by Lori Perkins
Blue Flame has found ways to torture me that I never considered. It is humiliating to beg. To literally weep at his feet. In this moment, on the bed in this hotel room, he is asking me to yield everything to “his way” on the deepest of levels. He wants me to go home hungry.
The physical pain of wanting, and knowing that I will be wanting for a long time. The cruelty of that. The pain of not understanding the why of it. The knowledge that I am not supposed to be busy in my head with the why of it. That is not my business. That is not my concern. On the deepest of levels, I am simply to find my pleasure in the sadistic grin on his face while he enjoys my struggle and the same tears that I am shocked and humiliated by. My place is in the acceptance of it.
Was I really crying? Was I really pleading for him? It is unreal to me, now, away from him. I can remember his hands holding me, telling me that it was okay to cry. His desire was clear and stated again and again in so many ways. It is for me to find my pleasure in his pleasure. Sometimes that does include many orgasms for me without him taking a single one. Not this time.
This time his pleasure is so painful to me that even the memory of it rips my heart out. But in my memory his hands are right there to catch my heart and kiss it. He looks at me with his beautiful blue eyes and places my heart right back inside my chest. I can hear him right now, “Breathe, Pamela … breathe.” I smile into our shared giggle of breathing into the hard stuff.
I receive praise with my burning, angry sexual desire. I receive praise with my spirit crumbling. He loves me with gentleness after he asks me to calm my sexual energy and put away my arousal, after a good long time of allowing me to raise it fruitlessly, sitting astride and naked on his dressed body as he smiles into my crying eyes and I buck like a wild mustang caught by ropes.
Reluctantly, I dress as he watches me. I kiss the fur on his chest with one more moment of hopeful expectation. But he takes off my play collar and replaces it with the necklace of stones. I want to kick him. And despite all of that I want to go deeper. I can’t wait for next time. On some deep level I know that I am a moth that can’t wait to fly into the flame again and again.
I remember feeling powerful in my body, as I knew that I met the challenges of the day. I felt submissive pride, and more … I felt a pleasure that was way more interesting to me than the orgasms that I was leaving behind. His pleasure was mine.
We go for a coffee.
We hold hands as we walk through shops. I buy dark purple flowers for him. They remind me of what my sex must look like, all filled with blood with no place to go. I give them to him. Let them sit on his table. A reminder of my desire left unfulfilled on our last day. Dark and beautiful. The pain of my surrender is beautiful in the petals.
It is morning, two or three days after my trip. I reach for the blue stones. My pretty little necklace that someone will admire today. My fingers touch the stones, and my hips open gently into the softest of surrenders that will guide me through my day. I think of Anastasia fleeing, and how I stay. Well, she is a girl who doesn’t really understand her desires yet and shouts no as she flees from herself and her lover. I am a woman, and I whisper, “Yes, please, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” as I learn to stay.
A pioneer in fertility advocacy, PAMELA MADSEN is the Founder and first Executive Director of The American Fertility Association. She is a fearless advocate for women’s health and integrated sexuality who leverages her raw honesty and well-informed wit to help strip the stigma from infertility, female desire, and body image.
Pamela is a veteran speaker, educator, and renowned blogger for Psychology Today, The Fertility Advocate, and Care2. She is the author of Shameless: How I Ditched the Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure … and Somehow Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner (Rodale, January 2011).
Pamela has appeared on 60 Minutes, Oprah, CNN, AARP Primetime Radio, The Dr. Laura Berman Show, The Jane Pratt Show, and Playboy Radio.
To learn more about Pamela’s Shameless Community, coaching, retreats, blogs, and her book, please visit www.beingshameless.com.
DR. KATHERINE RAMSLAND
Being Stretched
The Risks and Riches of a “Limit-Experience”
IN THE LITTLE PRINCE, Antoine de Saint-Exupery writes about a pilot who is stranded in the desert with a defunct plane. A little man comes along who claims to be the prince of a different planet. As the pilot tinkers with the plane, the prince describes his journey. Time passes. The pilot grows increasingly afraid he might die out there. The prince dismisses his concern. He says that they need only go into the desert and find a well. The pilot thinks the prince is nuts. It’s better to remain with the plane, he thinks. If he just keeps working on it, he will make it fly. But the prince has faith in the unknown. They must go, he insists. Only when the pilot realizes that his best efforts are futile does he reluctantly agree.
They trudge across the desert for some time, but find no well. The pilot’s initial doubts grow into panic: They should never have left the plane! But just when he is certain they have made a fatal miscalculation, the prince discovers the well. It’s all about risk and trust. Playing it safe was a dead end.
Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey both love this story. They appreciate the line, “There is a poetry of sailing as old as the world,” and they probably noticed the book’s central theme, that “anything that’s essential is invisible to the eyes.” Grey knows this from experience, whereas Ana’s appreciation is literary. Thus, Grey is more willing to engage in “edgework,” i.e., explore an arena that could strip him of control and thereby transform him. He recognizes that the alchemy of desire and uncertainty can tap a hidden well of vitality within him.
Ana, on the other hand, does not grasp this. She ventures beyond the plane, but never quite leaves it. This explains one aspect of the appeal of Fifty Shades of Grey. It explores the forbidden without risk. It’s dark but safe.
