Most feelings wheels were built for therapy, and they’re super useful in that context — but it isn’t the only place they can help! If you’ve ever tried to negotiate emotional S/m, maybe you’ve hit the wall where “I want to feel degraded” tells your partner almost nothing. Okay, but degraded how? Made disgusting? Reduced to an object? Exposed? Laughed at? Each of those is a different scene, a different risk, and a different aftercare plan.
This wheel is built for that problem: to map the feelings that actually show up in emotional S/m, CNC, degradation, & humiliation play — and the nuanced subdivisions that can help you articulate what’s true for YOU and YOUR desires specifically.
Why does kink need its own BDSM feelings wheel?
Vanilla emotion vocabulary tends to treat some of the feelings we might desire in emotional S/m as feelings people want to move away from. When they’re the whole point, like they might be in this kind of play, the difference between erotic and erosive lives in tiny distinctions. “Worthless” and “beneath notice” feel adjacent until one lands as the hottest scene of your life and the other just hurts. A wheel gives you somewhere to point to.
How can I describe what I want in humiliation or degradation play?
(Or fear play, shame play, or any other version of ESM!)
How to use it (the short version):
- Find the feeling you desire (or desire to create in your bottom). Start from the emotion, not the activity. Sit with the wheel and notice which words pull. If you could only keep ONE, what would it be?
- Check its neighbors. Look at what’s next to your word. The feelings you don’t want, even when they’re close, are some of the most useful boundaries you can name. (None of them hitting quite right? The thesaurus may be your friend here!)
- Add the meaning layer. “Made disgusting for someone’s amusement” and “made disgusting as punishment” are different requests. Pair the feeling with the why behind it.
- Say it out loud. Hand your partner the feeling, the context, and the meaning, not just the -ation.
Want the full walkthrough (aka the less-short version) — how to turn a single word into a sentence your partner can actually run with? That lives in the complete guide here: How to Communicate About Your Degradation Kink. (I also teach that framework as a class which can be applied beyond ESM, and I’ll be presenting it for the first time via Zoom on June 20! Learn more and grab your ticket here.)
Do you love the Emotional S/m Feelings Wheel by vahavta?
There’s more where that came from! This graphic is free for you to use in your negotiations however you might like. But if you want this wheel where you can keep glancing at it, there’s also…
…a sticker on Etsy, for adding to your negotiation journal, water bottle, play-bag, or wherever else you want an easy-to-reference list of these words!
…the Degradation Diary journal (or on Amazon here – get whichever has more affordable shipping for you; the only difference is that the Etsy version has perforated pages for easier sharing!) — a few pages of guided prompts, plus lots of lined pages for exploring your desires in your own words on your own time!
…the digital/printable Emotional S/m Add-On to the Submission Beyond Limits workbook (more info on full workbook here) — 20+ exercises in a downloadable mini-workbook for bottoms, submissives and masochists who want to explore emotional S/m (degradation, humiliation, objectification, and other forms of psychological intensity) with more intention, skill, and risk-awareness than a simple yes/no negotiation checklist can provide. Fully usable without owning the full workbook, but better if you do have it, in my opinion!