Emotional Sadism and Degradation

Emotional Sadism and Degradation by sleepingirl

A thrilling tool available to us in psychological play is the ability to influence our partners’ emotions. It can provide a sense of control and villainy that is both cutting and exciting -- how else could we best prove our power over another person’s mind than to make them feel something awful on a whim for our own pleasure? In this article, we’ll look at some ideas within this rich, intense activity.

As a content warning, this article dives heavily into degradation, and a kind of degradation that is meant to prey on a person’s insecurities in order to hurt and manipulate them.

What is Emotional Sadism?

Physical sadism is easy to understand -- you hurt someone’s body in a sensual context, and they derive some form of enjoyment from the pain itself, from your enjoyment, and/or from their submission to the act. In emotional sadism, we’re doing the same to someone’s psyche, and we’re playing with making our partner feel negative emotions such as fear, sadness, despair, frustration, humiliation, guilt, jealousy, or more.

We can do this with our words and actions as well as putting a person into situations where they themselves are made to do something uncomfortable. For example, you could say to someone, “You’re a slut for dressing like that -- you just want attention, don’t you?” You could force someone’s eyes to yours in a situation where they don’t necessarily want to look at you. Or you could command or manipulate someone into posing in a manner that they’re not used to (perhaps provocatively, or in a way that makes them look silly).

A Note on Safety

While it’s relatively easy to measure the intensity of a physical strike, emotional sadism can be daunting because without a significant existing base of trust and knowledge between partners, it’s difficult to gauge how hard something will “hit.” It is much safer to do this with someone who you know very well, but we will discuss a little bit here how you can start “smaller” and build up -- just be aware that the nature of people’s individuality means that there is always a chance of stepping on something that’s problematic, and that risk increases the less you know.

The term “edgeplay” is nebulous and not always helpful for identifying what risky play is, but the style of emotional sadism described here absolutely fits this label. Negotiation may offer some clarity, but checklist-style conversations without an organic, thorough understanding of many aspects of a person will be limited mitigation. Trust, time, and especially the ability to read a person’s responses and key into their emotional state are the best tools you have available to you.

It is always helpful to lay out the actual risks of an activity in order to discover the mitigation strategies. The risks of emotional sadism in this way are things like your partner being hurt in a way that makes them lose trust in you and your play, kicking up old insecurities that someone has previously grown and processed from, making it difficult to process insecurities in future, and general and true discomfort that harms a person.

An entire book could be written about what it means to trust another person. The underlying issues behind these risks are what happens when aspects of the trust in a relationship and one’s self-identity are threatened. Thus, mitigation often consists of bolstering that trust -- concrete reminders of affection, value, playfulness, the desire for this to be sexy. We’ll be discussing the need to make our sadistic speech acts proven to our partner to make them hit right, and in the same way, when you express these comforts to your partner -- before, during, after, and far away from the scene -- you must make them believable as well and help ensure that your partner is capable of processing and functioning on their own.

Generally, start slow -- there are tips in this article of how to do this -- and feel it out in an organic way. If you have an existing framework of what your partner looks like or how they respond masochistically (as opposed to “this harms me”), that is helpful, although someone’s responses may differ when exposed to different sorts of masochism. Consider that if you don’t have any existing information, you are learning that on the fly, and you must use all of your observation tools available to calibrate. If you are not confident in your reading skills, you may not want to engage with this, especially with a new partner.

Values, Identity, and Insecurities

As we are using the medium of someone’s emotions and attempting to dig into our partners in various psychological ways, it is natural that we want to think about the things that connect to our partners’ emotions. Some of the ways that we can think about this are in the concepts of values, identity, and insecurities.

These three ideas are central vulnerabilities in terms of a person’s psyche. Humiliation and degradation are attacks and exposure regarding a person’s personal pride about certain aspects of themselves. For example, someone who is concerned about seeming sexually promiscuous may have hangups about wearing revealing clothing. Someone who felt like they had to work harder than their peers in school may be sensitive to remarks about their wits.

