humiliation: a (psychological) form of pain
I don't see why so many of you are associating --even equating--blackmail and humiliation. Certainly, they can be combined in many plots and scenaria, but they are not equivalent, and one does not necessarily involve the other.
Blackmail is a form of power. If you have compromising knowledge of somebody you can blackmail her. She obeys or faces painful consequences, which could be the payment of money, performance of a service (divulging her company's secret catsup recipe), something humiliating, or just a plain old fuck. If you put a gun to her head of kidnaped her mother, you would have power to make her do the same things!
Humiliation is the experience of doing something (or being seen as) shameful, immodest, or degrading. You can certainly blackmail a character into, oh, riding down Main Street naked on a white horse. Or make her do it because you have her kid hanging by his thumbs from a dungeon rafter, or there's a sniper's bullet aimed at her head....you get the idea.
For whatever reason, and by whatever form of power, force, or coercion, humiliation occurs when a character experiences something that is shameful or degrading.
The two are not equivalent, nor does one have to include, or lead to, the other.
I kind of dig characters who are forced to do something that violates their moral code, and is degrading by violating their sense of modesty. That's part of my thing for the abuse and rape of younger girls and virtuous young women in formal gowns: all that delicate material, so woefully inadequate to keep their prissy little privates covered. One scenario I'm kind of partial to is that of a teenage girl in a bouffant party dress forced to lift it up in front of her family and guests. Her panties are ripped off and she is made to walk around her birthday party and have everybody look at her, maybe kiss her cunt, or something. Then the assailant crudely gropes her, while everybody is (at gunpoint, perhaps?) powerless to protect her. Then she's given the choice to be forcibly raped in front of everybody, or to have the privilege of "privacy" in her bedroom if she'll submit willingly.
Humiliation, abuse, coercion, violation...but no blackmail.
Blackmail and plausibility
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ranai
Anyway, the plausibility check means 'plausibility within the fictional framework'. As a writer you determine the parameters, the society, the rules, the possible consequences of this or that action or inaction. Blackmail fiction writers don't even need to invent reasons that would make sense in the real world; for the plot to work they merely need to invent reasons that function well in this particular fictional universe, and show the readers how and why they work.
Certainly true, but most blakmail fiction is set in the supposedly "real" world. Therefore many rules are already set because the reader knows something about the workings of the real world. In a purely fictional world anything goes.
In a world that deviates from ours in small but recognizable ways, the reader can not be sure that every rule that applies here is valid there but it still gives the story a "realistic" feeling because the worlds are so similar.
It is easier for the author to keep up the suspension of disbelief even in "implausible" situation.
Satan_Klaus
I think you mean nc humiliation
Quote:
Originally Posted by carrie
This isn't a story I'm in the midst of writing, it was just an example of what I think of as "true humiliation". I guess I posted this because I get so frustrated reading stories that start off with a humiliation theme and suddenly the woman is enjoying it. Maybe my fantasies are sick, but they are more true to life than most of the stories I read.
Carrie, I suppose its about whether its "nc humiliation" or "consensual humiliation". I have written a story entitled Grace's Hard Lessons with blackmail and nc humiliation as themes - the style is intended to be realistic or 'true to life' as you put it. Would love to get your comments on it.
