EROTIC SADOMASOCHISM

It is not possible to do this topic justice without writing many tens of thousands of words and even such
a volume would barely begin to skim the surface. There is incredible diversity in BDSM practice for
the obvious reason that every single human being is unique with equally unique desires, experiences
and motives.
We will therefore pass on the history lesson regarding the original derivation of the terms Sadist and
Masochist and the various intellectuals who have pontificated on the subject since the early 1800s.
Suffice it to say that most of what has been written has been either from the perspective of the
academic outsider and therefore rather cerebral and most often taking the view that any such desire or
activity must be dysfunctional, or has been written by S&M enthusiasts who are understandably keen to
present as positive an image as possible.
The former academics are a glorious example of people being drawn towards and yet remaining
vehemently in denial of their own Shadow. The latter enthusiasts have tended to paint too abstract and
idealised a picture of what S&M activities involve; a tendency to whitewash in response to having their
lifestyle 'blacklisted'.
Though I should stress that the vast majority of people active in the BDSM scene have given
considerable thought to the issues inherent in sadomasochistic activities, and further that such people
have inspired and informed much of what I write here, the sad truth is that there are people drawn to
BDSM and D/s for all the wrong reasons.
There are sadistic psychopaths who masquerade as consensual sadists and dominants with a fine
understanding of how to manipulate and use BDSM jargon and terminology to achieve their criminal
purposes. Some are insane, some simply without conscience, some deluded and others very sane, very
smart evil bastards who will do and say anything to justify their actions so long as the greater BDSM
community serves to disguise the harm they do to others. Pretending otherwise is to live in a fantasy
world.
And then there are desperately damaged victim types who, though undeniably submissive, are
motivated by extremes of self-hatred to find an abusive thug to call Master. A psychopath who will then
visit upon them all the viciousness they believe themselves to deserve. Though a Shadow D/s dominant
could, given the control and opportunity, probably have a powerful positive influence on such a
submissive, they will invariably never choose such a dominant.
Between these two extremes there is a very broad spectrum of dominants, submissives, sadists,
masochists and switches all of whom genuinely believe that what they are engaged in is safe, sane and
consensual, and given the above average intelligence and the forethought that most dominants and
submissives give to BDSM interactions, they are probably right. However the holistic perspective of
Shadow D/s allows us to perceive that in some situations, despite the best intentions of the participants,
harm may well be being done. Such are the contradictions between conscious intent and unconcious
response.
What follows then is not a 'how to' guide to overtly sadomasochistic interactions which have been dealt
with thoroughly elsewhere, (beyond establishing guidelines used in Shadow D/s), but a discussion of
the psycho-emotional factors that may be the focus or the undercurrent of any particular interaction in

an attempt to outline how pleasure may be maximised whilst at the same time minimising negative
consequences.
Intention
In Shadow D/s we define the difference between psycho-pathology and BDSM kink not in terms of
what is done, but in terms of the individual's intention, their objective in doing what they do and the
outcome of what has been done in both the short and long term. Things may go wrong, even with the
best intentions, mistakes are made, however this is all the more reason to be as clear as possible about
intention. Further unless a submissive has a very clear understanding of what the long term outcome
will be to her body, mind, emotions and spirit there is no way in which she can give informed consent.
What is paramount is to emphasise that the exploration of sadomasochism within the context of a D/s
relationship is not an opportunity to act out a whole bunch of negative and destructive feelings from
Shadow. This is exemplified by some so-called dominants using their submissives as a form of
therapeutic punch bag, physically, emotionally, and/or verbally.
It is irrelevant that in doing so the dominant 'feels better' or becomes sexually aroused, or that in
enabling her dominant to 'feel better' and become sexually aroused the submissive feels good herself
and may become aroused herself. Such acting out is irresponsible and emotionally immature, as such it
is potentially harmful. Further whatever such a couple may consciously think to the contrary,
unconsciously the bond of trust between them will have taken a serious blow.
This point can be illustrated by imagining a submissive who, for whatever reason, is feeling really bad
about herself one day. Though she has undertaken to be obedient she is in such a foul mood that she
sets about trying to provoke her dominant to 'punish' her, because unconsciously she thinks that being
in a 'bad mood' is the same thing as being bad in her self. She knows (though in her bad mood perhaps
only unconsciously) that she will feel better when her 'badness' is punished.
This does not work for different reasons: Firstly if a submissive manages to provoke her dominant she
is in control and not him, which can only leave her feeling insecure. Secondly however much 'better'
she may feel on one level, on a deeper level the relationship will be weakened, because in this scenario
the dominant punished from a place of anger without clarity of intent. Thirdly that all this happens
implies a breakdown in communication, probably over several days if not longer, for the submissive to
get into such a foul mood that she then takes it out on her dominant: This being totally contrary to most
submissive's nature.
In Shadow D/s we therefore distinguish between the sadomasochism that comes with all the baggage of
unconscious feelings being acted out ignorantly and what we term erotic sadomasochism (ESM) where
the following principles and guidelines have been followed as best as the couple know how to ... after
all we are all learning, and we all will make mistakes!
Do No Harm
The primary intention is not to inflict harm or agree to harm being done. In Shadow D/s we use the
word 'harm' consciously, since words such as pain, hurt, shame, torment, humiliation and so on may be
used within an erotic context. Harming or being harmed is NEVER consensually or sanely erotic as we
define it.
We further define doing harm as any activity that will damage the person's body or psyche in such a

