I can't sleep, and I'm thinking about things like this. Why am I a masochist? What caused this? And how has being a masochist shaped me? Can my personality quirks or creative tendencies be explained by my masochistic mindset?
I think these questions are all intertwined, so I'll jump around randomly. First, there are a few different dimensions to masochism. There's the physical dimension; I like the feeling and sensation of physical pain, or things like being restrained with rope, in certain contexts. There's the sexual dimension; being subject to pain or humiliation turns me on in certain contexts. There's the emotional dimension; being subject to pain or humiliation relaxes me, comforts me, relieves stress, excites me, or causes other positive emotions in certain contexts. There is also, I think, a "mindset", as I mentioned above. Because I'm someone who often recontextualizes pain as a positive, enjoyable, meaningful experiences, this affects my mindset.... somehow. (To be determined)
So, before I began writing this, I started out thinking about the "root" of my masochism. And I thought, well, the root is probably self-hatred. But that just feels wrong and incomplete. I think there isn't one "root". I'll think of it in terms of "seeds" that were planted at different times and grew in different ways, shaping these different dimensions.
For example, the physical dimension wasn't so important to me until I actually tried BDSM for real. I actually thought I had a low tolerance for pain until I tried impact play.... So, that seed grew into an appreciation for physical pain and the process of enduring it. It crosses over with the emotional dimension too. Pain can feel good, enduring it can be fun and exciting.
The sexual dimension is where the self-hatred really comes in. I think my sexuality was deeply shaped by this conflict between hating myself and trying to find ways not to hate myself. I think the unifying theme of all the things that turn me on is something like, "a sense of being lesser than others".
Sexual fantasy, for me, is about indulging in this sense of being lesser.... and I think my problem is that I really believed it was true for a long time. I thought I was less than others and deserved to be treated as such. So, it wasn't really a "fantasy" as much as it was depressive self-hating thoughts. I think now that I like myself better, maybe it's really becoming a fantasy, a mode that I can slip into and have fun with without affecting my self-esteem.
Why does "being lesser" turn me on? I don't know, years of conditioning? It's more interesting to me to think about the emotional dimension here. The sense of hierarchy I like is normally expressed in terms of performing services for a person, or giving up control to a person, letting them inflict something on me. When I think about it this way, my emotional responses of relief and comfort make sense. Doing something nice for a person feels good. Letting someone else take control while you relax feels good too.
But the twist is that the service I perform or the treatment I receive is humiliating – why is that part important to me, emotionally? I think maybe it's because it's an acknowledgement that what I want sexually – those desires born from self-hatred – is okay. It's acceptable, understandable, and our mutual trust and respect is such that I'll do it for you. So there's this sense that you accept the deepest weirdest parts of me that I revealed to you, which I wouldn't get if I just did something normal.
Maybe, then, this is the masochistic mindset I've cultivated. "I am strange, and I want others to accept and love my strangeness."
At a glance, maybe this seems like a normal thing to want that isn't really related to masochism. Is that true? Masochism, on the most basic surface level, is about "enjoying unpleasant things". It's implicit that anything enjoyed by a masochist is something that's abnormal and strange to enjoy. But a masochist enjoys it, and often seeks out others who accept them and will help them enjoy it. So, maybe this is really the core of masochism, at least for me.
Of course, I think you can be a strange person who wants others to accept you without being a masochist. But what about the other way around? Can you be a masochist without wanting others to accept you?
In principle, I can imagine a hypothetical masochist who is purely interested in self-gratification, who inflicts pain on themselves solely because they personally like how it feels. But I think masochism is normally experienced in relation to others. Enduring pain is more exciting if someone is watching you do it; humiliation requires someone to be humiliated by. In my case, at least, I can definitely say that masochism is a multiplayer game. That's why I'm writing this introspective nonsense about it at 2:30am.
So, I think the seeds of my masochism were: a feeling of self-hatred, and a conflicting feeling that I deserve acceptance. The self-hatred made me feel like I should suffer. That desire for suffering wormed its way into my sexuality. But instead of trying to force it out, part of me kept it and nurtured it, telling me it was okay to feel like that. Maybe that shouldn't have happened, but it did, and it cause me to become a strange person who likes strange things. And it spawned a corrupted version of that mindset: "I am strange, so it's not really possible for anyone to love me, but I wish it was." It took a long time for that mindset to turn into something nicer.
Now that I've thought through this carefully, I actually do think masochism signficantly impacted my personality and my approach to creative work! That dual feeling of worrying that I'm too strange to be loved sometimes, thinking my strangeness is wonderful other times, reaching out to others tentatively to see if they'll accept it.... well, that permeates my whole life.
You don't have to be a masochist to think this way, but that's how I personally arrived at it, and I think that's why masochism feels like such an important part of my identity. It's often seen as just a sexual fetish, but I think it's something that shaped my worldview and self-expression in ways I didn't even notice.