However, the suggestion from Grey of greater gain from greater surrender offers the daring reader a jumpstart, even as it affirms female power.
Edgework
Women of all ages are drawn to the Beauty and the Beast archetype found in the Fifty Shades trilogy, wherein the strength of a man’s love is measured by his willingness to restrain his aggression. It’s the ultimate female fantasy. Grey tells Ana that it’s his “nature” to be controlling, but for her, he would fight the urge.
Grey’s appeal is more than this, however. Grey has wealth, beauty, an impressive appendage, and a “Master of the Universe” aura. He’s an alpha male, so when he defers to Ana, he serves her “inner goddess.” Yet there is more to this picture than just the full attention of a devoted lover. Grey also asks something of Ana that forces her to ponder desires she has never before explored. He hopes she will consider stretching herself, literally, into his world.
As a virgin, Ana offers a clean slate on which to write an erotic agenda. She has no preconceived ideas about what will happen in a Dominant/submissive relationship, so a “Dom” can more easily mold her as a “sub.” She tries a few bondage and discipline experiences, but ultimately she elects to stay safe. She does wonder why she can’t “take a little pain for my man,” but her “hard limits” prevent her from grasping what she’s turning down. She doesn’t trust enough to look for the invisible well.
Ana’s point of view offers female readers a fantasy of empowerment and sensuality, but it’s Grey who reveals a world in which pleasure beyond what we had imagined is possible. The Dom is the doorway through which we must step, and trust is the key that unlocks it. We must be willing to engage in a relationship that could involve things we fear. Thus, we face the “limit-experience.”
A limit-experience, as the postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault expressed it, touches untamed energy that pushes our minds and bodies toward what feels like a breaking point. It’s scary but can also be exhilarating. Its purpose is to erase boundaries between the conscious and subconscious, as a lifelong preparation for self-annihilation.
Well, th
is doesn’t sound like much fun, and we can understand Ana’s reticence about submitting. However, Grey attests to the power such experiences bring. He knows there’s a life-giving well because he’s drunk from it. “I found myself,” says Grey in Fifty Shades Freed, “and found the strength to take charge of my life.”
To achieve a limit-experience, we must push into unknown and seemingly dangerous terrain. We have to break with what’s familiar and get free of self-imposed restrictions. The possibility exists for an ecstatic euphoria unlike anything we’ve ever known, but there’s risk. The limit-experience gets us as close as possible to the extreme erotic intensity of life’s negation without a total wipeout. It’s the obliteration of a psychological orgasm.
The result of edgework is enhanced sensuality and greater self-determination. Foucault thought that S&M practices offered the best avenue for a limit-experience because the surrender to powerlessness forces personal redefinition.
Exquisite Agony
BDSM holds that the physical body has a secret wisdom that can be tapped only when pushed against its physical and emotional limits. Whatever makes one feel utterly, erotically alive is enabled within a safe framework. This might mean being tied up and blindfolded during sex, or being spanked or whipped, or being cemented into a tub (as one Dom told me about a sub). The goal is to transcend the sub’s ego boundaries, to guide her into something larger. When her identity is reduced to the suffering body, it can provide such intense immediate pleasure that she feels effaced.
The Dom’s role is pivotal. Doms must discern how the sub can reach this goal. In fact, superior Doms will have experienced the role of sub (as Grey did) and so can grasp the intricacies of the sub’s fantasy. Because this experience involves exposing secrets, the relationship also acquires deeper intimacy. With the Dom’s validation, the sub can throw off self-conscious restraint and pull out all the stops. She can simply feel—and stretch.
The most extreme form of BDSM is sadomasochism, which involves consensual violence … to a point. A person might wish to be burned, whipped, have a loaded pistol placed in his mouth, or be trussed so tight he can’t move. The Dom inflicts pain and humiliation to help the sub reach emotional catharsis. This reportedly feels like a radical transformation into a sense of openness and full existence. However, not all BDSM participants will take it this far.
The Psychological Frame
So how does edgework actually work?
Both participants understand that mutual consent makes it happen, and they must choreograph the scenario together before they can fully play it out. However, once things are in motion, the memory of consent and design must recede.
The intense roleplaying produces an altered state of consciousness in which the sub feels forced. Under the auspices of having “no choice,” she gains erotic benefits from the illusion of total surrender to the Dom’s will. If she trusts that there is no risk of serious harm, she can agree to be dominated in unpredictable ways. This allows the anxious edginess of anticipation to produce the most intense stimulation. As Grey states in Fifty Shades Darker, “It’s all about anticipation.”
The idea of being pushed into something that one both fears and craves sparks a fierce tension that draws body and mind together in heightened arousal. Applying restrictions to the body in the form of bondage or discipline draws out its capacity for physical sensation. It’s an absolute surrender to the full impact of the flesh. As the sub endures and emerges intact, he or she becomes stronger, wiser, and more self-aware.
This synergy of resistance and momentum can be highly exciting. Subs who yield as if they have no real choice are more pliable. With the Dom’s guidance, they can break through and experience more.