way as to be beyond the body-mind-spirit's powers to heal quickly or without unplanned medical or
expert intervention. Further we state that an intention to deliberately do harm, whilst undeniably
sadistic and possibly even erotic for both, is psychopathic and must generate negative consequences.
Since sadistic and masochistic pleasures may be experienced without any negative consequences, why
would a sane person want to do it any other way?
To illustrate this point a submissive consenting to a brand would not constitute her being harmed if she
and her dominant have planned for medical after care while healing occurred. She understands
beforehand the length of time it will take to heal and also fully appreciates and desires the permanency
of her choice. This demonstrates how safety, sanity and consensuality have nothing to do with severity
of pain.
By contrast the directing of wounding and malicious remarks at a submissive from a dominant in whom
she had placed complete trust, which resulted in her feeling confirmed in her worthlessness and self
disgust would be an example of doing harm, even though he has not raised a finger. When someone
sticks a knife in your back it does not matter that it is metaphorical! As such breaches of trust, deceit
and all the denial of Shadow these actions imply, can be very much more harmful than the harshest
physical ESM.
Heal When Possible
The second intention is to be attentive to the possibility of a healing response to the feelings and
emotions of dominant, submissive or both.
ESM play is an extraordinary opportunity for healing. By 'healing' we refer to the process of becoming
increasingly whole, of lovingly accepting those aspects of our Self that were previously locked away in
our Shadow, but which, when brought into the light of awareness, may be integrated and discovered to
be loveable, embraced and accepted.
A simultaneous process is the emergence of old negative emotion from Shadow during ESM play
where the dominant or submissive has the opportunity to finally let go of the feelings. This is
powerfully healing since right up to that moment that the feelings release, the fact that they were locked
away in Shadow means that unconsciously we identified our Self with the feeling and its inherent
negativity. However these feelings while being expressed are not being 'acted out' in an unconscious
way, that is they are not being expressed in a way that is blaming, accusatory, wounding or
irresponsible.
Let us take as an example a submissive who is aroused by being erotically humiliated. She is aroused
by her dominant calling her names like, 'slut' and 'whore' and then when she gets turned on he further
shames her by using the fact of her arousal as proof that she is a slut and whore ... and so on.
In Shadow working terms the dominant is taking her step by step deeper into her Shadow and at each
step powerful sexual energy is released as she is forced to feel her shame and her psyche is made to
identify with the sexually uninhibited aspects of her Self (pejoratively called slut and whore in western
culture).
It is perhaps helpful to visualise the 'shame' energy and the sexual pleasure energy as being all mixed
up. In Shadow work we are like miners digging for gold and diamonds ... there is a hell of a lot of

