Tag Archives: submission

I am tired, as any human must be, after a life spent avoiding humiliation and yet standing near its flame, enjoying the sparks, the heat, the paradoxical illumination.

Wayne Koestenbaum

I am one of those girls who is always overwrought with embarrassment to the extent that it becomes humiliation. It may be a specifically English trait but I am not so well versed in the characteristics of other nations to be able to claim this trait for my people and gender.

As a child embarrassment and its big sister humiliation have always been close to me. Arriving late for church would make me try to hide in the collar of my coat in shame,  not knowing an answer when we played games of Trivial Pursuit as a family (never be the youngest in a fiercely competitive family- it is hard work)  and of course, the humiliation supreme would be getting told off. It happened very rarely and only at one school I attended which I left at the age of 12.

I once allowed a fellow classmate to copy my answers in a test because she whispered at me in a pleading tone and I could not say no. I still feel the shame and guilt now that I felt then as I was sent to get the debit book. Another time I hid my teacher’s chocolate (it was a game and we were all doing it) too near the radiator and it melted. A third time I got actually shouted at for the first and last time in my life. It was for not telling him (the same teacher) that I dare not do the dissection that we had planned for the afternoon. I told another teacher instead. I should have told my own teacher when he asked. I feel a bit sick writing this. I did the wrong thing.

Girls like me, we are designed for naughtiness, for playing at the edges of misbehaviour but being properly bad is not what we are about. If I do the wrong thing, if I hurt someone or misrepresent them to others (what I did with my teacher over the dissection debacle) or if I let someone down then I am utterly humiliated by own failure.

I acutely feel social judgement acutely and always have. Yesterday Dexter took me to a pub. It was delightful, a tiny throwback of a 1940’s pub hidden in the back streets of Knightsbridge. When we entered the talking of the fifteen or so people (that caused the pub to be packed) totally stopped. There was maybe two seconds silence and then the talking started again. I could have cried. To top it all there was a sign saying “No mobile phones allowed – you will be asked to leave if you use yours.” An admirable rule but I needed to look something up on mine, on the internet and was terrified the whole time that I should be told off. I had to hide it under my coat and peak as though I were cheating in a test in class. I was tense the whole time we were there and clung onto Dexter as much as possible, my hand on his arm in what I hoped was a surreptitious manner.

My life has been a series of these little humiliations. Each one burns into me and comes back for a replay at night. I wing my hands, blush, and I try to hide. There are many social situations I try to avoid so that I do not have to endure yet more humiliation.  I am meeting a friend for lunch (for the first time) in a couple of weeks. I am already fretting certain that he will be so horrified by something I do that he will be forced to turn and walk away from me in icy silence.  My struggle with my humiliation has been my life’s work.

Recently I started to realise something that was encapsulated in the quotation I saw yesterday (which you may find at the top of this post.)

I feel humiliation, shame and sorrow at my actions deeply. Sometimes this is deserved and others it is not. It is however an emotion that is part of me, it is part of my due. I must endure it.

But, it is possible to be illuminated by it, rather than burned.

The word is a hard one, ‘humiliation’ stinks of negativity, of debasement and detraction of self respect.

But I do not think it has to be so. I think it can be a path that may be walked leading to somewhere else, somewhere brighter and peaceful.  I think I can only be led down this path, I can’t find it on my own.

On my own and in ways of my own devising, humiliation is always negative and damaging. I feel disliked, unlovable, unloved,  and unwanted.

When I am humiliated (and I do know how hard that word sounds) by the man I trust to guide me then the experience is transforming.

He humiliates me by making me stand in front of him before he punishes me. He may make me look at him. I am ashamed, shy, overloaded with emotion but he tips my head up and my eyes meet his. I am uncomfortable writing this. I find it very hard.

I am humiliated when he tells me off, just like that teacher years ago when I was a little girl. I want to sit on his lap and stop his words from coming. I feel nauseous and ashamed. I would literally run from the room if he would allow it.

I am humiliated when he takes my knickers down and makes me bend over. The position is ignoble and I can’t bear to think of how I might look. I shake a little with imagining it. Just the same when over his lap- it is awful to endure, just the position. If I am difficult sometimes simply putting me over his lap makes me still and calm. I do not want to be there, I do not want to be seen there with my bottom up and exposed and my head down. It is humiliating. I sometimes see pictures of girls when they are exposed, their knickers down and they stare right at the camera, eyes right into it. I have one set of pictures of me before and during a spanking- I could no more meet the eyes of the camera than I could fly. I am ashamed in every pore.

I am humiliated when he makes me stand in the corner, my red bottom on display. He does not even watch me, he does not make me the centre of his thoughts but rather he sits there, typing away on his computer until he is ready for me again. That lack of attention and the indignity is sometimes more than I think I can endure but I do, even though I hate it.

This is the part of my writing where I want to summarise and conclude, to draw together and make sense of it all.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I am not sure I understand it all but this is what I think.

I think that we are all drawn to feel different emotions in depth. I am, alas, drawn to a little pathos and quite a lot of humiliation. In my life this has led to unhappiness and I focus on that emotion in many negative ways.

With Dexter, and without ever discussing it, I have been led to these intense emotions and started to explore humiliation in a manner that was protected and led. I am not allowed to choose where and when I feel humiliated or how I will feel afterwards.

When he decides the humiliation stops then it does so. He takes me by the hand and onto his lap, or into his arms, or even into his bed and he chooses a new emotion for me. I feel new, fresh, taken care of; he authors my response to myself and events.

I wonder if, after a while, the humiliation I feel speaking to large groups of people (I flake out at about 300) or after making a mistake or tripping in public, or not understanding an accent or saying something stupid, or not being pretty enough or charming enough- I wonder if these humiliations will fade into mere embarrassment like normal people feel.

I wonder if humiliation will become something Dexter takes me to, an experience that will become linked in to the way he guides me and leads me. I wonder if humiliation will become, has already started to become a positive aspect of my life.

I don’t know the answers but I believe I shall find them out.

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