The Flavour of Pain

i’m twenty-six and i’m off my face. It’s still the era of drugs are fun, before they start ruining my life, but we’re entering the era of “uh, kirizal, this was meant to be a chill tuesday night hangout, why are you doing pills and ket?” The red flags before the inevitable crisis, but i’m having a good time. i’m standing smoking outside a club and have been for some time, because there are shiny colourful humans out here and they fascinate me. i want to talk to them more than i want to dance.

One of the humans is a friend, she’s sweaty and grinning with her jaw at a jaunty angle because she, also, knows how to overshoot the vibe. i’m telling her in great detail about my first tattoo, which i want removed. For a first tattoo it’s not actually bad – a blue rose i drew myself. Unfortunately, with the deranged ego of an eighteen year old, i had decided i wanted to sign my work. The stem of the rose is my own full goddamn name. Except it isn’t now, because i changed my name – surname due to marriage only two years later, and first name for gender reasons a few years after that. It’s not ideal.

“Laser removal is just burning, right?” i say, a bonkers plan suddenly forming.

In the smoking area, gathering a crowd of fascinated onlookers, she takes her cigarette to the stem of the rose. Letter by letter the name is replaced by a series of burns. And i feel…

i feel high as hell. i don’t know what i’m feeling. There’s euphoria from the drugs and euphoria from the symbolic destruction of my former self, the violent erasure of one of my many, many questionable decisions. But there’s something else too that i don’t look too closely at – something i decide must just be the chemicals and the magic of it all. There’s pleasure. i’d expected this to hurt, but it feels incredible. It feels like i thought pleasure was supposed to feel and then i discovered sex and was a little let down. It feels like the sensation i imagine when i read good smut, but have never actually felt.

i don’t admit that, even to myself. i don’t admit it when a few months later i do it again – “wouldn’t it be funny if someone at this party branded my ass?”. i don’t admit it when i brand myself twice as part of a meditative spiritual ritual. There’s history to that, pain and scarring as a mind altering route to connection with the divine, right? It’s nothing to do with me or my needs. Nope.

It, of course, is, and finally age thirty one i ask a person to put a cigarette out on me for sex reasons, and four years later i have more burn scars than i can count. It is still one of the greatest sources of physical pleasure that i know. It’s what i now know as good pain, and i am self aware of my masochism. But understanding what good pain is, or why it feels that way, is still one of life’s big questions.

Self-described masochists aren’t the only ones who experience good pain. Aching muscles from a hard workout at the gym, having a good cry watching a sad movie, or getting a really firm massage are all kinds of physical or emotional pain that people actively seek out without thinking that they might be some sort of pervert. And those things aren’t usually sexual – but not all pain that i enjoy as a masochist is either. i often feel like a good hard beating scratches the same itch in my brain as deep meditation or a soak in the bath. It’s brain off pleasure, not cunt on. But just as the marathon runner chasing their runners high generally doesn’t want to get whipped with stinging nettles, my enjoyment of good pain doesn’t mean that all pain is good pain. Bad pain is equally a thing. And – just to be confusing – sometimes that’s good too. If i want to be challenged, i want to feel pushed and activate the most submissive part of my mind, or if i want a good cry, bring out something nasty. But sometimes bad pain is just plain bad – even when you’re a masochist.

There are three things that i’ve identified can determine whether pain is good, bad, or the mysterious and complex good-bad.

The first is intensity. The good old pain scale, rate your suffering from one to ten. i’ve never been very good at it, but i at least get the concept. A light and playful spank barely hurts, being hit with a cane hurts much more, and being run over by a truck is – i assume, i don’t play that hard – considerably worse. Achy muscles at the gym hurt less than a torn muscle from over doing it which, in turn, hurts less than dropping one of the weights on your foot and breaking your toes. You don’t have to be a masochist to know, instinctively, what your tolerance is to pain as it ramps up in intensity. Lots of us would consider the pain of an ear piercing to be bearable, even if perhaps not enjoyable, and worth enduring to get to wear earrings. Less people are willing to endure the pain of extreme modifications like ear pointing and tongue splitting, even if they like the results just as much.

Now that doesn’t mean i always like low-intensity pain. A mild headache is not fun, and i’ll come onto that next. But what low-intensity pain is, is always bearable – and something i don’t like might be worth enduring for psychological effect or to get something i want (like a new piercing). But as intensity goes up, even with types of pain i like, it can easily leave the zones of bearable and enjoyable and just become bad pain. Pain that feels like pain. Pain where it’s all i can think about, pain that scares me, pain that i don’t want. Even my favourite kind of pain – burns – absolutely has a limit. It’s a limit i like to push at – my first internal burn was spicy, and i find electrocautery much more challenging than an oldschool strike brand – but i know i would not enjoy being set on fire, to use a ridiculously extreme example. At a certain level, all pain is bad pain.

And where that line is definitely is not a fixed point. My pain tolerance is higher when i’m playing regularly than when i’m not, because i adjust to what i’m used to. My pain tolerance can drop dramatically with illness, an existing injury, i usually find periods of stress or upset increase my pain tolerance by a lot as my brain asks for something to help it switch off, but being in a generally crappy mood and the wrong headspace can easily push it the other way. Finding the line, playing with it, and choosing how far to push is a huge part of the joy of my masochism.