Anything that connects with someone’s self-image -- their background and history, the struggles and successes they've had in life, the way they view themselves -- can be targets to tweak a person’s emotions to a large degree. Here are a few core ideas about a person that may be useful (with the helpful acronym “VAPID”):

• Versatility/Skills: How good a person is at stuff such as their hobbies or their job, how quick they are to pick up new skills, how well-rounded they are
• Appearance: How a person views their looks, how they feel about their own appearance versus how they perceive others feel about it
• Personality: How someone is as a person, their capacity for being engaging, kind, interesting, funny
• Intelligence: How smart someone is such as their emotional intelligence, their knowledge about things important to them or outside of their scope
• Desires: What a person wants in life or sex, things that turn them on, things that they enjoy and how they feel about their desires

As a general rule of thumb, people want to be good and fit into a certain archetype of good that they want themselves to be -- a good, moral person; a smart person; a normal person; a quirky person; a capable person. You can call this into question by addressing any of the elements here (or other elements that a person has noted are important to them). Consider parts of these such as how a person views these elements in themselves versus how they think others view them, and things such as societal expectations/norms and gender/sexual aspects (for example, people of all genders deal with stereotypes around showing emotions, but in different ways).

Prove It

An incredibly important aspect to making your sadism connect is ensuring that your partner is confident that you have the authority and knowledge to speak about aspects of them. If someone who doesn’t know you very well calls you a slut, it tends not to hit -- they don’t really know you, and even if you enjoy being called a slut or you identify with the term, they don’t really know why it applies to you. It is crucial that we can prove to our partners that we understand them and that we know what we are saying is sadistic in a way that reaches inside of them. If it’s not believable -- both the sadistic utterance itself as well as your intimate knowledge of it -- it won’t land.

Of course, the ideal is that you’re able to simply know and explain why a particular phrase or action would apply to your partner, and you call upon that evidence. For example, if you know your partner doesn’t do well with math, you could degrade them by saying, “Are you really that smart if you’re not good at math? Isn’t that a big personal failing on your part?”

We also know that everyone has faults and insecurities, but for the most part they’re able to live their lives without constant worry over them. The next step you might take is thinking about how they might rationalize this to themselves -- how do they escape the emotional pain of this knowledge in their normal lives? Perhaps they know that they’re intelligent in other areas, or perhaps they think about how plenty of other people aren’t good at math. You can address and remove these comforts: “Do you think that just because you don’t need math in your life now that that makes you less stupid? Plenty of other people are good with numbers. You’re not. You don’t get to ignore that.” (Note that we’re pacing/mind reading here -- directly stating the rationalization as we disassemble it.)

Two of the ways that you can work with someone on this and be more confident about your guesses -- even if you don’t know their lives very intimately -- are 1) cold reading, and 2) turning the scene into an interrogative experience where you unearth the things they are emotionally masochistic about.

1. Cold Reading
   

Cold reading is when one person is able to make educated guesses about another person’s thoughts, feelings or behavior. It’s based on the premise that there are certain commonalities in aspects of the human experience. We can take advantage of these ideas to mind-read our partners very well and make our sadism believable.

Almost everyone is going to have insecurities around the VAPID elements that we discussed, and you can be very broad about how you address them, taking examples from above. (“Your looks,” “your fetishes,” “your intelligence,” “your skills/capabilities,” “how you think about yourself,” “what others think of you.”) Here are some ways that you can phrase your sadistic speech acts:

• “You seem like the kind of person who isn’t wholly comfortable with…”
• “Do you tend to be insecure about…”
• “I know that [x] is probably one of your weak spots.”
• “You’re at least a little sensitive about [x], aren’t you?”

