On February 10, 2011 at 1:24 am T. Fuller Dean said:
CB:
While I’ve never been into S&M, bondage, fetishism, etc., per se – let alone purposefully receiving or inflicting pain – there’s no doubt that some bondage imagery and fantasies, at least, are undeniably titillating, as are some not-so-’serious’ spanking scenarios. But – in response to your own comments regarding spanking – there is little question among clinical psychologists (psychology is my educational background) that all these sexual manifestations, as well as many others, represent ‘aberrational’ or non-normal behaviors to some degree; and ‘degree’ is a key distinction, since sexual response and expression in humans is a far more complex and diverse set of behaviors than is found in the rest of the animal kingdom. As you rightly suggest in some of your comments, for most of us, it can be one thing to imagine or fantasize something, but quite another to actually enjoy doing it. Some measure of these behaviors – even if practiced by a relative minority – may be considered relatively ‘normal’ within the broad spectrum of human sexual response that we recognize today. The most ‘liberal’ view might even add the opinion that essentially ‘anything goes’ sexually, at least as long as it is neither coercive nor intrinsically dangerous to any participant (and we could name a number of practices which demonstrably ARE dangerous, even life-threatening.) And, as you also rightly observed, many of those who enjoy some of these activities are not to be handily dismissed as seriously weird and disturbed individuals. Still, it should be understood that psychologists can easily trace most such ‘peripheral’, fetishistic, and (especially) sado-masochistic sexual activity to early, significant exposure to some sort of ‘deviant’ or ‘abnormal’ environmental influence – whether direct or indirect, blatant or subtle; and the more ‘indirect’ and subtle the influence, the harder it is likely to be for the lay person to discern any apparent, unusual ‘causative’ factors at all, even though they are present.
But, as an example of the more ‘direct’ (and rather dramatic) type of early influence: as you may know, a certain predilection for spanking and other bondage-&-punishment-oriented sexual behaviors has been associated notoriously with the English culture, in particular. Studies show that, in earlier times up through the Victorian-Edwardian period, small children in a caste-conscious England were generally not suffered gladly among adults, were considered ‘better seen than heard’, and often ‘seen’ as little as possible (sending them far-off to boarding or private schools for the better part of their childhood was common practice); and in English public school classrooms it was not uncommon for an unruly or otherwise misbehaved pupil to be brought to the front of the room and paddle- or switch-spanked on his or her exposed bare bottom before the whole class of wide-eyed boys and girls. Over years of this kind of systematic public humiliation, mixed emotionally with equal parts of anxiety, physical pain, and exposure of private parts (with the implied sexuality, exhibitionism, voyeurism, nudity, and accompanying excitement), it is small wonder that a significant population of adult Brits have been produced who’ve shared the experience of an early emotional confusion of pain, pleasure, and heightened excitement – a ‘neurotic’ confusion which tends to carry over into their adult sexual predilections. Clearly, this illustrates how what most of us today would consider an unfortunate and misguided practice can unwittingly shape (warp?) the sexual behavior of individuals in later life, producing what psychologists would rightly define as a neurotic or ‘deviant’ behavior pattern – i.e., one that usually would not have emerged ‘normally’ under different conditions.
