#consensual-nonconsent

Some people hear “I like pain” and think that means I like being lightly spanked and told I’m a good girl.

Don’t get me wrong — I like being a good girl. But that’s not what I mean.

When I say I like pain, I don’t mean I like it soft. I don’t mean I like it ornamental. I don’t mean I want to be gently bruised just enough to say we did something edgy before cuddling for two hours.

I mean I want to feel it.

I mean I want to breathe through it. Bite through it. I want the kind of pain that makes me forget everything else — because nothing else in my life slows my brain down the way a hand around my throat or a belt across my thighs can.

I don’t want it for show. I don’t want it to impress anyone. And I don’t want it to be performative for you. I want it to mean something to me.

I like pain that makes me let go. Pain that makes me cry — not because it’s too much, but because it’s exactly enough. Pain that makes me trust you in a way I can’t explain without sounding unwell.

Content note: This post discusses kink, impact play, and the emotional aftermath of scenes, including internalized shame. Please take care while reading.

It always hits after.

Not right away—not while my skin is still tingling or I’m drifting in that floaty space. It waits. Quietly. Until the room stills. Until the air changes. Until I’m left with nothing but myself.

And then it comes rushing in. The shame. The overthinking. The pit in my stomach that says, You went too far again. You always do.

Sometimes it’s immediate—right after he says good girl and kisses my forehead like I didn’t just beg him to break me. Sometimes it’s delayed, creeping up an hour later when I’m washing my hands and suddenly can’t look in the mirror.

I try to tell myself it’s just my brain being loud. That this feeling isn’t proof I did anything wrong. But I still get caught in it. The post-scene spiral.

“Did he actually enjoy that or was he just going along with it?” “Was that even sexy or just sad?” “Why did I need that so badly?”

I wish I could say the shame came from being pushed too far, but honestly? It comes when I get exactly what I wanted.

When I ask for something filthy or degrading or rough and he gives it to me—beautifully, tenderly, perfectly—and I still end up lying there feeling hollow. Like maybe there’s something wrong with needing it at all.

It’s not the scene that does this. It’s the voice that shows up after—the one that says I’m too much and not enough at the same time. The one that thinks aftercare is something you have to earn, not something you’re worthy of.

Sometimes I wish I could just turn it off. Slip back into soft arms and stay there. But even in the safety, my shame is clever. It wears different masks.

Was that okay? Am I okay? Did I ruin it by wanting it too much?

I haven’t figured out how to self-soothe yet. Not really. Sometimes I scroll. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I repeat the same mantras over and over like maybe this time they’ll stick.

This is not who I am, it’s just how I feel. This will not matter the way it feels like it does right now.

But more often than not, I just sit in it. Quietly. Hoping the tide goes out soon.