rubbish (shame, inhibition, guilt, numbness etc.) to be shifted in order to find the precious jewel of
uninhibited pleasure energy ... but its well worth it so long as it is done skillfully.
This scene can go one of two ways depending entirely upon what level of conscious understanding the
participants have of what they are engaged in doing:
Without the benefit of a Shadow work perspective the submissive may believe that since she is feeling
incredibly aroused by such humiliation she must be essentially, in her deepest being, a slut and a whore.
Everything else she ever is and everything else she ever feels seems to her superficial by comparison to
the sheer power of these feelings. She is overwhelmed by them and becomes identified with them. Such
are our powers of rationalisation that the identification may only be temporary on a conscious level, but
unconsciously they will be long term and harmful.
The intense pleasure and eroticism she feels during the scene confirms her worst fears of her Self. Deep
down she thinks her dominant believes her to be the slut and whore he calls her, though both rationalise
it intellectually in BDSM terminology as a kink or fetish, sadism and masochism, perhaps even
mistakenly believing that such a response is an integral part of her being submissive.
Often the submissive feels deep gratitude to her dominant whom she believes knows her to be a whore
and a slut and yet still condescends to tolerate her in his life. Unconsciously they have between them
reaffirmed the dependency that cements their relationship and despite releasing some negative shame
energy, they have ultimately succeeded only in consolidating the negative energy trapped in Shadow so
that it will be that much more difficult to release in future ... often requiring more aggressive
humiliation to connect the submissive to the same level of pleasure energy the next time.
To use our mining metaphor its as if the couple have dug deep, found gold, taken some pleasure in
feeling the gold for a short time, but then promptly buried it again, filled in the hole with all the old dirt
and some new and then sealed the mine with the concrete of intellectual rationalisation.
By contrast a submissive Shadow worker will know before the scene that she experienced a lot of
shaming for her sexuality during childhood. In fact she will understand that it is almost impossible to
grow up in western culture without this happening to a considerable degree, and most especially for
women. She knows that while she may feel shame, she is not shameful. She has that very clear before
she begins.
She knows that mixed up with the shame will be all manner of wonderful feelings which were all
relegated into Shadow a long time ago. In fact all those things she was shamed for feeling or felt
ashamed of feeling: Sensual and sexual pleasure are only the most obvious of these.
Everything her dominant says and does to connect her with those feelings is with the intention of
releasing them, getting rid of the shame to tap into the well spring of sexual pleasure energy locked in
Shadow.
Consequently she throws her self wholeheartedly into the role of slut and whore. She relishes the irony
that with every apparently insulting word he utters and with every breath she takes to sink more deeply
into the shameful feelings she is getting closer and closer to connecting to her essential Self and the
ecstasy of pleasure the shame has previously locked away from her conscious mind.
Her dominant is acutely sensitive to when she becomes too overwhelmed by the feelings, as is pretty

inevitable, and he reminds her when necessary that she is loved ... most especially those sexually
uninhibited aspects of her self he is calling a slut and a whore!
Together they exorcise her shame, release powerful sexual energy as well as other creative energies
locked in Shadow, and simultaneously redefine in their own private language what the words 'slut' and
'whore' mean between them. Critically she has made the all important distinction between her Self, her
feelings and her behaviour or role and done so not intellectually, but experientially.
They may then go on to have indescribably great sex or explore other aspects of erotic sadomasochism,
either way they make fullest possible use of the dynamite pleasure energy that the session has released.
Objectives
Objective: What is being aimed at or for. Often a series of objectives are defined, which, having been
arrived at lead to the desired outcome.
Outcome: What the actual result is. This may be the desired outcome or an unintended outcome,
possibly a negative outcome if things go wrong.
After the shared Shadow D/s experience described above submissive and dominant feel sensually alive,
fulfilled in their relationship, full of energy and most importantly the bond of trust between them has
been strengthened still further.
The above paragraph, with some rephrasing makes a pretty good outcome as far as exploring erotic
sadomasochism is concerned. The dominant's objectives in arriving at this outcome might be defined
thus:
First: to get her feeling her shame and to play off the shame feelings with the arousal feelings until she
is feeling deep shame and strong arousal.
Second: to ensure that she disassociated her Self from the shame, which is a feeling not who she is.
Third: to allow and encourage her to release any other emotions that arise with the shame.
Fourth: to encourage her to connect ever more deeply to the pleasure energy she feels.
Fifth: To explore how much pleasure energy she can feel.
This last objective leads the door wide open for whatever feels spontaneously right to do and of course
these objectives do not have to be rigid, linear or sequential. For example to achieve the desired
outcome the dominant might lead her through the objectives several times forwards and backwards
using many different imaginative and inventive skills to gradually increase the intensity of the session.
Of course there can be all sorts of different objectives and outcomes other than those geared towards
releasing shame and many of them will interweave with the Training Objectives discussed elsewhere
that are mostly specific to the submissive.
In this section though we want to also emphasize that the dominant also forms specific objectives for
himself that relate to his own Shadow. For example perhaps he takes considerable pride in his skills as
a lover, but needs to connect more with his passion, perhaps to let go more, to be more vocal, more
urgent and demanding, less 'in control' of himself. Though initially uncomfortable we discover that the
more these things are openly communicated the easier it gets to talk about them. Crucially we make full
use of linguistics in doing so.

