn't come in a tube or atomizer.

The Power of Touch

Scientists have discovered something that we spankos have known for years: touching relieves pain.

British researchers at University College London have found that grabbing your toe or finger after it has sustained an injury provides immediate relief. Their conclusion was that touching the aching area relieves pain by changing the way the body is represented in the brain.

Oh. So that's why we rub our bottoms after a spanking.

I wonder what they spent on that study. They could have saved a lot of money by just asking spanking enthusiasts.

Pain Hurts

It does? Really? Tell me something I didn't know.

From the Top Shelf - Highlights IV

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


Another of Havelock Ellis's female correspondents wrote: "Actual pain gives me no pleasure, yet the idea of pain does, if inflicted by way of discipline and for the ultimate good of the person suffering it... I only get pleasure in the idea of a woman submitting herself to pain and harshness from the man she loves when the following conditions are fulfilled:

1. She must be absolutely sure of the man's love.
2. She must have perfect confidence in his judgment.
3. The pain must be deliberately inflicted, not accidental.
4. It must be inflicted in kindness and for her own improvement, not in anger or with any revengeful feelings, as that would spoil one's ideal of the man.
5. The pain must not be excessive and must be what when we were children we used to call a "tidy" pain; i.e., there must be no mutilation, cutting, etc.
6. Last, one would have to feel very sure of one's own influence over the man."

The authors conclude "The passage is particularly compelling since it suggests so much control. A Sadean fantasy frequently has the infliction of punishment accompanied by a mandatory smile on the victim's face. Outside the sexual sphere pain is condemned.

So s-m is a personification of the imagination."

From the Top Shelf - Highlights

One of my favourite books on the top shelf is one I bought at the campus bookstore while I was at university. It's called S-M: The Last Taboo, by Gerald and Caroline Greene. Published in 1974, it is largely a scholarly study, relying heavily on the thoughts and findings of Havelock Ellis, the Marquis de Sade, Sigmund Freud, Krafft-Ebing and several others.

The most enjoyable (and the most re-read) part of the book was the section devoted to examples of spanking erotica. The two scenes from O, Calcutta that I posted here and here came from that book.

What I want to share with you today and over the next few weeks are the passages that I highlighted with a pink felt marker over thirty years ago. My thoughts, desires and feelings have matured and evolved over time, and I find it interesting to be reminded of what was so important and significant way back then.




Today's excerpt involves the concept of pain. But first, a word about terminology. Sadist and masochist are the words the authors use as general terms for the person who inflicts pain and the one who receives it. Those words might just as easily be spanker and spankee, or top and bottom in today's vocabulary.

Accidental pain is not perceived as pleasurable or sexual. The average sadomasochistic session is usually scripted: the masochist must have allegedly done something meriting punishment, there must be threats and suspense before the punishment is meted out, etc. Often the phenomenon reminds one of a planned ritual or theatrical production... When one appreciates this one realizes that often in the relationship the sadist is merely servicing the masochist. The sadist must develop an extraordinary perceptiveness to know when to continue, despite cries and protests, and when to cease.

Interesting that the writer calls TTWD theatrical. I suspect I highlighted this passage because of my desire for roleplay as part of spanking. The top servicing the bottom? I never thought of it that way, but he does have a point.

What do you think?

This is gonna hurt like hell

Canadian singer and songwriter Sarah McLachlan starts her song Hold On this way:

Hold on
Hold on to yourself
For this is gonna hurt like hell

I get a kinky thrill every time I hear that line. My ears stop listening and my mind starts generating all sorts of lovely spanking story lines and images. The song isn't about spanking, but it is about pain.

Here's the whole song, performed by Sarah:

A Happy Pain

This was found printed on the wall of a love motel in Korea.

Shocking grammar, but it does touch me on an emotional level, in view of my "preferences".

Read what others had to say about it.

This will hurt you more ...

Yesterday Spankedhortic wrote about myths involving pain. You really have to watch his Mythbusters videos! Especially the one comparing men's pain tolerance to that of women.

My response to that post is a little discovery of my own. A recent article in the newspaper announced that our perception of pain is enhanced by talking about it. Saying "This may hurt" can actually make the pain more intense. Talking about pain stimulates a part of the brain called the "pain matrix".




What does that mean for those of us who seek pleasurable, erotic pain? During a spanking, the spanker can produce a greater effect with less effort by simply telling the spankee that it's going to hurt excruciatingly. The spankee will then experience more intense pain (along with corresponding enjoyment) without fear of excess bodily harm. How convenient!

Ten to Two

Last week Ron decided to give me a really memorable spanking. His chosen implement - the black leather paddle - was one he seldom uses, although it hangs from the bedpost as a constant reminder. He finds it a little hard to control because it is quite supple; he prefers implements that are more rigid, with just a little flexibility. So why did he decide on Black Beauty? Who knows?

What I do know is, once I was in position, bent over the end of the bed, the first few swats were agony. I squirmed and kicked as I struggled to stay in position while trying to avoid the worst of the impact. If I had to rate that pain on a scale of one to ten, it would have been ten, or pretty close to it.




