emotional s/m

all I deserve*

CW: stuff I like.
Assembled from old LiveJournal posts and my memories of a few hours ago, which are not to be interpreted as exact dialogue given they likely mingled with my fantasies.

“The way you move your hips should be criminal.”

“The way You make me move them,” I say.

“Do I make you? Or have you maybe always been like this? Always been a little seductress, making men look at you, want you… always known exactly what you were doing, always lied about it—is that it? Do I make you, or are you a lying little tease?” I’m sure I must have answered, must have come up with some at least half acceptable thing to say, but I can only remember the terrible surety of knowing my shame had made Him need to fuck me again already, that instead of staying in this afterglow, I’ll be ending the evening sore.


My favorite weekends are when [the Catholic boy’s school] has their mixers. It’s the one time I truly feel like myself, and at the end of the night I can feel my heart and know I’m alive again and everything in me lights up. I always go on my own and can lose myself there, dancing, with lots of eyeliner and my black boots. I like to stay near the outside of the crowd so that the guys without girlfriends who are walking around looking for something to do see me. And they always see me. Someone did separate me from the first guy I made out with last night, which was awkward, but not the second. I know the second’s name, but only because I purposefully checked his nametag after I realized I didn’t know the first’s.

“What if I said I’d want to take you out sometime?” some guy said to me when I left.

I said, “I’d believe you.”


“Nobody else could Love you,” He says. “Not at this point. The things you’ve done, the things you like, the things I’ve made you like. You’ve come while I’ve pissed down your throat. I have videos of you begging to be fucked in the ass. Hell, you like being beaten—really beaten, punched and kicked until you cry. Maybe they did once, but at this point? You’re lucky I found you. And now, you’re stuck. You’re not strong. You’re not fast. You’re not smart. You can try to leave, but we both know I’d fucking destroy you. I’d drag you back.”


“Come back,” this one says over the phone as I turn on to the highway. I saw him script this to himself from his front porch, watching me after walking me to my car. “I know you think you’re happy with _____. I know I’ll probably never have the kind of job he does, or even something stable. But I could make you* truly *happy. We could have such a life together. v, I’ve been in love with you for five years. Ask my sister.” I don’t have to do that, because I already know. I knew when I went to see him that day, and I knew when I visited him in New York, and I knew five years ago, too. “That’s my fatal flaw: how much I hate loving you. That’s why I never act on it.”

No, I tell him, your fatal flaw is loving me. Hating it is merely a fact.

“Come back,” he says, “come back.”


He spits on his hand, gets ready to enter me again. “I’m sure you wish that was on you.” Maybe He saw me shudder when He did it, but He’d know anyway. I remember when I figured out He’d been training me to come when that happened. It’s too late, He told me then. It doesn’t matter if you know what I’m doing or not.

“Stay still,” He says. “Don’t even think about it. This is about me now; you don’t get to come again, except maybe at the end if you’re really fucking lucky. Every time you do, you move your filthy cunt, and I’m going to get off inside you now. So present yourself to your god. Put your ass up and stay. still. I don’t care about your disgusting little orgasms. This is all you have to offer me.”


This one calls me at two in the morning, flirting around the lines of drunkenness. “Aren’t you going to ask me to tell you why I called?” he says.

“No,” I say. “You’ll tell me if you want.”

“Well,” he says, “80% is that I just thought of how we used to be friends. Aren’t you going to ask me what the other 20% is?”

“No. You’ll tell me if you want.”

“I’m imagining you on your back on my granite counter,” he says, “like in that poem you wrote last September.” That poem wasn’t about you, I think but do not say. “I’d make you come so hard you could only think of me with any other man.” Sure, I think. They all say that. It’s so important to them, being the one I remember. “I’m imagining how high your back would arch when—are you going to tell me to stop?”

“No.” I lay on my floor and make the requisite moaning noises, half-listen… play Tetris. I don’t care about the words, and I’m not getting anything sexual out of this. What I get is confidence, and it comes from the sound of his need. He doesn’t text me the next day. Instead, he mails me a sweater.