The next factor is the type of pain, and right away you can probably think of a few – there’s physical and emotional, to start with. Then the clear difference between a headache and a slap. But masochists often become like wine snobs when it comes to describing and categorising pain, finding the subtle differences between the slap of a hand, a wooden paddle, a resin paddle, or a strip of rubber. We talk about thuddy, stingy, and slappy pain in impact, about pain feeling warm (like a heavy wooden club beating rhythmically on my butt – heaven!) or cold (like the biting sting of a thin cane). We talk about the difference between a burn, a cut, the sharp scratch of a needle or staple, how there are so many ways to break, bruise, and abrade the skin and they all have their own flavour. How “no masochist likes stubbing their toe” (although i bet there’s at least one who does, we’re a diverse bunch) and how aches and illnesses and general bumps and injuries just aren’t the same. Partly because of context (spoiler alert – that’s next!) but partly because the sensation is so different to those we associate with play.

There are types of pain i like, and types of pain that i very much don’t. In general, discomfort is a big turn off for me. i don’t like being achy and sore, sitting in uncomfortable positions, being too hot or too cold. Mx laughs at how i’ll insist on a heater, a soft blanket, a pillow to lounge on all being set up so that They can beat me bloody and make me cry. Because yes, i like pain, but i also like to be comfy. Thuddy pain is good pain, stingy or slappy impact is more good-bad – it’s horrible but if i haven’t had it in a while i crave it. Burns are my forever favourites and i’ve explored their related genres of pain – nettles, chillies, and spiked impact toys all give the same warm, sharp bliss. i definitely didn’t enjoy the recent feeling of my insides being twisted into a knot that i felt after an operation, or the sinus infection i got right after (thanks, body). And some things drift across the line – here, too, the pain and pleasure points are not fixed. i have had recurring lower back pain for most of the last year. It’s mild enough to always be bearable, but usually it’s not enjoyable. But every so often, on a lazy morning lying in bed, i’ll twist and stretch and feel the aggravated nerves pull and burn and it hits me just right that i feel it in a tingle somewhere else entirely. A masochist is an unpredictable creature.

Finally, intention. Perhaps context would be better, because there are differences that go beyond whether pain has been deliberately inflicted or not – but often the presence and the type of intent is what turns the dial between good and bad.

One of the questions i am sometimes asked and, believe me, a question i have definitely examined for myself, is whether masochism is just self harm – or outsourced self harm, when a partner is involved. And intention is what separates the two. Not only who is doing the act – although self inflicted pain and pain inflicted by another do feel distinctly different even if everything else is the same – but also because of the purpose of the act. The headspace, the goal, the emotional state. There can be similarities and crossover and there is a fine line between chasing pleasurable pain as a way of processing difficult feelings and inflicting harm on myself to numb or escape from something i can’t process. But, fine as it is, the line is there and i know it when i see it.

As well as self or partner inflicted pain there is of course accidental pain – slamming my thumb in a drawer (bad pain) or the splatter of hot oil on my arm when frying bacon (good pain) – and medical pain from illness, injury, and medical procedures. Generally i enjoy accidental pain much less than intentionally inflicted pain and the majority of it is bad pain. The lack of pleasurable context, the wrong headspace, and the sudden nature of it all combine to raise how intense it feels as well as it usually being the wrong type of pain. Things like small scalds and burns are an exception because of how much i like that feeling – i’ll take it where i can get it! i am also not a great enjoyer of medical pain, although medical fetish masochists can find themselves getting uncomfortably excited at the doctor or the dentist sometimes it’s just not my vibe.

As i have mentioned, headspace makes a huge difference. If i’m turned on i can handle – and enjoy – far more pain than if i’m not, and the same goes for if i’m feeling deeply submissive. There are times when i go so far into subspace, a blissed out state of euphoric worship for my partner, that i almost stop feeling the pain and yet its presence is still electric, intoxicating, beautiful. In that state i can enjoy things that would be unpleasant or outright unbearable if they were done to me “cold” – with no physical or mental warm up to prepare.

Pain – even enjoyable pain – also lessens in intensity when processed. Everyone processes differently, whether that’s screaming, swearing, crying, struggling or wriggling, deep breathing, stillness, laughing, or something else entirely. If i can process naturally in the moment then my threshold rises. In play venues where i can scream full volume i can handle a harder beating than at home where i must control my volume for the sake of the neighbours. If i am restrained and can’t wriggle away the element of fear increases the intensity of sensation. If i am gagged, hooded, or engaging in breath play then my ability to self regulate by breathing deeply can be disrupted. All of this can effect what i feel as good or bad pain.

And fear – fear is a big one. A huge part of why illness and injury don’t feel good, even if the type and intensity of pain would otherwise be quite nice, is fear. Something is happening in my body, and i know that pain is the messenger telling me danger, be alert, you are being damaged. After my recent operation i experienced some sharp stinging in my incisions a few days into healing. It was mild, and it was a type of pain i might normally enjoy – similar to being cut or using sharps. But i couldn’t help picturing my incisions popping open, hidden infections starting in the layers of tissue, stitches becoming inflamed and rejecting through dying skin. Those thoughts made the pain stressful, even though i knew rationally that the wounds were healing fine. Fear is harder to process than pain, it defies logic, and once it takes hold it can grow out of control. Using fear during play can be very enjoyable for this reason – it heightens sensation and deepens the headspace – but when W/we use fear during play W/we avoid high intensity pain because it is just too much.

These are, of course, only my experiences as a masochist. There are almost certainly other factors that effect what is good or bad pain for other masochists, and in this weird and wonderful world there may even be masochists who do not experience bad pain at all and enjoy everything – but for most of us finding what pain calls us, soothes us, excites us is a huge part of our kink journey. And even for those who would not be considered masochists – a label that only really exists to define deviation from the norm rather than a truly separate group – understanding why you seek controlled suffering and what needs it meets can give a deeper understanding of your own mind. Because i am a masochist when i take a glowing cigarette to my tongue, but i could almost pass for normal when i sing along to All Too Well and feel every devastating word despite being in a happy relationship. Pain is part of what makes us feel alive, and masochism is as universal as it is unique.