The pride of the sub

Can a submissive person take pride in their submission? 

 

According to Roy Baumeister, who wrote what I believe was the first truly insightful psychological study of masochism, “Masochism and the Self”, this is not the case. “It would be absurd,"  he asserts, "to hear a masochist boast of having licked the boots of dozens of mistresses. […] Masochistic submission is simply not something that one boasts about, for it has no ego-boosting properties.” (p. 131)

 

I believe he is wrong on that point. Let me quote from a very different source:

In an article in a Times Magazine (25 July 2020, a supplement to the British newspaper The Times), Jason Fox, a former Royal Marines and SAS (Special Air Service - an elite British army unit) hard man, talks about having “two types of fun. The first is drinking or meeting up with women. The second is ‘something that, when you’re doing it, isn’t fun; it’s horrendous, gruelling. And then the minute it finishes you’re like “God, that was hard… I’m quite proud.” It’s something you remember for ever, and it makes you a more rounded person. That’s the type two fun.’”

 

The interviewer asks: “Does he never feel sorry for contestants in [the SAS-based reality TV show] Who Dares, shivering in freezing seas, crouching in stress positions or mentally broken? He laughs. ‘No. Because to progress as a person, you have to put yourself, or be put into, uncomfortable situations. So I’m actually quite happy for them. Because they’re getting shown what they’re really capable of.’”

 

Being taken to your limits, and meeting up with women: masochism combines both types of Jason Fox's definition of "fun". Obviously our BDSM sessions cannot be compared with real army training, but conceptually they're not too far from reality TV shows like Who Dares, in which people test their limits in a controlled environment. It hurts at the time, but the endorphins create a sense of pride in having survived it, or having done something so extreme.

 

I certainly look back with pleasure and pride at most, if not all, of the sessions in which I have taken part. I love the fact that I have been able to cope with so much pain, so much humiliation - certainly on a good day, when I'm really turned on. We may be playing together, but we are playing with real pain. I am shown, and I am showing, what I am really capable of.

 

And, who knows, perhaps our dommes are quietly proud of their subs!