“You don’t deserve to come. All you deserve—no, all you want is brokenness. You want to be treated like the little lying whore you are. After all the guys you left hanging, everyone you screwed over? You don’t deserve to feel anything good at all.” I can’t say for sure if what I’m feeling is “good”—this laser-focus sense of disintegrating at His touch, holding my breath like that will hold me together, desperate not to… lose? Disobey? Fail?—but I know that it is what I will save for whenever I’m next allowed to get myself off. I’m unsure in this moment if I’ve told Him that as of late, this is all I fantasize about: being told all the ways in which I’m a liar as I try not to give in. But it’s too late. It doesn’t matter if He knows what He’s doing or not.


“Let me tell you a story!” This one always uses too many exclamation points when he’s drunk. “I liked you! For so long! And figured you would never like me back! So I tried to find a reason not to like you but I couldn’t! So I invited you to my house and the whole goal was to find a reason not to like you! And you were still perfect!” When did I last speak to him? Two, three months ago? When did I go to his house? I saw so many men only once this year. “And you just left at the end! A truly good person would have just said they weren’t interested, but you played me from the beginning!” Oh, I remember now. We watched a Glee special on Valentine’s Day. I really thought he knew it was just as friends—except, of course, no, I didn’t. “So now I know you’re a liar! And I found a reason!”


“I hope that hurts”, He says—and it does hurt, that burning between my legs that happens when He fucks me multiple times in succession, or else without warning, or else stays only barely entering me so that the friction builds more and more as I’m reminded of my own weakness. “You deserve to hurt, the way you hurt so many boys–so many weak men–just for your own amusement. This is all you ever wanted done to you: you wanted them to teach you a lesson. You deserve this for the rest of your life, the kind of girl you were.” And it does hurt, that throbbing in my jaw that comes when I have to use all my focus to clench it shut, those exquisite, acerbic moments where what I would say back to anyone else is “fuck you.”


For five minutes that winter, we didn’t hate each other. And though I didn’t go with him to the Sweetheart Dance, he came over to my house after. I insisted I was too tired, and he told me he was already driving around my neighborhood. I was exhausted. I don’t remember much of what happened. But I do remember most that gorgeous face, that silent contorted moan or scream when I moved my hips over his and did not, no matter how he looked at me, kiss him.


I’m silent now. He hasn’t told me He doesn’t want to hear me, but I try my best not to breathe too loudly, just one small thing I can maybe control. If I open my mouth, I’m sure I’ll either come or cry. I want to look back at Him and see the way He is overcome at these moments, all venom and power, but that would cause the same problem. So I focus on keeping my ass up for Him—not moving even when He’s thrusting into me with all His strength, even when I feel so full of Him that if I don’t stop pushing back I’m sure my body will not bear it—until those final moments.

And then, I cannot hold it in anymore: I beg. Please, please, please.

“No, you goddamn little cocktease,” He says. “You may not.”

Posted by vahavta

Questions and Considerations for Bottoming to Degradation Play

Over time, emotional play has become one of my core kinks. Very few of our scenes don’t have at least some element of degradation, and casual degradation and humiliation is a part of my day-to-day life. It certainly has caused its issues at times, but I wouldn’t want to remove it from our dynamic for the world. It makes me feel Loved. Most of my erotica involves it. *All* of my fantasies do. Often times, I can’t get off without it. Suffice to say, I think about this sort of thing a lot.

I recently read someone’s guide to emotional sadism. In the comment section, many bottoms expressed regret over emotional S&M gone wrong in the past, whether because their partners did not engage in it from a healthy place, boundaries weren’t clearly considered or communicated, or other reasons. My aim here is to create a resource for bottoms to help them think through potential pitfalls before they encounter them.

This is a non-comprehensive list of possible questions you might ask yourself or discuss with your partner when considering delving into emotional play. Sometimes I’ve added examples or other commentary, but it’s mostly just the questions. It’s by no means exhaustive. It also is not at *all* meant to qualify if you personally should or shouldn’t engage in this sort of play—if your answer to a question is something negative, that doesn’t mean “don’t do it”; it means follow the question up with “and am I okay with that?”


