Pleasure and pain (repost)

t is a matter of common experience that there is no real hard and fast dividing line between pleasure and pain. While we think of pleasure and pain as opposites, often they seem to complement each other, or are interchangeable. Pleasures can be excruciating, pain can be delicious. But pleasure/pain responses in individuals differ markedly. There are some people who need pain to feel pleasure. There are others for whom any sort of pain kills all sensations of pleasure. People are wired differently. There is no across the board “norm”.

Accordingly, there are types of sexual play that cater to different types of people and different responses. For example, sado-masochistic play (SM) caters to people who enjoy or need pain for erotic fulfillment. Pain is their pleasure. It excites them. It is what they enjoy. Many submissives need the experience of pain in order to “zone” into a fully submissive state. The psychology of these responses is well understood.

But there are others – the majority, as it happens – who experience pleasure and pain as a polarity and so for whom pain kills (rather than deepens or enhances) pleasure. When they experience pain, it kills their libido. Pain is a turn off. So they find it hard to conceive of erotic pain. Nor do they experience intense pleasure as a type of pain. They are wired on/off. It is either pleasure or pain, but never both. Obviously, such people are not suited to sado-masochistic play. They will not use pain to further their pleasures. Their pursuit of erotic fulfillment will be hedonistic rather than sado-masochistic.

Code d’ Odalisque is a code of consensual slave play for women of the second type. Odalisques are protected from sado-masochism. The mode of play is hedonistic. It suits women who love sexual submission but who do not enjoy pain.

The advantage of using pain in sex play is that it is a fast track into deeper levels of submission. People (organisms) will readily submit to pain. Since pain is not used as a tool in Code d’ Odalisque other methods – psychological manipulations – are used to reach deeper layers of submission.

Any sort of developed hedonism must extend from simple pleasures of the flesh to pleasures of the imagination and the mind. Code d’ Odalisque seeks intensities of sexual pleasure – attained without the use of pain – as well as refined aesthetic pleasures such as the visual enjoyment of the naked female form.