Why does pain sometimes create pleasure?
This discussion will explore why for so many people, pain and/or fear can be a source of pleasure—within BDSM dynamics, in various kink scenes, and even unexpectedly in their day-to-day lives. We will explore the role of trauma and the concept of “reenactment,” discuss how the brain’s structure may contribute to the phenomenon, and speculate about what the implications of this are for the politics of pleasure.
{Desensitization and novelty}
Novelty engages the brain because it triggers curiosity and the brain's natural inclination to explore new or uncertain situations. Novel stimuli activate dopamine pathways, which are involved in pleasure, learning, and motivation. When we encounter something novel, it signals that there may be something important or valuable to learn, hence it captures attention and engages cognitive and emotional resources.
As a result of this, people tend to gravitate toward experiences that are moderately novel or intense. Pain, of course, can be intense.
A really good exploration of this can be found in Tibor Scitovsky’s book The Joyless Economy.
In it, he points out that “People get a lot of satisfaction from participating in dangerous sports, watching horror movies, and reading crime stories.” {The Joyless Economy, 40.}
_Wundt Curve: “The new and surprising is always stimulating, but it is attractive only up to a limited degree, beyond which it becomes disturbing and frightening.” {Tibor Scitovsky, The Joyless Economy, 34}
_Implications of the Wundt Curve for Critical Hedonism(s): validates “pivoting” tactic. Desires can shift but not leap.
_Proximity of pleasantness and unpleasantness: “The fact is that the most pleasant is on the borderline with the unpleasant. I hardly need say that the borderline is occasionally blurred.” {Tibor Scitovsky, The Joyless Economy, 34.}
Trauma works the same way. We have models of the world that help us to survive. When new information enters, that information threatens us. “the inflow of information poses a problem, while our successful processing of that information resolves the problem. Successful processing, however, hinges on the amount of information to be processed staying within the limits imposed by the brain’s information processing capacity.” {The Joyless Economy, 42.}
{The unconscious}
{definition} “a reservoir of thoughts, memories, desires, and feelings that are not accessible to conscious awareness.”
“These unconscious elements are often repressed, meaning they have been pushed out of conscious awareness because they are disturbing or socially unacceptable.”
“These can include traumatic memories, socially inappropriate desires, and unresolved conflicts from childhood.” (We will talk more about trauma in a bit)
“Even though these unconscious desires and memories are not accessible in our waking consciousness, Freud believed they have a profound influence on our behavior.”
{shadow work} Some people talk about doing “shadow work” to get in touch with these repressed aspects of themselves.
Freud argued that our civilization demands for individuals to repress anti-social and unproductive aspects of their instincts. If we did not repress these instincts and become responsible, safe, predictable, and peaceful, society would collapse. The theory of the unconscious holds that this leads to individuals having all of these repressed instincts within ourselves that want to be expressed. These can frequently be aggressive or submissive, since society requires us to get these drives in particular under control.
{evolutionary psychology} Some evolutionary psychologists have theorized that there is a certain evolutionary advantage to the desire for sexual submission. They have argued that it is especially common among women, claiming that: “Sexual arousal by dominance and submissiveness is a manifestation of mating strategy because such a behaviour results in an increased reproductive success and thus may lead to the preferential selection of individuals who prefer sexual arousal by hierarchical disparity. This fact explains why the[re is a] high number of [female humans who are] excited by sexual fantasies and activities connected to hierarchical disparity.”
I don’t know how much I buy this. But it could explain why many people—and especially women—have a desire to be sexually submissive. But it doesn’t explain why many men have this desire too, or offer any suggestions about how fixed and immutable such an instinct is.
But there is something interesting about the prospect that perhaps we have some elements of our human nature that we generally repress because we are trying to live in a civilization, but these repressed instincts or drives still bubble up in unpredictable and unexpected ways.
So if this is true, then perhaps kink and BDSM are an arena in which to explore and express and resolve that tension.
It’s important, too, to say, as Savannah Stewart insists, “Feminism and Sexual Submission Aren’t Mutually Exclusive.” Just because someone may enjoy rough or domineering sex does not mean that they can’t confront gendered violence, discrimination and domineering in the world. There in not an inherent tension between these things.
{The abject}
We need to talk about the concept of the “abject,” and how desire and disgust are much more intertwined than you might initially think.
{What is the abject?} The abject a concept from the Bulgarian-French philosopher Julia Kristeva, in her book The Powers of Horror. It describes “things that disturb the boundaries between self and other, such as bodily fluids (blood, vomit, excrement), decay, corpses, or anything that reminds us of the breakdown between life and death.”
Something is abject when it upsets our sense of coherence. Our sense of identity and coherence comes from the belief that we are distinct, self-contained subjects, in total contrast to the outside world of objects. And we maintain this sense of identity by rejecting or repressing things that we find revolting:
-blood, vomit, excrement
-past identities of ours
-identities and aesthetics that go against our own
-Certain forms of cultural otherness
-Fashion cycles and trends (mullets, low-waisted jeans, etc.)