  • What feeling do I wish to come out of this with?
    options might include: shame, loneliness, fear, worthlessness, failure, abandonment, guilt
  • Do I want this to be role-play (my partner says things we both definitively know to be untrue) or do I want this to touch on real insecurities and beliefs?
  • What categories of degradation are too far, desired, or won’t have an effect?
    options might include: attractiveness (physical? personality? smell?), intelligence, worth as a partner, worth in general, capability (of being a good submissive, at your job, to achieve your dreams, etc), aspects of identity (race, religion, sexuality, gender), promiscuity, sexual ability/worth, core values
  • Am I okay with real-life events being mentioned?
  • If we are role-playing but my partner says something I believe is true about myself, will I be able to trust that they *don’t* think that? If no, will that undermine my concept of true and false for things they say in the future?
  • Have there been any recent hurdles with this partner that might affect my ability to see something as play?
  • If I am feeling ashamed, unimportant, or otherwise lesser in the scene or dynamic, will that affect my ability to communicate if I need things to stop?
  • Are there reactions that should signal a stop or pause to my partner beyond explicit communication
    examples: shutting down, crying, inability to make eye contact, heavy breathing
  • In some physical scenes, a safeword stops the thing causing the pain. When emotions are involved, the escalation can stop but the pain might not (ever). If I have the ability to stop this in our scene/dynamic, am I able to do that *before* it gets to a point I won’t be able to handle?
  • How long do I want to sit with the bad feeling(s)? Do I want it made better after (being “built back up”)?
  • If I need my top to make me feel better after, do I want them to negate what they said/did in scene and tell me it was all a lie, or build me up about other things?
    (Personally, if my Owner were to say He didn’t believe the things He told me, I’d start thinking that He didn’t really enjoy degrading me and that would make me feel worse. YMMV.)
  • What else do I need after? Are there behaviors of mine that might need to be monitored (eating properly, fulfilling goals, communicating, etc) based on what we do? For how long? Will this partner be in my life for that long? Are there other people that can look after these things if they aren’t?
  • If this scene involves certain activities, props, or locations, they may trigger these feelings in the future. Am I okay with that?
  • If I do this in public or write about this and people think/know my top really thinks these things about me, will the way they perceive us be bothersome to either of us?
  • Is my top prepared to handle the emotional labor that may come with my feeling they think x about me? Will they feel guilty if I become afraid of them or their presence makes me feel negatively? Are they aware of that possibility? Will they be patient if it is hard to overcome, or even if it doesn’t ever go away?
  • Are other relationships prepared to handle the emotional labor that may come with my believing x about myself? If I need extra reassurance or am suddenly insecure in our relationship, will that make them feel negatively about themselves?
  • Do I have events in the near future that will be affected by my confidence in myself changing? (important presentations, job interviews, performances, first dates)
  • Am I comfortable being vulnerable in front of my partner? Will I be after this happens? Do I have a support system I can speak to honestly about this experience without fear of judgment?
  • How might this affect any emotional issues I already deal with?
  • If this partnership dissolves in the future, will this experience make that harder to handle?
  • If I begin associating affection or sex with these negative feelings, how will that affect my perception of reality, and how will that affect how I evaluate this and other relationships down the line?
  • What traits, connections, perceptions ground me to the reality of whatever this relationship is? How will I be reminded/remind myself of them if/when I need to?

Obviously, everyone experiences things differently. Though I hope it goes without saying, emotional S&M can be very hard on a person and on a relationship, whatever that relationship is, and should be carefully thought through—but with the right partner, I think it’s one of the most incredible, intimate, and even empowering experiences to be had. These questions are meant as thought/conversation-starters, not a comprehensive checklist.

Come over to the comments section of this writing on Fetlife to tell us what you’d add!