What a Dom Says
I’ve interviewed several Doms and “Lady Ro” agreed to describe her work. “I have used branding, piercing, tattoos, and scarification,” she said, “because these practices bring one to new heights of sensual and chemical awareness. It’s all about direct manipulation of physicality and about how the brain responds to things like sensory deprivation.”
Her preference is to leave subs unbound. “I don’t like to tie them up, because then I have to serve them. I like willing subjects who want to stay there. If someone is submitting to me, then it’s their willingness to stay that’s a turn-on. I don’t use safewords [phrases that would stop a ritual because it’s gone further than the sub can bear]. I demand complete trust. I don’t want to mess someone up and make them miserable. To me, it’s more about sensuality. If they don’t like it, what’s the point?”
Their fantasies become her launching pad. “I try to get into their fantasy and make it my own. I don’t just cater to their fantasy, I twist it. I try to find something that fascinates me about it.”
Both partners in these arrangements have strengths and weaknesses, and both variously exploit and complement the other. To make the dance work, Lady Ro explains, they need each other. Thus, before anything begins, they must be explicit about the terms: what each desires and what each needs to feel satisfied and safe. If they operate in total trust they can achieve a delicate but edgy equality. The experience can be mystical when shrouded in a playful self-deception that allows each participant to fully engage in its erotic choreography.
Fifty Shades of Edgework
Grey goes over the BDSM rules because he wants Ana to understand her limits before trying to push past them. He reassures her every step of the way. When he is poised to take her virginity in Fifty Shades of Grey, he tells her, “You expand, too.” He’s saying much more than just a biological fact. He’s telling her that he can move her into a new awareness, if only she trusts.
The narrative moves through a series of “firsts” for them both, and while Grey embraces the unknown (with more reason to fear it), Ana takes baby steps. She calls Grey’s playroom the “Red Room of Pain” and compares it to the Spanish Inquisition. Thus, despite the pleasure Grey gives her, she sees only the negative. This is her safety mechanism, her form of a safeword.
Ana views this arena as Grey’s world, not hers. A plain metaphor captures it: As she steps into the playroom for the first time in Fifty Shades of Grey, she notices a chest of drawers. She wonders what the drawers hold. She can’t see what’s inside and wonders, “Do I really want to know?”
Her reaction shows the caution of a generally fearful person (as does her distancing mechanism of sarcasm and defiance). She is the pilot who stays with the plane. Despite Grey’s constant assurance that he will not hurt her, she sees only the rules, not the door they open. She describes an impulse to run screaming from the room and talks about her constant trepidation. She believes this adventure is the “edge of a precipice” from which she must jump rather than a potential launching pad into greater power and perception. To her, edgework is too scary.
In her limited manner, Ana sees just two things: Grey is “dangerous” and he’s wounded. She keeps telling herself that she’s willing to enter his disturbing world so she can save him and show him what it means to love.
Ana is at the center of a narcissistic fantasy that she controls. She overthinks, which allows her to rationalize her surrender to BDSM as “saving” Mr. Grey. She doesn’t make it to the limit-experience because she always finds a reason to pull back. Even when she’s secretly disappointed that Grey does not want to install a playroom in their new home, she fails to fully own her desires. (She could have asked to have the room installed herself.) She prefers the safety of the self she knows (the plane) to the one she could become (the well).
Understandably, Ana’s reticence confuses Grey. She seems to enjoy everything he does, yet she keeps him at a distance. He reveals things to her, despite his fear of being rejected, but she fails to move into this intimacy with him. Her safe harbor is not love, as she tells herself. It’s her “thinking zone.” She does not want to free-fall very far, not psychologically or emotionally.
Anything That’s Essential Is Invisible
Women often hear that
they are either “too this” or “not enough that.” In other words, they aren’t “just right.” However, Ana frequently hears from Grey the words that women crave: she’s perfect. She also receives the attention of a man who has carefully studied female sexual response. This removes the burden of having to explain what feels good and allows her, as the recipient, to just surrender. She also gets to feel powerful by bringing a wealthy, creative, and controlling man to his knees. She is Beauty to his Beast. However, if she were to dissolve this dichotomy in BDSM, she could experience him more fully and still be “just right.”
By the end of the third book in the trilogy, Ana still hasn’t entered this zone, although she’s gone further in. She has the self-empowering fantasy of Beauty and the Beast, but she fails to transcend it. She’s still stuck inside herself, which buffers her from the richest possible intimacy with Grey. To return to the love they share for The Little Prince, she could have so much more—she could fly without the plane.
Readers, however, have the benefit of not just soaking in Ana’s fantasy but also of doing more with it. From Grey, they’ve learned about BDSM and the rewards of trust, so they can decide for themselves if they want to stay with their plane or go with the prince (Grey) to look for a well.
Note to Ana: Please reread The Little Prince with Grey so you can catch up to him. There is a poetry of sailing. Go for it.
DR. KATHERINE RAMSLAND has done journalistic searches for the limit-experience inside the vampire and BDSM subculture. The bestselling author of forty-two nonfiction books, two novels, and over one thousand articles, she teaches psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania and writes a blog, Shadow Boxing, for Psychology Today.
