/>Why is kinky sex pleasurable? by michaelson/bigstockphoto
Sadomasochistic
consensual sex play may be gaining some acceptance as a socially or culturally
sanctioned sexual orientation. The New
York Times reports in a featured story, " A Hush-Hush Topic No More ," that a significant effort is underway in the
United States and Canada to "defend the rights" of kinky-sex adherents and to acknowledge
the practice as an expression of freedom and normal sexuality.
The recent best-selling
books in the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy
have achieved their wide popularity (70 million copies sold worldwide) by
exploiting the strange, mysterious human weakness to "libidinze" (eroticize or
make pleasurable) the experience of being dominated, violated, abused, or otherwise
mistreated. One popular website reports quite seriously that the books are introducing youths "to a brave
new bondage-loving world."
Kinky sex in
a playful setting doesn't have to be a big deal in itself, providing one can
take it or leave it. But behind the scenes, deep in our psyche, sexual arousal
that is sadistically or masochistically produced tells a remarkable story about
human nature. If adherents to sadomasochistic sex play were to examine these
psychological dynamics, many would find their kinky pleasures less appealing.
With greater understanding, we prefer real love to cheap thrills.
Pursuing sexual
pleasure from sadomasochistic practices cultivates a deeper problem. Many people
extract unconscious nonsexual
gratification (a third-rate kind of pleasure) from their unwitting, stubborn
allegiance to painful old hurts, memories, regrets, and sorrows. When sexual sadomasochism is
practiced, this dark side of the psyche is awakened and stirred up. The
consequences can include considerable emotional disturbance and disharmony,
along with the possibility of psychological regression.
Sexual sadism
and masochism are just the visible tip of a vast unconscious mass of
psychological intrigue. To varying degrees, human beings become entangled in
painful negative emotions that harbor elements of nonsexual masochism. People
who frequently feel deprived, refused, controlled, criticized, rejected, and
abandoned are likely to have "libidinized" their suffering. This means that,
through the function of libido, their suffering is made into a bittersweet, third-rate
gratification that, registered mostly unconsciously, becomes a compelling
experience.
Libido
often refers to the sex drive, yet it can be defined more broadly the pursuit
of the experience of pleasure. Pleasure is needed, of course, to make life
bearable, and it is a feature of the sex drive that compels animals to procreate.
Libido does indeed serve to produce many healthy forms of pleasure. Yet some
pleasures are obviously perverse. The so-called pleasure experienced by
bullies, rapists, and pedophiles all have to do with experiences of power and
submission, as does sadomasochistic pleasure. The libido of a rapist or
pedophile is activated in the process of victimizing others, and it's even
activated when thinking about or imagining such behavior.
Many
"normal" people can take perverse gratification in seeing others suffer. They
might wish for misfortune to befall celebrities, competitors, coworkers,
liberals, conservatives, the rich, the poor, members of other religions and
races, and so on. Their penchant for doing this has a sadistic aspect. At the
heart of this negativity and malice is a primitive side of human nature, one
that, when we dare to look at it, offends our idealized self-image. Yet it's important
for us to see clearly how many of our actions and behaviors arise from our
subconscious emotional life rather than our more conscious mental life. We tend
to act out what is unconscious, and much of these inner dynamics have a
negative, self-defeating bias. The great
tragedy of modern psychology was to turn its back on Sigmund Freud's essential
premise that libido constitutes a biological drive that shapes our personality,
influences our behaviors, and frequently produces suffering and self-defeat.
Libido
can acquire a masochistic flavor even from early childhood. Think of the child
who, in part, experiences life through impressions of being controlled, helpless,
criticized, rejected, unloved, betrayed, and abandoned. These impressions live
on in the adult psyche as emotional attachments. On the surface, we think we
hate these negative feelings and very much want to avoid them. But this
negativity, a product of unresolved inner conflict, doesn't easily go away.
People can feel, for instance, that they want to be respected and loved at the
same time that, unconsciously, they're unresolved with feeling disrespected and
unloved. Unconsciously, we expect to encounter these old hurts. We live in fear
of them, yet we don't quite know who we are without them. We fear these
negative emotions, yet unconsciously we're attached to them. These negative
impressions have become libidinized through our stubborn attachment to them.
The negative impressions accord with our sense of injustice as we become
entangled in feeling victimized, oppressed, disrespected, and unworthy.
We
develop an unconscious psychological defense system that's designed to cover up
our emotional attachment to old negative experiences. Through our defenses, we
often blame others for our negative reactions, convinced their (alleged)
ignorance and malice are the causes or sources of our failure, disappointment,
self-doubt, or anger. We convince ourselves we're victims of injustice and
cruelty. Few of us are eager to acknowledge that our emotional suffering is
produced by our willingness and determination to keep recycling it. Humans tap
into this unconscious masochism when they experience sexual pleasure from
various forms of abuse or denigration. This psychological process compares,
perhaps, to the process of extracting opium from the poppy plant or converting
the cocoa leaf into cocaine.
It's
important to understand, as well, that sadists are really masochists at heart;
they get their thrills by identifying unconsciously with the passivity of the
masochist. (Even everyday people who take glee in seeing others suffer are
identifying with what, in their imagination, that suffering entails.) Sadists
claim to get their pleasure from feeling power, but this claim is an
unconscious psychological defense against their underlying passivity: "I'm not
looking to feel passive or helpless--Look at how much I enjoy this feeling of
power." Rapists and pedophiles, for instance, are extraordinarily passive, as
evidenced by their unwillingness or inability to regulate their criminal
inclinations. Pedophiles and people addicted to child pornography have
libidinized their own unresolved passivity as they identify with the
helplessness and victimization of the children.
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