Of everything that comes up in that intersection between psychology and kink that I’m so fond of, shame play might be one of the most powerful. Maybe that’s because it is so flexible and so related to so many kinds of Emotional S/m (ESM), binding to other parts of play and wrapping around them in unique ways that make them into something more. That power itself is what draws many of us to it: the cathartic release, the reclamation of emotions we previously tried to avoid, the liberation from our social conditioning around desires and acceptability, the extraordinary connection that can come from exploring it with someone you trust. It’s also this power that makes it dangerous.
The way that shame can cause or result from nearly any emotion you can think of is what makes many researchers and educators (including but not limited to Brene Brown) refer to it as the “master emotion.” And most certainly, with all the subcategories we think about when we think about ESM—objectification, degradation, fear, others—the psychological mechanics of shame can enter in.
I’ve been thinking and learning about shame for a bit now in a few different realms of life (and have even been considering a 102 level for my ESM class that really focuses there) because that power is just so great, and to me, that makes it really cool. So this is a little bit of a primer on the matter, for those who may not have thought about the workings of shame in-depth… Or maybe for exactly the people that have.
As with anything I write about ESM, I may use examples that could be triggering for some, so please do care for yourself and step away from the writing whenever needed.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Shame in BDSM
Shame operates differently in our brains than other emotions we might consider when it comes to play, or even when it doesn’t. While emotions like fear and anger stem more from our basic survival cues (and certainly there’s a lot of overlap that can happen here), what we think of as “shame” links more directly to our social-emotional circuitry—that is, the parts that evolved to help us better navigate complex social communities. That’s part of why shame is often very culture-specific, from the norms that cause it to how one is expected to respond (both to their own and to others).
During a scene, basic emotions that get brought up (fear, anxiety, arousal) may activate your social circuitry, adding shame which can persist past when those basic emotions subside. This makes a lot of shame play really memorable and makes it build up over time to different effects, but it’s also what makes it tricky: social emotions don’t simply disappear when the present situation ends, unlike with something like fear where the adrenaline rush subsides once the threat is removed.
Shame can also develop “meta-shame,” where we are ashamed of feeling ashamed. And in that, it can become integrated into our identity, our sense of self, in ways we might not intend. When we experience meta-shame, this creates patterns of avoidance that operate subconsciously and prevent addressing the original issue, affecting you and your experience in and out of scenes without you necessarily even realizing it is there. Meta-shame magnifies the perceived gap between the “ideal self” and the “actual self” in our heads and the greater this gap, the more intense the shame experience. Which can be used for a lot of fun in kink contexts, when done carefully! But it can also lead to situations where no amount of endurance, submission, or service ever feels like “enough” to close that gap, and this can have wide-reachinf effects that we just don’t want.
This is why emotional S/m that plays with shame is always edge play that requires a ton of consideration. It it risky even for those who communicate well 99.99999% of the time — it can compromise communication in a number of ways, and there’s no safeword that can stop this process once it begins because it happens in the psyche, not at the hands of the top. So before even consider playing with shame, we should do whatever we can to really get our communication and negotiation skills up to speed. But with everyone informed of the extra risks and and consenting, it sure as fuck can be a very good time.
Different Types of Shame
Shame manifests in various forms depending on our history and psychological makeup, and we start to form these on the identity level at different developmental stages (which I’m not going to get to into in this writing). Understanding these possibilities can be something we can use to negotiate shame play and ESM beyond broad level categories, honing in more on what we do and don’t want to approach at that point in time — and I say that because this definitely can and even should vary based on what point in time we are playing, who we are playing with, and individual preferences.
To name just a few:
Judgment shame creates feelings of being fundamentally “bad” or “wrong” for desires or actions that contradict. It often gets talked about in combination with taboo play, if we are talking about societal norms, but might take other forms (like going against internal ideals or value systems) as well.
Control shame connects to one’s ability to competently express and enforce one’s personal agency, and can come into play either as “taming”/overriding of rebellion against authority or shame being attached to the complete surrender of autonomy some of us go for in our relationships.
Perfectionism and autonomy shame, which may or may not be closely related to the above, plays with the idea of the bottom being able to succeed at certain actions or respond in certain ways, whether or not those actions are even possible. Messing with this can lead to hopelessness and confidence loss when meta-shame and identity integration kicks in. On the other hand, it can be really, really liberating in some cases and lead to an increased sense of external or self-acceptance.
Social status shame centers on feeling inferior to others. This can be about embarrassment, power, “measuring up,” or something else — power exchange in the D/s sense may be an element but does not have to be. It also can be particularly risky for those who are prone to fawning or to excessive people-pleasing outside scenes, especially when linked with play that goes near those boundaries, because one might stop feeling that speaking up is even something they deserve to do.
Unworthiness shame centers on the core belief that one is inherently flawed, unlovable, or bad as a person, or that an action or behavior could make them so. That inherent vs. action element is important, because there’s a big difference for many between playful degradation (“you’re such a dirty slut”) and identity-level condemnations like “nobody could ever want to someone like you around long-term.”
…and there’s more of these where that came from, and just what kinds of shame someone experiences (and how) are going to shift with different individuals and their dynamics. So observation and awareness, both of the self and of others, is really the key to drawing lines between them and deciding which you want to touch, and which you’re leaving the hell alone.