I exhaled loudly when Ron stopped for a brief intermission and some gentle rubbing. But all too soon, the break was over, and I clenched my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut as the evil black strap connected with my bare bottom. each stroke was still very sharp, although the worst of it had passed. Even after a few more sets, with pauses in between, the severity was only slightly lessened, and I echoed each loud swat with an equally loud vocal response.

Then it all changed. The strokes were still as hard as before, and as loud as before, but I stopped minding them. They hurt, but in a good way. I stayed silent and drank them in.




I would like to say I stopped thinking about them and drifted away, but there was that tiny objective part of my mind that was asking, "Is this subspace?" Probably not, but I could tell that I was relaxed and still, breathing deeply and calmly. Pain? What pain? A two, at most.




Ron stopped. His work was done, and he had done it well. And he swore that he hadn't decreased the intensity whatsoever near the end.

So tell me, readers, have you experienced this sort of reversal of the amount of pain a spanking causes you? (No, I'm not going to ask you if this is "normal" :-) Do you go from a lot of pain to only a little? Or does a spanking hurt more and more as it progresses?

I'm curious.

Double your Pleasure, Double your Pain

This happened last weekend on the day of our usual spanking date.

Ron had been very generous in his selection of implements and equally energetic in their application. In fact, my bottom felt like it was on fire by the time he let me get up.

A couple of hours passed, and the burn was still there - a happy reminder of our afternoon fun. As we cleared the table after dinner, Ron gave my posterior a solid slap as I bent to put the plates into the dishwasher.

"Ow," I yelped.

"Did that hurt?" my dear husband queried innocently.

"Yes," I whined in mock annoyance.

"Good." Ron sounded satisfied that his earlier exertions had had the desired effect.

Later as we snuggled on the couch watching tv, I squirmed from time to time as my sore bottom reminded me of the earlier spanking. At bedtime I stood up and rubbed my cheeks.

"Oh, they're still sore," I informed Ron. "You did a very thorough job." I put my arms around him and hugged him. "Thank you."

He seemed happy to hear the praise. By way of reply, a hard swat landed on my right bottomcheek.

"Did that hurt?"

"Yes!"

Another swat. "Did that hurt?"

"Ow! Yes!"

A flurry of open-handed swats followed, interspersed at intervals with the same question. I giggled, wiggled, and replied emphatically in the affirmative. By the time he stopped I had been treated to my second spanking of the day, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We gasped, still out of breath from laughing, and Ron gestured to the couch we had recently vacated. Our three furry companions were lying there quietly - Fluffy and Crookshanks together at one end, and Fang at the other - and all seemed totally unimpressed by our antics.

"They aren't even bothered by all the noise," Ron said. That had often been a concern in the past, but obviously our pack has adjusted to loud smacking sounds.

This opens the door to all sorts of possibilities.

A Hurtin' Song

What would I do without CBC radio to entertain me during my daily commute? This little gem by James Morrison caught my attention. Can you guess why?

If loving you is easy,
Playing by the rules,
But you said love tastes so much better when it's cruel.
To you everything was just a game.


Yeah, you played me good,
But I want you, I want you, I want you,
So much more than I should,
Yes I do.


I've got my hands up so take your aim,
Yeah, I'm ready.
There's nothing that we can't go through.
Oh, it hit me like a steel freight train,
When you left me,
And nothing ever hurt like you,
Nothing ever hurt like you.


I was naive and wide-eyed
But you made me see,
That you don't get to taste the honey
Without the sting of a bee,
No you don't.


Yes, you stung me good,
Oh yeah, you dug in deep,
But I'll take it, I'll take it, I'll take it
Till I'm down on my knees.


I've got my hands up so take your aim,
Yeah I'm ready,
There's nothing that we can't go through,
Walk a thousand miles on broken glass,
It won't stop me
from making my way back to you.
It's not real till you feel the pain,
And nothing ever hurt like you,
Nothing ever hurt like you.

Listen to the song here.

Pleasure and Pain

Scientists have identified the specific nerve fibres in the skin that transmit pleasure messages.

This is something different, because for years, they have been investigating what produces the sensation of pain, and how nerves convey that information to the brain.

It seems that, in order for a sensation to be recognized as pleasurable, the skin must be stroked at just the right speed. Too fast or too slow and the pleasure response doesn't happen.

I suppose the same could be said of the stroking that produces pain. Strokes that are too fast (yikes!) or too slow (yawn...) don't produce the same effect as strokes that are just the right number of seconds apart (yum).

Read the whole article here.

Hugs for the Heron Clan

If you have been reading the latest posts on The Heron Clan or Herons Transforming, you will know that Raheretic, T and swan have endured some pretty heavy-duty medical issues in the past two weeks.

They are all together at home now, I'm happy to report, and well on the road to recovery. As a gesture of support, I'd like to offer them these spanko band-aids from the medicine cabinet in our Implement Room. 





I hope they make you laugh a little, but not enough to hurt.