#words-i-needed

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.

I almost had sex on Friday.

He was hot — like the kind of hot that makes you feel lucky just to be in the conversation. Tall, confident, flirty. An OnlyFans creator with a steady stream of women calling him daddy on FetLife. And somehow, I had his attention. For a while, that was enough to override everything else. I thought, maybe this time I can handle it. Maybe I won’t fall apart after.

But I’ve been here before. With men like this.

Guys who give you just enough eye contact to feel chosen. Who praise your body in a way that feels addictive until you realize they say the same thing to ten other people — and mean it just as little. Guys who make you feel wanted in the moment, then evaporate. Or worse, linger just enough to leave you craving more.

So yeah — I wanted him. I wanted to be touched, devoured, validated. To feel the high of being seen as desirable by someone who could have anyone. But I also knew the crash was coming.

Because I’ve been trading short-term closeness for long-term insecurity like it’s worth it. Like I’m built to withstand the emotional fallout if it means I get to feel something for a night. But I’m not sure I am anymore. I’m tired of trying to feel chosen and ending up feeling less than.

Seeing all his FetLife interactions — the comments, the scenes, the women fawning over him — it flipped something in me. I felt myself shrink. I started rehearsing how I’d be more, do more, make myself memorable. I started planning how to be enough for a man who never asked me to be anything at all. That’s when I knew: I was already bleeding out before anything even happened.

So I canceled.

Not because I didn’t want him. But because I finally want myself more. Because I’m not in the mood to abandon myself for attention I won’t even recognize the next morning. Because I deserve sex that doesn’t echo the exact same wounds I’ve spent years trying to stitch up.

There are days I crave being hurt so badly it scares me. In recovery, we’re taught to question the things we crave most. We learn that some hungers are smoke signals for destruction. But what if the thing I crave isn’t a substance, but surrender, and the punishment I want isn’t about shame—but healing?

There’s something unnerving about desire in recovery. You’re trained to hold your cravings up to the light: What’s underneath this? What’s it trying to soothe? And for a long time, I thought if I craved something, it must be a red flag. That wanting was dangerous. That to be safe meant to be still.

But submission doesn’t feel still.

Sometimes it feels like fire licking the inside of my ribs. Sometimes it feels like sobbing with my face pressed to the floor, heart cracked open, begging to be seen—even in the parts I’ve always tried to hide.

And sometimes it feels like compulsion. Like I’m reenacting something I promised I’d never do again.

Before I got sober, I used to let men use me because I thought that’s all I was good for. I didn’t negotiate. I didn’t speak up. I thought “please” was too much and “no” would make them leave. And honestly? I didn’t care if they left. I just didn’t want to be alone with myself.

Now, I ask to be used. I choose to give myself. And that choice feels like agency. It feels like power.

But I still wonder: Is this healthy?

Some clinicians argue that kink—especially consensual BDSM—can be healing for survivors. A 2020 article in Psychology Today highlights how “consensual submission may allow trauma survivors to reclaim control over past experiences by recontextualizing pain and surrender in a safe, structured environment.”

For many people, submission becomes a space to rewrite the narrative: I’m not helpless. I’m not broken. I’m choosing this. But the line between healing and reenactment is thin, and sometimes invisible.

Trauma therapist and educator Dr. Jamie Marich writes:

“Trauma lives in the body… and the body often returns to what it knows, even when what it knows is harm. It’s not just about what you do—it’s about whether your nervous system feels safe doing it.”

That’s the part I’m still learning. Not just to say I’m choosing it—but to feel that I am.

Because there are nights when I want to be choked, slapped, told I’m nothing. Not because it turns me on—but because it quiets everything else. Because the pain gives me focus. Because when someone is hurting me, I don’t have to do anything except endure. That’s not submission. That’s surrendering to silence.

So I check myself:

Am I playing out old patterns, or consciously engaging in new ones?

Is this desire born from wholeness—or from the part of me that still believes I’m easiest to love when I’m hurting?

Does the scene make me feel more me, or less?

And the hardest part is, the answer shifts. Sometimes I really am seeking connection, power, transformation. Sometimes, I just want to disappear in a prettier way than I used to.

My mom had a suggestion for everything—how I looked, how I acted, how I could’ve done better. Most compliments came with edits. A warning. A way I could improve. But not when it came to my writing. That was the one thing she said I was good at, and left it at that. No notes. No red pen. Just quiet approval.

I used to think healing would feel like relief. Like coming up for air. Like something soft and clean and sure.

But this kind of healing — the kind I’m in now — doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a breaking open. Like something flooding through all the places I’ve tried so hard to hold together.

I don’t feel lighter yet. I just feel exposed.

But maybe that’s part of it. Maybe things don’t always fall apart — maybe they fall through you first.

Sometimes I wonder who I’d be if I were easier to look at. Not ugly. Not invisible. Just… smoother. Smaller. The kind of pretty that doesn’t make people squint and wonder if they’re attracted to me or just intrigued.

I’m the kind of pretty people don’t always agree on. The kind that depends on the lighting, or how sad I am that day, or whether I remembered to brush my brows up. The kind that gets, “You look so different in person,” or “Something about you is really hot”—which somehow feels like both a compliment and a warning.

I’m the kind of pretty that feels like a gamble. Like I could either ruin your life or be completely overlooked, depending on the mood and the framing. The kind where strangers follow me online but ignore me in public. Where I get fetishized on OnlyFans but ghosted on dating apps. I'm not soft focus or clean lines. I'm angles, mood, and context.

I’ve watched other girls get the job, the guy, the benefit of the doubt—and deep down, a quiet voice always said, You’d have that too, if you looked more like her. And maybe that’s true. But also… maybe I wouldn’t be me if I did.

Because the kind of pretty I am comes with survival. It comes with being noticed before I was ever understood. It comes with being funny to disarm, sharp to protect, soft in ways I don’t always let show. It’s the kind of pretty that makes people remember me—even if they don’t choose me. And I don’t say that with pride. I say it with a shrug, and a sigh, and a little bit of mourning.