Additionally, there are a lot of commonalities in the ways that people rationalize their insecurities to themselves, and ways that you can call those comforts into question. Here are some of them:

• It’s mostly hidden from people who would judge them
  • “I know about it, and I can judge you for it. I could even highlight it to others.”
• It’s something they try not to think about
  • “I’m making this very obvious for you right now so that you can’t hide from it.”
• They’re not the only one with this quality
  • “That doesn’t mean that you automatically don’t have this fault.”
• They perceive or tell themselves that it’s socially accepted
  • “By who? Would everyone really think it’s fine?”
• In private, it’s OK
  • “How private do you really think this is?”
• They are learning to grow from it
  • “Do you really think you’ve fully reclaimed it? I can still take advantage of your past feelings.”
• It makes them a unique person
  • “Is it actually a cute quirk, or are you just telling yourself that?”

Thus far, we’ve been talking about speech as our primary tool, but psychological sadism can happen with physical actions as well and there are many actions which are commonly emotionally distressing. Here are some examples of things you can do or make your partner do that many people respond to with emotional masochism.

• Forced eye contact, or forcing them to look away
• Obviously not paying attention to them, or paying very intense attention to them/parts of their body
• Touching a part of them in an appraising or clinical way
• Not letting them have something they want (such as trance or touch)
• Making them expose a part of their body
• Making them tell you an embarrassing fantasy or moment in their life
• Making them look in a mirror

1. Conversational Interrogation
   

Interrogation scenes are a well-known format of BDSM play where the Top attempts to gain information from the bottom through some form of sadism -- whether role-play or real. But the type of interrogation scene we’re talking about here is one where you are essentially using conversational skills in order to gain and use emotionally distressing information from your partner. A scene where you are sitting down to talk can be just as uncomfortable and intense for your partner as one where they are bound and flogged. (Of course, feel free to mix in physical elements of classical interrogation.)

The idea here is that we are aiming to identify more specific weak points in our partners based on any of the attributes listed above. While this section is listed separately from cold reading, keep those generalities in mind when you’re talking to your partner and eliciting information -- they give you a leg up to leading the conversation.

Bear in mind that the more that someone trusts you, the more open and vulnerable they will be with you. It can be especially intense to start off with a completely normal conversation and move into asking questions that give you revealing responses. Generally, being naturally interested in your partner as a person and their personal history will not only get you more information, but will allow them to be more open with you -- for example, if you want to dig into parts of someone’s past, start with neutral questions and absorb what they tell you. These scenes flow particularly well if you continue to engage your partner as you begin degrading them through the course of it.

Here are some potential ways to begin these conversations:

• “Are you different from how you used to be when you were younger?” (People tend to talk about flaws that they’ve overcome or other useful sensitivities)
• “Did you enjoy school?” (You can discover perceived intellectual shortcomings)
• “Tell me about your hobbies.” (There may be socially perceived stereotypes)
• “What do you wish you could change about yourself?” (You may get answers about personality or appearance insecurities)
• “Do you have any funny embarrassing stories?” (You could also lead with an embarrassing story of your own as that can let people be less on guard and prompt them to tell one of theirs)
• “Is there something you want to be better at?” (Skill insecurities)
• “Tell me something that you’re insecure about.” (Cheating/harsher)

Framing: Hitting the Sweet Spot

We engage in emotional sadomasochism for some form of enjoyment. While people may have different preferences for the intensity and quality of psychological pain, broadly speaking, what makes emotional sadism so enticing is the complexity and juxtaposition of something that feels bad and good at the same time: so wrong, and yet so right.

Being aware of and weaving in the elements that makes something feel good to someone is a key aspect of not only making this sadism enjoyable, but also making it hit hard, especially at first. Consider the difference between a simple threat without context: “I’m going to make you stub your toe!” and a threat that acknowledges some common aspects of sexual fulfilment: “If I told you to go over and kick the wall to hurt yourself, you’d do it, even though you were damaging yourself, because you’re that desperate to do what I tell you, because you’re that desperate for my control over you, and that’s pathetic.”