There’s a link between the abject and the unconscious in traditional psychoanalytic theory. Our unconscious response to the abject “is revulsion, rejection, and a desire to push these thoughts away, much like how we repress traumatic or unacceptable desires in traditional psychoanalysis.”
{Desire and the abject} Yet, there is some desire in the abject. Think about a time you couldn’t look away from something horrifying. Think about our culture’s fascination with violence and gore and crime and violation.
There are a few explanations for this.
{the abject and the self} As Kristeva puts it, "Abjection preserves what existed in the archaism of pre-objectal relationship, in the immemorial violence with which a body becomes separated from another body in order to be" (Powers of Horror, 10). “The process of abjection involves the separation from the mother, which is both a necessary and traumatic experience. This separation is essential for the formation of the subject’s identity, but it also leaves a lingering desire for the lost object (the mother).”
Kristeva calls this the “primal distinction”: the separation of the self from the (m)other, and the separation of humans from the rest of nature and their environment. To be alive is to exist in a state of disequilibrium and tension basically all the time. In other words, it means to live with desires that can never be fully satiated. And because of this, we tend to desire the end of desire—to die and return to the mother, to return to the earth, to become one with the universe.
Because of this, Kristeva claims, “The abject is something that simultaneously attracts and repels. While it provokes horror and disgust, it also holds a certain fascination. This duality creates a complex dynamic where desire is intertwined with repulsion.”
“The abject often represents what is forbidden or taboo. This forbidden nature can make the abject an object of desire, precisely because it is off-limits. The transgressive nature of desiring the abject can be both thrilling and terrifying.”
This offers some explanation for the sexual fetishism that often goes along with orientalism or a desire for the other. “On a societal level, the abject can symbolize marginalized or excluded groups. The desire to engage with or understand these groups can be seen as a desire to confront and integrate the abject, challenging societal norms and boundaries.”
“Kristeva’s exploration of the abject reveals how our deepest desires are often entangled with what we find most repulsive or terrifying.” “Kristeva associates the abject with jouissance:”
{Kristeva quote:} "One does not know it, one does not desire it, [yet] one joys in it [on en jouit]. Violently and painfully. A passion.” (Powers 9 ). {https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/psychoanalysis/kristevaabjectmain.html}
-“the border” <<Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 9.2.B>>
We are, despite everything, continually and repetitively drawn to the abject (much as we are repeatedly drawn to trauma in Freud's understanding of repetition compulsion). To experience the abject in literature carries with it a certain pleasure but one that is quite different from the dynamics of desire. Kristeva associates this aesthetic experience of the abject, rather, with poetic catharsis: "an impure process that protects from the abject only by dint of being immersed in it" (Powers 29 ).
The moment in our psychosexual development when we established a border or separation between human and animal, between culture and that which preceded it. On the level of archaic memory, Kristeva refers to the primitive effort to separate ourselves from the animal: "by way of abjection, primitive societies have marked out a precise area of their culture in order to remove it from the threatening world of animals or animalism, which were imagined as representatives of sex and murder"
{Trauma}
Ok, let’s talk about trauma. A major explanation for why some people drive pleasure from pain and/or fear is that this experience taps into trauma that they carry.
There are many ways to think about this, but I think the most powerful framework to use is a “re-enactment” framework.
Corie Hammers, “Reworking Trauma through BDSM,” (2019)
According to Hammers, some individuals may engage in sadomasochistic practices as a way to re-enact or symbolically process their trauma. Sadomasochism, with its controlled use of pain and submission, can be a space where power dynamics are consciously navigated and potentially re-negotiated. For some, this might offer a way to reclaim control over their bodies and their experiences, thus functioning as a healing mechanism.
{Reenactment}
Key reading: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3330499/
Reenactment describes the ways in which people confront, relive, recreate, and resolve traumatic experiences. This is especially true for abuse survivors.
Adaptive vs. maladaptive reenactment:
Maladaptive:
ways that people re-experience or recreate similar experiences to their abuse or trauma.
Adaptive:
ways that people allow themselves to re-experience aspects of their trauma while resolving or gaining mastery over the experience.
“Reenactment plays a central role in Corie Hammers’s argument, as she posits that BDSM provides a space for individuals to safely reenact elements of their trauma in a controlled, consensual context. Hammers draws on the concept of reenactment to explain how trauma survivors can reclaim agency over past experiences of violence or abuse. By deliberately re-staging scenarios that might evoke aspects of their trauma, participants engage in acts of symbolic reversal and renegotiation, where they can control the outcome and dynamics of the interaction.
In BDSM, this reenactment occurs with established boundaries, mutual consent, and communication, which contrasts with the lack of control inherent in a traumatic event. For Hammers, this process is empowering because it allows individuals to reframe their trauma not as something that overwhelms them, but as something they can confront, process, and even transform into a source of strength. This reenactment can help survivors work through unresolved feelings of powerlessness, reclaim their bodies, and redefine their relationship to pain and power dynamics.
Thus, reenactment in BDSM becomes a therapeutic and cathartic tool, enabling individuals to challenge the narratives of victimhood and powerlessness, and instead embrace agency and empowerment in their sexual and emotional lives.”