FAQ #27: Humiliation - What is it and why is he interested?

SMTR is providing this information as a service only. While humiliation is not something a lot of people knowingly bring into play in their relationship, there is flavors of humiliation through society. Think of being called up in front of a classroom as a child, or being made to stand in a corner or in 'time out' when in trouble.

The following is an excerpt from a discussion here on SMTR and it best describes why some people are attracted to feeling humiliated within their relationship.

WARNING: Be VERY sure you know what you are doing before employing any type of humiliation. This is one item that often backfires. BE SURE you both are fully aware of risks and dangers before proceeding. Start off slowly with gentle humiliation, then talk later about how it felt, how it continues to feel, etc. If ONE of you is uncomfortable, STOP and do not proceed further. Also do not employ innocent bystanders (Public), family or friends as your audience unless you have completely advised them up front of what will be taking place. Make sure they are emotionally comfortable before proceeding!

Let’s assume your partner is otherwise well adjusted and doesn’t have any deep psychological issues that need to be dealt with. If he does have issues of this kind, humiliation play probably isn’t a great idea for either of you.

Humiliation isn’t just one unified fantasy/need. Some people crave humiliation in public. Some only crave it in front of their Mistress and/or her close company. If he (or you) are considering public humiliation, it is worthwhile also turning your mind to what other people will make of it – generally speaking we all should be considerate about our activities impact on bystanders if we take humiliation play out in public.

An attraction to humiliation can be driven be a few needs. He may want to feel “worthless”. Or he may just want to feel “inferior” to you. Perhaps his needs aren’t driven be either of these factors and instead arise from a desire to be controlled, vulnerable and/or show that his loyalty to you is strong enough to survive whatever humiliation you might choose to inflict on him. You need to work out which of these factors are at play if you really want to exploit it. In my own case, humiliation is probably attractive to me through a combination of the inferiority/loyalty factors, rather than a desire to feel “worthless”. Clearly this drives the types of humiliation that I would be attracted to. Presumably this also applies to other submissives.

However, let’s remember that your needs/wants in all of this should come first. How do you feel about all of this? Only the forms of humiliation that do something for you are really worth considering, if your desired outcome is “training”. Otherwise it is you that is being trained, not him. And this is complicated by the fact that humiliation can only succeed if you do truly push his limits. For example, if his desire is to be spoken-down-to in public, this is already his expectation and actually doing so won’t really be humiliation. Sure, he will get a kick out of it, but he is unlikely to suggest something to you that he would really feel uncomfortable about. So you have to decide whether you will do the humiliation “play” he talks about, or push it further so that it really does make him feel embarrassed, uncomfortable and queasy.

If you (and he) are serious about humiliation play, my suggestions are that you either: (a) find things he is genuinely uncomfortable about and exploit them; or (b) listen to the humiliation ideas he suggest but push them significantly beyond the boundaries he s
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uggests.

Humiliation - What is it and why is he interested?

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FAQ #27

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