Perhaps paradoxically, very effective meanness requires utilization of things that your partner enjoys. Even in the most intense of emotional S/M scenarios where the bottom is meant to get “no” enjoyment, there is always an aspect of fulfillment, whether that’s the Top’s pleasure or their own pure discomfort. Here are some generic aspects to erotic fulfilment that may be available to you to use:

• Desire for control
• Desire to submit
• Desire for pain/humiliation
• Desire for your pleasure
• Desire for intensity of any kind
• Desire for the taboo
• Desire to be forced
• Desire to be seen/known

Framing is an important tool in our kit -- the ability to code something awful in a way that is also enticing. Let’s look at some examples of saying or doing terrible things and how we could frame them to create this sort of erotic juxtaposition:

• “You are clearly not the brightest, but that makes it easier for me to control you, right?”
• “I know that you feel a lot of pain around not being the best at everything, but isn’t it nice to have that revealed and out in the open with me? Like a secret we’re sharing?”
• “Don’t you love how intense it feels when I completely break your view of yourself as a capable person? Doesn’t that just make you have this strong need to surrender?”
• “It’s horrible to have to look me in the eye while I hurt you, but it’s such a visceral sense of control.”
• “It’s not right for someone to tell you that you’re not actually an interesting person… But the shock and transgression of that is attractive in a way, isn’t it?”

Framing meanness as erotic is a great tool to make it hit more effectively especially at the beginning of an interaction where you want to prove to your partner that this sadism is something that’s going to make them feel complex according to their complex desires. But the effect of this is that it also softens the intensity of the sadism when you play up the sexy and fun aspects to something. This means that as a scene progresses, you can escalate the sadism by omitting the erotic framing -- at a certain point, it becomes contextual even though it is left unsaid.

Framing: Tools and Methods

When targeting an emotional vulnerability, there are various ways that you can present your sadism to your partner. In this section, we’ll go over several speech acts we can use sadistically. For clarity, we’ll be using one example throughout: Degrading our partner based on a perceived flaw that they’re not an interesting person.

1. Future/Past Pacing

Future or past pacing is a tool in hypnosis and NLP where the hypnotist presents a potential future or past and has the subject imagine it, whether simple or complex. This has the effect of causing the subject to manifest feelings related to the scenarios and potentially change how they feel, believe or behave. In emotional sadism, these also can constitute threats.

• “Can you imagine some time when everyone around you secretly thought you weren’t interesting?”
• “Someday, maybe I’ll tell everyone that you’re not actually an interesting person.”

1. Personal versus Impersonal

A basic aspect of framing is how personal an utterance is to the subject of it -- are you speaking directly of them, their feelings about something, or your/others’ feelings about it? Different options can hit in different ways -- imagine for yourself how each of these examples would feel, and what the context could be surrounding them.

• “You’re a boring person, actually.”
• “How do you feel about the realization that there’s nothing interesting about you?”
• “I think you’re pretty uninteresting.”

1. Mockery/Patronizing

A mocking tone can add a lot of flavor to a scene. It can fit nicely into certain roleplay scenarios, with any elements of regression/ageplay/bimbofication, or just as a way to change the mood of a sadistic conversation.

• “Aw, did you really think that your hobbies make you interesting?”
• “It’s so cute the way you rationalize to yourself that you’re not boring!”

1. Questions

As we’ve discussed, framing your statements as questions can create engagement from your partner -- or cause them to close down when they don’t want to answer. They can be a great way to back someone into a corner.

• “What exactly do you think is interesting about yourself?”
• “What kind of people do you imagine would say that you’re actually interesting?”

An Ending Note

These are challenging and intense ideas, and personally as the author I feel as though I both bared some vulnerable things as well as pulled a lot of punches. It is challenging to discuss doing actions to another person that have such a potential for harm, or that are so transgressive. In particular, it is frustrating that there are no very clear safety instructions that completely mitigate the risk of this style of play. I once again would like to urge both caution and the development of intense trust and exploration in tandem with degrading your partner, especially about real things.

I deeply get off on the idea of being intensely psychologically cruel to someone, or someone being that cruel to me. That being said, as a Top, the socialized feeling of “don’t be mean” can be very strong, and I urge the Tops reading this to care for themselves when engaging in cutting sadism. Kink is collaborative, and you and your partner should build a strong web of support between the two of you.