The human mind is endlessly complex – and the manifest behaviors it drives are often even more so. Other, much more ‘indirect’ early influences in our lives, usually in the family environment – involving often subtle, yet significant, psychological factors generally unappreciated by family members, themselves, and certainly largely unobserved by outsiders – can result in many of the same unusual or aberrant sexual behaviors that more obvious, ‘direct’ influences precipitate. Very often these more subtle, indirect early influences (like so-called Chinese ‘water torture’, one small drip at a time) follow an emotional path which involves the diminished self-esteem of an individual. And this very important element, in turn, over time can produce a variety of unusual behaviors which, in one way or another (and quite unconsciously), may serve to either alleviate
inadequate self-worth feelings, or, more commonly, to reinforce them – thus confirming the individual’s already negative, ‘unworthy’, ‘undeserving’ self- image. By this circuitous and labyrinthine route, all sorts of behavioral manifestations can result, including some of the ‘fringe’ sexual activities discussed here. Not surprisingly, masochistic practices, bondage, and punishment-oriented activities are perfectly suited for individuals suffering low self-esteem. But, as emphasized earlier, such things can be a matter of degree; and, given the inordinate complexity of the human mind generally and human sexuality in particular, it also is no surprise that some otherwise relatively ‘normal’, emotionally healthy individuals can also harmlessly derive certain rewards from some of these practices. ~ TFD
CB:
While I’ve never been into S&M, bondage, fetishism, etc., per se – let alone purposefully receiving or inflicting pain – there’s no doubt that some bondage imagery and fantasies, at least, are undeniably titillating, as are some not-so-’serious’ spanking scenarios. But – in response to your own comments regarding spanking – there is little question among clinical psychologists (psychology is my educational background) that all these sexual manifestations, as well as many others, represent ‘aberrational’ or non-normal behaviors to some degree; and ‘degree’ is a key distinction, since sexual response and expression in humans is a far more complex and diverse set of behaviors than is found in the rest of the animal kingdom. As you rightly suggest in some of your comments, for most of us, it can be one thing to imagine or fantasize something, but quite another to actually enjoy doing it. Some measure of these behaviors – even if practiced by a relative minority – may be considered relatively ‘normal’ within the broad spectrum of human sexual response that we recognize today. The most ‘liberal’ view might even add the opinion that essentially ‘anything goes’ sexually, at least as long as it is neither coercive nor intrinsically dangerous to any participant (and we could name a number of practices which demonstrably ARE dangerous, even life-threatening.) And, as you also rightly observed, many of those who enjoy some of these activities are not to be handily dismissed as seriously weird and disturbed individuals. Still, it should be understood that psychologists can easily trace most such ‘peripheral’, fetishistic, and (especially) sado-masochistic sexual activity to early, significant exposure to some sort of ‘deviant’ or ‘abnormal’ environmental influence – whether direct or indirect, blatant or subtle; and the more ‘indirect’ and subtle the influence, the harder it is likely to be for the lay person to discern any apparent, unusual ‘causative’ factors at all, even though they are present.
But, as an example of the more ‘direct’ (and rather dramatic) type of early influence: as you may know, a certain predilection for spanking and other bondage-&-punishment-oriented sexual behaviors has been associated notoriously with the English culture, in particular. Studies show that, in earlier times up through the Victorian-Edwardian period, small children in a caste-conscious England were generally not suffered gladly among adults, were considered ‘better seen than heard’, and often ‘seen’ as little as possible (sending them far-off to boarding or private schools for the better part of their childhood was common practice); and in English public school classrooms it was not uncommon for an unruly or otherwise misbehaved pupil to be brought to the front of the room and paddle- or switch-spanked on his or her exposed bare bottom before the whole class of wide-eyed boys and girls. Over years of this kind of systematic public humiliation, mixed emotionally with equal parts of anxiety, physical pain, and exposure of private parts (with the implied sexuality, exhibitionism, voyeurism, nudity, and accompanying excitement), it is small wonder that a significant population of adult Brits have been produced who’ve shared the experience of an early emotional confusion of pain, pleasure, and heightened excitement – a ‘neurotic’ confusion which tends to carry over into their adult sexual predilections. Clearly, this illustrates how what most of us today would consider an unfortunate and misguided practice can unwittingly shape (warp?) the sexual behavior of individuals in later life, producing what psychologists would rightly define as a neurotic or ‘deviant’ behavior pattern – i.e., one that usually would not have emerged ‘normally’ under different conditions.
The human mind is endlessly complex – and the manifest behaviors it drives are often even more so. Other, much more ‘indirect’ early influences in our lives, usually in the family environment – involving often subtle, yet significant, psychological factors generally unappreciated by family members, themselves, and certainly largely unobserved by outsiders – can result in many of the same unusual or aberrant sexual behaviors that more obvious, ‘direct’ influences precipitate. Very often these more subtle, indirect early influences (like so-called Chinese ‘water torture’, one small drip at a time) follow an emotional path which involves the diminished self-esteem of an individual. And this very important element, in turn, over time can produce a variety of unusual behaviors which, in one way or another (and quite unconsciously), may serve to either alleviate
inadequate self-worth feelings, or, more commonly, to reinforce them – thus confirming the individual’s already negative, ‘unworthy’, ‘undeserving’ self- image. By this circuitous and labyrinthine route, all sorts of behavioral manifestations can result, including some of the ‘fringe’ sexual activities discussed here. Not surprisingly, masochistic practices, bondage, and punishment-oriented activities are perfectly suited for individuals suffering low self-esteem. But, as emphasized earlier, such things can be a matter of degree; and, given the inordinate complexity of the human mind generally and human sexuality in particular, it also is no surprise that some otherwise relatively ‘normal’, emotionally healthy individuals can also harmlessly derive certain rewards from some of these practices. ~ TFD