One of the reasons I asked about this is because I always thought that a big part of a sub’s pleasure in putting up with what she does comes from the knowledge of how her sacrifice and pain arouses her master.

Certainly there are painsluts who just get off on the physical sensation of being bound and whipped or tortured, just like there are people who cut themselves with razor blades because they like the sensation and the sight of their own blood. I consider that masochism of the purest sort, where physical pain is the main goal. But for other subs—at least the ones I’ve played with—I always assumed that seeing the master get aroused is a major turn-on. Knowing that her suffering is fuel for his fire is what makes it all worthwhile. It’s what she gets in return for her sacrifice.

I can see where coldness and emotional distance in a Dom could also be a turn-on. I know that there are plenty of subs who like to feel that they’re no more than a sex-toy, a sexual object to be used for another’s pleasure, to be whipped and tortured for no better reason than that their Dom simply feels like doing it to them. But rage and lust are closely linked in a lot of men--the urge to dominate and possess—and I think that being the subject of that wild, almost uncontrolled passion is a turn on for a lot of women.

Anyhow, that’s a theory I’m working on.

---dr.M.