For example it is normally hard for any man raised in western culture to admit to fears, so to say
something like, 'I am frightened and vulnerable when I stop trying to control everything', is difficult.
However the same dominant will find it much easier to say, 'There is a part of me that feels scared and
vulnerable when I don't feel in control in this specific situation.'
Shadow work for dominants is then all about putting himself in just such a situation and accepting and
working with the feelings as they arise, thereby releasing their own blocked pleasure energy. However
many dominants miss out because though they are very willing to test their submissive 'edge' and push
her limits, their own need for control precludes it. Of course a huge amount of blocked pleasure energy
is released for dominants through feeling accepted in their need to be erotically sadistic, but this is just
a beginning!
Outcomes: Negative and Positive
An outcome is a way of trying to be specific about what will and will not happen as a consequence of
erotic sadomasochism. So outcomes refer both to what we want to create and what we do not want to
create, the desired and undesirable.
For example a dominant might want his submissive to wear a chastity belt for a few days. His positive
outcome might be that after a while she become intensely aware of his control, that she become
extremely aroused through being teased and denied and that ultimately both their pleasure is augmented
by her time of enforced chastity. The point is that before even thinking of imposing the chastity belt the
dominant will have asked himself the question, 'What do I hope will happen if I do this?'
At the same time he will need to be clear on what he does not want to happen: A negative outcome. In
this example he might recognize a certain degree of discomfort as being acceptable, but communicate
clearly that he does not want her getting rubbed raw by an ill fitting chastity belt. This he identifies as a
negative outcome so his submissive understands to tell him should she get sore, rather than mistakenly
believe that her enduring this is giving him pleasure.
Another negative outcome might be the submissive finding herself simply switching off from her
sexual needs, becoming numb rather than sexually frustrated, perhaps because however much she
might wish to please her dominant, the whole chastity belt thing isn't really her kink.
This latter is an example of where intention and objective may differ markedly from outcome. This is
why the word 'explore' is so apt in erotic sadomasochism because you never know what the response
will be until you do it ... and you will make mistakes.
It is very much easier to feel ok about occasional mistakes when you can say, 'OK that didn't work out
as I intended. My intention was...' Then even if things do go wrong the relationship itself is not harmed,
as it most certainly would be were the submissive to learn that her dominant had not really bothered to
think things through.
In erotic sadomasochism there is one major negative outcome that is always avoided: Desensitization.
This applies to both emotional and physical numbing. While it is not always possible to enhance
sensitivity to pleasure in everything that is explored, it is very important not to induce numbness. This
is fully discussed under Shadow Energy Work.

Pleasure Play
A last point that perhaps needs to be stressed, especially if all the above seems highly technical and
over serious. Our goal is PLEASURE ... LOTS OF PLEASURE. It takes a little while to absorb the
principles of Shadow D/s, just like it takes time to learn anything, but having learnt it then the focus
changes to being quite unapologetically hedonistic ... yet in the knowledge that we have self
responsibly ensured that we are not going to later pay for our pleasure.
As such one of the beautiful things that happens with Shadow D/s is the emergence of a very childlike
capacity for play, yet within an adult sensual and sexual context. Shadow work is not just about
releasing painful feelings and the sexual energy connected with them, but a whole host of wonderful
and positive energies that we most naturally associate with children: Awe, imagination, generosity,
laughter, glee, enthusiasm, abundant energy, authenticity, hilarity, curiosity and loss of inhibition to
name a few.
Sir Julian 2003