#journal-entry

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.

Today, I want to be owned. Not in a performative way—not for show, not because we signed something—but in a way that feels real. I want the symbolism to matter. I want someone to look at me like I belong to them, like they know where I fit in their life and plan to keep me there. I want to feel held by a gaze, tethered by intention, claimed not with words but with presence. I want to be told what to do—not to feel small, but to feel anchored.

There are days when the world feels too loose, too formless, and I start to drift. Craving ownership isn’t always about wanting control—it’s about wanting to be seen in the specific, saturated way that only power exchange seems to offer. I want someone to learn me well enough to guide me. To notice when I need more structure and when I just need to be held. I don’t want to be micromanaged; I want to be understood.

Stillness. That’s the word that keeps coming to mind. When ownership is right, it makes something in my chest go quiet. Like a warm hand against my cheek, steady and sure. I want the symbolism and the ritual. I want the eroticism of rules and the gravity of being known well enough to be bound. I want to hear the sound of a collar buckle sliding into place. I want to kneel—not because I’m weak, but because someone asked me to and I wanted to say yes.

There have been flashes. A hand at the back of my neck. A single command spoken with care. Even the way someone once buckled my shoes before a scene started. I remember those moments because they didn’t just direct me—they acknowledged me. They said: I see your need, and I’ll hold it without punishing you for having it.

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.

sometimes I think maybe I don’t need love the way people say I should. maybe what I need is to keep the parts of me that wake up when someone calls me good girl, when I shake, when I’m raw and seen and trembling. maybe that’s my kind of aliveness.

I used to think love would make me whole. now I wonder if love just makes me quieter, smaller, softer in a way that feels like forgetting who I am. because when I’m touched the way I crave—when I’m pushed past the edge of language—I remember everything: my hunger, my want, my body.

and maybe that’s the trade. maybe keeping those parts alive means I stop asking anyone to stay. maybe it means I let go of the part of me that waits for good morning texts, that wants to be chosen, that still believes in being loved.

It was honestly some of the best sex I’ve ever had. Easily one of the hottest men I’ll ever sleep with — the kind of beautiful that makes you feel a little bit ruined afterward. He used me exactly the way I wanted to be used: held me down, choked me out, spit on me, left me shaking. I gave him everything, and it felt incredible.

Afterward, he handed me a cherry Poptart and said, “You’re stronger than you think.” Then he built a pillow wall between us, put on his headphones, pulled down his sleep mask, and went to sleep.

That was the aftercare.

No touch. No real check-in. No “how do you feel now that I’ve pulled you apart and made you cry.” Just a motivational quote and a boxed pastry.

I wasn’t expecting poetry. I didn’t need to be coddled. But I think I expected something. A gesture. A glance. A little softness to remind me I was still a person, not just an incredible fuck.

Instead, I laid there in the dark trying to convince myself I wasn’t being dramatic. That I should be grateful. That not everyone gets to be split open by someone that gorgeous. That the sex was worth it.

Some people are given softness freely. I am not one of them. For me, softness has always come with conditions—something I had to earn. I don’t trust it when it arrives too easily. I brace. I analyze. I wait for the part where I have to pay for it. But when I do trust it? When I finally let myself lean into it? That’s when I collapse. That’s when I feel the weight of how long I’ve been holding myself up.

Since childhood, I’ve been chasing softness like a reward. Praise, affection, even basic warmth—none of it felt guaranteed. So I learned to work for it. To shape myself around what people wanted. To earn my place in the room. And in kink, that pattern plays out in sharp relief. I like pain for what it does to me. I like it for what it offers my Dominant. But when someone praises me for taking it—really sees me in it—that’s when I light up. That’s when something in me quiets down. Like I’ve finally done enough to deserve being held.

I remember one time it didn’t come. The scene itself was intense—physical, demanding, the kind of play that should’ve ended with care. But instead, when it was over, everything turned clinical. We disinfected the toys. We chatted. He handed me wipes. I found out afterward that his other submissive was coming over later that day. He hadn’t told me before. And that moment—the casualness, the transition from intensity to sterilized small talk—felt like a door slamming shut. My body was still humming, still open, still aching. But he had already moved on. That was the aftercare. Not touch. Not praise. Not being held. Just cleanup and conversation, like we’d checked a box. Like I hadn’t just offered him every inch of me.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t even get angry. I just folded it into the part of me that already believed softness was optional—something extra, something you got if you didn’t make things complicated. I wiped down the toys like it was normal. Like it was fine. But inside, my body was still waiting. Still hoping for a touch, a word, something that said I see what this cost you. And when it didn’t come, I turned the ache inward. I told myself I shouldn’t have needed anything. That needing was the mistake. That it was my fault for forgetting my place, for wanting more than what was offered. And it wasn’t new. It was just familiar—another quiet confirmation that if I wanted to be held, I had to be easy to hold.

Pain isn’t always intimate. Sometimes it’s mechanical. Or bored. Or just enough to say “we did something.” Sometimes it’s sloppy — like a checklist of rough things someone saw in porn and decided to copy on a real body without ever checking to see who lived in it.

I’ve had pain that left marks but no meaning. Bruises that didn’t ache in the right way. I’ve had hands on me that thought pressure was the same as presence. It’s not.

Because real pain — the kind I crave — asks something from you too. It’s not just about how hard you hit or how red my skin turns. It’s about whether you’re watching what happens after. Whether you’re listening when I go quiet. Whether you're giving pain, or just doing pain.

I don’t want to be your experiment or your proof-of-concept. I don’t want to be handled like a body that will bounce back no matter what.

I want pain that knows me — or at least wants to. Pain that remembers what I said when I flinched a little too hard. Pain that doesn’t always mean cruelty. Pain that might mean care. Pain that can coexist with reverence — not because it’s soft, but because it’s earned.