Posted by vahavta

“For whatever it’s worth, I think I’m having another degradation phase.”*

At least, that’s what I brace myself to say for the full hour before You come to bed. I repeat it to myself, ready to say it to You casually once You join me.

But I don’t.

Why? Because I’m embarrassed. Because I’m afraid it will be obvious how scripted it is. Because You’ve just walked in and called me pretty, and I certainly don’t want You to stop calling me pretty–but silently, I add a second part to it, my insatiability filling in the blank You don’t even know is there: “It’s good you’ve got that going for you. There isn’t much else.”

See, I have this second-rate version of You in my head. (“Isn’t everything you do second-rate?”) An hour ago, You turned me around while we were fucking and I pushed my face into the bed, hearing “I couldn’t bear to look at those disgusting faces you make any longer.” That’s a frequent one. “Keep your ass up, disappointment. Can’t you even do that much?” That’s another.

When You allow me to masturbate, I see You in the corner of the room, Your arms crossed like that day in the airport, observing, waiting. You watch me, mock me, even time me. I bore you. “Go on. You can’t get yourself off? Poor baby. I’d have you begging for me to stop by now. How does it feel, knowing I can manipulate your body so much better than you yourself?” I know how pathetic it is that I do this. I even hear You say, “I can’t believe you need to pretend I’m there in order to come. Don’t you have any imagination of your own? Of course not,” You smirk. “You weren’t built for that.” I can’t see anyone else. I stopped trying that two bedrooms ago.

You are the voice in my head. My earworm, my hallucination: You. You are what haunts me; You are all my nightmares. You’re the waking ones, too–when You’re there and when You’re not. You are the reason I have any self-control at all, like that time You told me You didn’t want to hear me anymore, my whining or heavy breathing, that if You did You’d stop and I’d have to live with myself knowing that You didn’t get off. I gave myself petechiae that night, limiting my own air. In the moments before You make me lose consciousness sometimes, I almost reach that feeling of despair. I almost remember how awful that felt, my fear of failure, my sense of dread. It isn’t quite as good as when You make me feel those things. It isn’t quite as whole. It’s empty, like me.

Why post this now? Is that easier than just saying that one sentence to You? Why share it with everyone? Maybe it’s the exhibitionist in me, the one You threatened to make hump a pillow while an audience watched. Or maybe it’s just my need for attention, but only on my terms–which they’ll give me, as they always do and always have (“Shameless narcissist. You are a disgrace.”) Everyone but You, that is, which is probably the whole point. Or maybe it’s just the recognition that when You’re actually there, I am smaller than small. I cannot predict. I cannot pretend. I cannot be so candid with You, Your laughter so near.

But for whatever it’s worth, Owner, I think I’m having another degradation phase.

I know it isn’t worth very much.

Posted by vahavta

the place with all my demons: on degradation and shame*

It’s always been about loss of control, for me. Helplessness. The giving over.

How I used to think that would be all blood and violence. For a time, maybe it was. Screaming and crying and eventual silence. How I used to think that would be enough.

But we grow, and we adapt, and I am a masochist. When I got better at interpreting the blows into what would make me come, I was no longer satisfied. Not fully. I accepted that I could do that. I even liked it.

How I used to think I could never fully suffer again.

I don’t know how I got to this place. Back then, words like ‘dumb’ and ‘worthless’ were on my list of hard limits.

There was a path, I’m sure.
Little taunts when I cried from beatings.
Piss on my shirt and in my mouth. Small things.

And then, when we had been long-distance for many months, when I came home for a week in the middle, there was this one night. A night where He mocked me for not getting Him off. Had me ride Him and neither looked at me nor reacted. Made me bend over and stay completely still and silent while He came and I did not. After, I turned away sobbing, hating Him for using one of our limited nights so selfishly. Hating myself more.

But in the time away from each other (sometimes even still,) whenever I got off… it always went back there. Every time. That awful suffering. I didn’t tell Him. (How I used to think I could keep this to myself.) My eyes closed, my hand between my legs, thinking about feeling completely tossed aside. That shame. That worthlessness. I started to notice it in every scene I found strong enough to think about, write about. It crawled into the most secret fantasies I had.

