Semantics
I had a small disagreement with a friend the other night about terms. He said (and I am paraphrasing) that we were saying the same thing, that I was defining things too narrowly, and it was all semantics.
Well, yes.
And the term? Humiliation Play. As applied to me, specifically.
Which brings me to the impetus for this particular post: lately I find myself continually wanting to say “define ‘XXXX’, please.” Define: sex, love, intimacy, relationship, service, submission, bottoming, humiliation, etc., et. al. I’ve found myself tending to try to distill things to the purest possible meaning of whatever descriptors I use. Not because I’m difficult, because I am trying to be specific. About myself. And because I know there are boundaries I’m interested in pushing, and think I’d better be able to be specific about what they are.
See, I have a 19 yearold’s penchant for jumping off the high board without looking. Luckily for me, it’s backed up with 40 years of life experience, so thus far I’ve always managed to find the thimbul full of water at the end of the drop. I frequently sound like I’m taking big risks when quite frankly I’m pretty careful about such things. Yes, I take some risks, but they tend to be pretty calculated, based on a certain amount of experience.
The BDSM realm is relatively new to me, although I got rather a crash course. I do know myself fairly well, and I’m constantly learning things. One of the ways I learn is analysis… and for me that means semantics. It means testing edges: physically, psychologically AND verbally. My take: the better able I am to define what makes me tick, the farther my limits are. And, yes… I see my friends point: the activities and kinks we were discussing generally fall under the broad umbrella of what would be considered Humiliation Play.
The discussion arose because I don’t find them to be humiliating. I find them exhilarating and powerful. Then, I’m not playing with things that I’m ashamed of. Perhaps, there’s a greater point to the conversation we were having: perhaps I am beginning to skirt around the edges of what I WOULD define as Humiliation Play; i.e., things that feel humiliating to me, at some stage in the scene, before or after.
Perhaps that’s where I’m headed…though there’s the added problem of a partner interested in such, with me, who has a clue… I’m not looking for therapy (got that covered, thanks) despite how cathartic a scene can be. I’m of the ‘conversation is negotiation’ mindset, and I’m frankly not big into formalized negotiations. I’m not generally interested in covering every possible permutation before a scene happens, or dictating a scene for a top to ‘enact’ (one notable exception excluded). No question, I certainly state what I like… and then I prefer not to be in charge.
Given all that, I think I need to be careful that I know what I’m saying, and not blindly throw terms about like ‘Humiliation Play’, if I’m not really sure that is what I’m after.
Semantics? Hell yes.
As you know, I agree with lots of what you have to say about semantics. No two people will ever define something like ‘humiliation play’ the same way, from either topping or bottoming. While it may not seem interesting to all, I find I personally really enjoy getting down to the nitty gritty of what I define certain terms as, and what others define them as. Yes, using broad terms in conversation is understandable, or else we’d never get to the actual bits of conversation, but having a good working definition of what each party understands the topic to be is important.
Love you too bitch,
Me.
[...] Semantics - Nix [...]
I think the term itself is misleading in general because peoples reactions to the term “Humiliation Play” are to knee jerk towards things that are humiliating as in bad things and even more towards things that would more than likely be humiliating in that bad way for th person reading the term.
The reality is more along the lines of “playing with things that would societally fit the bill of being humiliating but that turn you on instead”.
I have engaged in “humiliation” play, both as a top and as a bottom — and yet for me, it is sensation play more than humiliation when I bottom to it. When I top someone in this I have to ask — is it really humiliation for them?