Content Note: This piece explores themes of degradation kink, erotic shame, trauma recovery, and emotional complexity in submission. Mentions of objectification, self-abandonment, and survivor patterns. Please read with care.

There are cravings I still hesitate to name. Not the sweet ones. Not the ones about surrender or touch or even pain. I mean the ones that live deeper—coiled tight with shame. The ones that whisper, I want you to hate me. I want you to ruin me. I want you to spit in my mouth and call me a thing, not a person. And I want to come undone from it.

Sometimes I want to be stripped of power, pressed into silence, and treated like a toy. Not just used—but discarded. It turns me on in a way I don’t entirely understand. And sometimes it terrifies me.

In recovery, I’ve been taught to listen to the signal behind the craving. To slow down and ask: Is this coming from a place of need—or from a place of pain? And the truth is, sometimes I’m not sure. Sometimes it feels like both.

For context: What I’m describing is often called a degradation kink—a form of consensual play where being insulted, humiliated, or stripped of dignity becomes part of the turn-on. It can look like name-calling, being objectified, spit on, ignored, mocked, broken down emotionally or physically. It’s intense. It’s taboo. And it’s far more common than most people admit. Psychologist and kink researcher Dr. Brad Sagarin notes that “degradation and humiliation kinks often allow individuals to explore deep emotional vulnerabilities in a structured, consensual context.”

But what if that vulnerability isn't just roleplay? What if part of me believes I deserve to be hated? That’s where the shame creeps in. And it’s where I start to question: is this just a new language for an old wound?

Before I ever called myself submissive, I was already performing for men. I let them treat me however they wanted, because I thought love looked like endurance. I thought being wanted meant being small. Being silent. Being good.

Now, I give permission. Now, I ask for things. I tell men I want to be degraded, made powerless, called a slut or a thing. Sometimes I even mean it literally: “Use me like a toy. I want to be nothing but function.” And I do feel powerful, in a twisted way, when I orchestrate that. When I control my own objectification. When I say, “Ruin me,” and I don’t flinch.

But I still wonder: am I healing—or am I reenacting the same self-hatred, just with better lighting?

Author and trauma educator Melissa Febos writes in Girlhood that “erotic desire is shaped by shame as much as it is by pleasure—and often, the two become indistinguishable.” That line haunts me. Because it makes sense. The same part of me that learned to be desirable through self-abandonment is now scripting scenes where that abandonment becomes sexy. Empowering, even. But does that mean it’s safe?

When I hand someone the script—Call me a whore. Spit on me. Don’t ask me if I’m okay until it’s over—that feels like agency. That feels like I’m in control of the degradation. I choose it. I orchestrate it. But not always. Sometimes I get off because I don’t have to make a decision. Because being hated is easier than being loved. Because it quiets the part of me that’s always trying to be good. And that’s when I start to feel scared. Because the part of me that gets off on being hated doesn’t always care if I feel okay afterward.

As trauma therapist Dr. Jamie Marich puts it, “Survivors often return to what is familiar. Sometimes, that includes being treated in ways that replicate harm—not because they like it, but because the nervous system confuses it with home.”

So I check in with myself: Am I choosing this now, or am I being pulled into a pattern I haven’t healed yet? Do I feel seen afterward—or just used? Can I talk about the scene with my partner—or do I feel embarrassed, ashamed, afraid it’ll make them stop wanting me?

The truth is, there’s no clear answer. Sometimes I crave degradation because it brings me into my body. Sometimes it helps me rewrite old scripts. And sometimes I just like it—and that’s okay too. But I keep asking the questions. I keep grounding myself in partners who can handle the weight of what I’m asking for. I talk. I write. I don’t just chase the craving—I try to listen to it.

And maybe that’s the most honest thing I can do.

Like, the inside of the mouth, parting the lips, is soft and wet in a comfy way. If you can get past the vague grossness of someone else's saliva (my tip: stick your tongue down their throat over and over till you parse their saliva as belonging to you), then it's a pretty purely enjoyable sensation. Lips feel good on around fingers, and the gentle feeling of teeth and light sucking is really special.