Kink Risk Profile Considerations for Shame Play
There are a few specific risks I think are especially important to consider in shame play, among others. These include that identity integration risk I’ve mentioned, but also risks of emotional binding (how shame might permanently bind to other emotions like arousal or affection, or even identities or activities (including sex or play as a whole)) and relationship “contamination” (where the shame between two people spills over into their interactions outside of play, whether that’s a romantic, friendly, sexual, or simply community-level relationship). This is where shame can start to really spill into other contexts of life, with sexual shame in one relationship impacting someone’s other sexual relationships (present or future), impacting job performance, or creating long-term issues in a whole variety of other ways.
For each element of shame play you introduce, consider which of these risks might be activated, how to mitigate them with the specific people you play with, and how to evaluate if other elements of life have been affected. Mitigation may look like creating clear “containers” for shame play (e.g., particular locations, explicit beginnings and endings, specific language that only exists within the play context), incorporating identity-affirming elements or pieces which connect those playing to the core of their relationship to each other, or scheduled check-ins with one’s support network as part of ongoing aftercare. For emotion binding risks, mitigation might include things like ensuring experiences of pleasure, arousal, affection, or whatever else might be combined also occur without shame elements—both in that particular scene and in scenes that are not meant to focus on shame at all—or doing the same with particular roles or kinds of play that you want to ensure don’t codify as “a thing that inherently causes feelings of shame.”
This is also where developing emotional resilience practices becomes super important for bottoms engaging in shame play, some of which I talked about in part of this AMA answer on Fetlife. This also might include working to recognize your own shame triggers and response patterns, practicing grounding techniques, and developing a clear sense of who you are and what you love and value in yourself so that you can more clearly draw internal boundaries between play experiences + what an external party might say or cause and your more persistent self-concept. Mindfulness of meta-shame—noticing when you begin feeling ashamed of your shame responses themselves, and especially when you may be hiding them—might also be a warning that play may be crossing into potential harm.
Aftercare Considerations for Shame Play
I’ve written a bit about a framework I like for potentially-traumatic play but there are some intentional integration techniques that might be especially useful with shame play.
One of these is to include, create opportunities for, or emphasize acts of witnessing, which I know may seem a bit backwards when we think about shame’s social origins… But that’s exactly why it matters. Shame is about what we perceive as a social inadequacy, but that shame can be counteracted by those perceptions being proven wrong. Shame thrives in secrecy, but that means it dissolves when brought into the light. (There’s a reason that effective addiction recovery support models usually include sharing stories with others who share the same experiences.) The witnessing that occurs during the scene itself can begin this process, as a top acknowledges and accepts the vulnerable expressions of shame that emerge there, and can continue in processing the scene together and/or underscoring the ways that the scene felt intimate, like an act of service, or otherwise positive to the top. Beyond the scene, sharing the experience with trusted others—with appropriate consent, of course—provides opportunities for renarrativization, allowing the experience to be processed not just as a source of shame but as a moment in time. Writing and sharing the story of the scene with (one’s own or the extended) kink community can help to avoid or counteract the meta-shame and decrease the long-term risk.
Self-integration is the other big consideration here. Taking time for solitude (which I wanna note is distinctly different from isolation) allows for honest reflection and processing that isn’t always possible when still in with others. This might mean identifying specific shame thought patterns (e.g., “I should be better,” “I’m not good enough,” “no one would want me if they knew”), but that isn’t a skill that necessarily comes naturally to most of us, and a therapist or even just a CBT workbook of some kind may help if you’re not used to catching these sorts of things. Structured reflection or journaling on things like specific triggers, reaction patterns, contained versus lingering elements, etc. also help prevent shame from remaining an Amorphous Cloud of Bad to transform it into more specific, manageable elements that we feel capable of addressing and moving past.
In all cases, you mitigate the most risk when aftercare is not an afterthought. Consider and negotiate aftercare needs with the same care and specificity you bring to scene negotiation itself, recognizing that shame’s particular risks often require aftercare that addresses both immediate emotional states and the longer-term impact of this play.
Shame play exists in paradox, like other forms of ESM (or I might even argue with BDSM at all): we consensually engage with some of the most destructive and challenging human emotions for purposes of pleasure, catharsis, and connection. Trying to fully resolve this paradox is a losing battle, with ESM, and may just lead to losing sight of the risks until they reach a critical mass and explode (something else that I hope to write about and share experiences with at some point in the future). So the mark of someone who is mindfully engaged with shame play isn’t based on who can create or endure the most intense reactions, but who can hold the paradox consciously and with grace—being in experiences that are genuine and powerful in the moment while maintaining the psychological grounding necessary for integration afterward, reaching for support wherever it is needed.
Playing with shame in kink isn’t unlike learning skills for any kind of edge play. It begins with respect for its power and the ethical considerations it demands, it develops through careful preparation, and practice, and it continues and evolves with awareness and reflection. If I’ve learned anything these past few years, it’s that I don’t know how much here I don’t know, that the ways this pops up in ugly ways can be unexpected and brutal, even for someone that might be called “experienced” here.
But what I want to leave you with is that this idea of “shame thrives in secret but dissolves in the light” is one that also can explain what makes it feel so profound, for those of us who love it. In those darker, duller spaces of our psyches where life has taught us to feel shame and hide some part of ourselves, consciously-engaged shame play within the context of connection says “this part of you is valid and it gets to be seen without that compromising anything else about who and where you are.” Not just from one person to another, but to ourselves. This witnessing—this refusal to look away from the parts of ourselves we’ve been taught to hide—becomes a radical act of intimacy and ownership. And for lack of a better way to end this…