Humiliation

from Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, by Brenda Love (New York: Barricade Books, 1992).

(Asthenolagnia -- aroused by weakness or humility) Verbal humiliation in sex play produces passion for some.

Humiliation has long been a popular form of discipline for governments and religions. It was used as a form of abuse by the Visitantines, a Catholic order of nuns formed by Francoise Fremoit de Chantal to replace chastisement with birches. The Rev. William M. Cooper, B.A., in A History of the Rod (p. 81), states:

Novices were obliged to wear a fool's cap, immense spectacles, or to tie heavy pieces of wood on themselves, or be laden with stones and blocks like an ass. If a novice lay too long in bed, she had, as a punishment to carry a pillow into the refectory; and if a similar fault was committed a second time, she was obliged to extend herself on the ground, and say to the nuns, 'Dear sisters, have pity on me, that I am so lazy.' On a third offence, the delinquent was treated like a little child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and fed with pap, and only as a last resource would the Mother Superior give a good birching. Some of the nuns thought the rules too mild, and left the community for a more rigid order.

Humiliation was also used by the Scottish Puritans who sometimes placed the sinner in an iron collar and fastened them to the wall in front of the congregation to be harangued for half an hour every Sunday, sometimes for up to a year.

Today humiliation is used in almost any form of sex play, but is consensual and something a partner can transfer to a sexual response. There are people who do not become sexually aroused this way, and other who enjoy insults when they are feeling well psychologically, but not when they are depressed. Therefore, a safeword is used with humiliation just as one uses it with flagellation or bondage.

Humiliation is more effective for some when they are bound or being forced to do something menial or embarrassing. It may also take a physical form that involves the use of urine, feces, or shaving. CAUTION: People have personal limits they don't want violated. A sample contract may state, "You can call me anything you want, but don't say anything about my mother, the size of my penis, or my tattoo." There may be subjects from one's childhood that are too painful to address, while others use humiliation to reprogram negative experiences into a satisfying erotic one. A general guideline used in humiliation is that of not using insults that one will later have trouble denying. For instance, a person would never call an obese partner a "pathetic fat-assed pig."

Humiliation is like bondage play in that after the game the partner has to be released. In humiliation this is accomplished by spending time nurturing and reassuring the partner of their value and attributes. This part of the game is essential, and not taken lightly.

(Refer also to COPROPHILIA, DEFILEMENT, DEPILATION, DOMINANCE/SUBMISSION, INTERROGATION, SLAVES, TOILET TRAINING, UROPHILIA and WORSHIP/GODDESS)

This file was last modified on August 29, 2005.