If you get a partner that really starts sucking the moment your finger is in, there's a different direction to it. Immediate compliance is hot, and when it's a single finger in exchange for their ability to talk, it's quite special.

(cw for rape as a kink fantasy)

Thinking a lot about the idea of raping a friend in an emotionally vulnerable moment. Not necessarily a full blown crisis, just like, a mini panic attack over something that feels much bigger than it is. Approaching the friend looking and acting and sounding for all the world like I'm going to comfort them, to hold them and speak softly and tell them it's okay as I so often do. Getting in close, and placing a hand on their arm... but having other plans.

Taking my hand on their arm and using it to firmly, wordlessly pin them as they struggle, as they ask what I'm doing, not responding just pinning them down with mechanical, uncaring efficiency and beginning to rape them for my own satisfaction. Moving without regard for the victim's pleasure, nor their pain, nor their comfort. Their desperate pleas for me to stop, that this isn't what they want or need right now, being at best ignored and at worst motivation to just go harder. And if they weren't crying before I started, they'd surely start to cry when they realized what was happening, that they couldn't stop it, that the person they were trusting and expecting to help them only wants to use and hurt them.

The victim being so overwhelmed and out of their right mind, combined with the fact that just minutes ago they believed I was there to help, that they needed me to help and to comfort them, just leaving their mind and body so muddled and confused by the situation that they cling to their rapist in spite of themselves, projecting their need for comfort onto their source of pain, their sobbed-out pleas no longer begging me to stop but simply begging just to beg. Internally begging me not to stpo and walk away because clinging to me is all they ahve in that moment

And then, when I am done, simply collapsing onto them, resting over them, warm and heavy. The victim still shaking, crying, still in utter shock over what I've done to them. The pain, physical and emotional quivering through their vocal chords with every shaking breath as I relax. Beginning to run my hand through their hair, or hug them, or run a hand up and down their back in the afterglow, perhaps softly shushing them and telling them that it's over now. Not apologising, not acknowledging what I did to them, merely telling them that it's over.

there's the classic appeal of "you can't help but get wet/hard for me, i know you really want it" rewriting someone's desires while you rape them, right? or violating them so thoroughly that they don't even protest, using their body as evidence against them

but i think i like it even more as a "it doesn't matter that you hate this, your body doesn't know any better"

because it IS just a physical reaction. i can try and trick myself and you, try and play like you actually do kinda want it and like it, but isn't it even better if i just have no illusions about what i'm doing to you?

i feel you getting wet or hard and i smile, because i know you can't help it. you hate this, you hate me, you want nothing more than for this to stop, but your body doesn't know that. it doesn't know how to listen to you. you can't stop the fact that you're reacting just the same as if you wanted it, no matter how many tears you cry, no matter how much you wish your body would let you take control

but even as you watch or read or fantasize to something while touching yourself, you remember the way i talked about you getting aroused for me. remembering how it felt to be unable to control yourself

and you probably pull away immediately! no more jerking or jilling off for the night. you whatever coping technique for a panic attack your therapist or friend or support group taught you to do, you cry about it, it ruins your night, but then it's over

until you go to get off again

maybe it seems like it's going well and that you're safe from that intrusive memory. or maybe it comes in even faster this time, and you have to stop, do your routine, recover

but it just keeps coming back

the association is there

you can't help but think about the fact that your body betrayed you every time you try and pleasure yourself

you could just give up masturbating. give up pleasuring yourself. but how long until those memories seep in even when you're with someone else? do you go so far as to give up sex and sexual pleasure entirely? killing off a part of yourself so you don't have to have those memories destroy you over and over again?

or do you give in?

give up on the idea of being able to avoid those memories. and accept the fact that they'll always be there

if you stop running from them, it won't be long before the memories themselves start to turn you on

the association is just too strong. they come up every time you get aroused. you can't help it either. it's just how association works. and you hate it, you really, really hate it, but...

sometimes you admit to yourself that remembering being raped turns you on

you still hate me. you still feel violated and wronged and like you will never be the same after what I did to you

but the memory is something you get off to every time you want to cum