And in recent weeks, it has crawled right out.

I love pain. I still do. He can push beyond my masochism to where I get that, generate real tears, real fear in the moment. But that’s just it: I do love it. I want it. I can think through it.

When He’s in my head (and oh, how He’s in my head…) there is no escape. There is no secret enjoyment. Even what I enjoy, I hate. I suffer. There is no end to it. I can’t claim dehydration or exhaustion. I can’t tense different muscles or move a bit forward. I can’t meditate through it. I certainly can’t focus on the knowledge of His Love.

My emotions have controlled me at so many points in my life and here is a man who can control them, more powerful than all the darkness.

I don’t know how I got to this place: my looking back at my Owner Friday night, his cock inside me, begging Him to say something awful to me. Knowing in that moment that was the only way I could come. Needing to cry in self-hatred. I don’t know how I got to where in two weeks we will do our first full scene of public humiliation and how that’s the first play in forever I’ve found myself actively hoping He will forget, fearing in anticipation, not knowing how to prepare for. Give me beatings. I can stretch for that. I can prepare myself. I can know what to expect. Even now, I know part of me writes this to deflect that shame. Look, that isn’t real. That isn’t me. I’m not really that… whatever I will be. Remember me, how you’ve seen me bruised and bloody? Don’t you know I’m actually strong?

But I am not. He is in every one of my recesses, finding my weakness and taking it for Himself. And I crave it, and hate myself for hating myself. And I beg.

And then He says what I need Him to, takes me to that cliff where all my demons lie below, and I finally, finally, look up and say with my small voice:

“Please, please, please may I come?”

And He laughs.

“No. But you stay there for me. Right on that edge.”

Posted by vahavta

conquered.*

Post-sex, He pushes me towards the shower, and I scream. It’s just a little bit, but this is what starts everything. I didn’t earn this scream. He knows it. I know it. I don’t deserve this scream.

But I will.

“That was nothing,” He tells me. “Come here.”

He shoves me into the empty room and I gasp.

“Daddy, Daddy, please-“ I think, *I need dinner.* I think, *I’m tired,* but something in His look stops me from protesting this time. I know quickly not to waste my energy.

“Come here again. Put your hand behind your head.”

He pushes me again. I launch backwards, and I struggle against falling.

“Daddy, Daddy!”

“Stop. If I want you to hit the wall, you will. If I want you to scream, you will.” He reaches for me and pulls me forward, and then pushes me one more time – “and if I want you to be off balance first, you will” – and then comes at me, pinning me all the way back against the wall.

“So easy,” He mocks, His eyes burning. “All it really takes is one finger.” He pushes first under my ribs, then where my hip becomes thigh, then under my jaw, and I twist further into the pain and into the wall each time. “Or, a few.” And then His fingers are inside me, easily, my cunt already wet from how effortlessly He hurts me. He wraps His other hand around my throat and I relax into it, letting Him manipulate my body the way only He knows how.

I think, controlled. I think, worked over* Dinner can wait.

He makes me come once, twice, three times, and then I’m really screaming. Now we will go to shower, I think, glowing.

“Come look at this, slut,” He calls me from the hall. I struggle up from where I have collapsed on the floor to see His arm drenched and dripping from fingers to elbow. I am still embarrassed to know He can make my body do that, and He sees it. “Lick it all up,” He commands. The shame takes me out of my bliss.

He pushes me into the bathroom and makes me watch myself in the mirror while He does it again, and again. This time, when I fall to the ground; something has changed and I know it. Suddenly, this isn’t about me getting off. Suddenly, it never was.

He tells me to stay exactly how I am on the ground with my eyes closed and I know something awful is coming. I think, stun gun. I think, needles. I imagine a dozen things I hate He is getting to make me suffer, shivering and gasping on my unstable, soaking thighs. But when He grabs me by my hair and drags me back outside, it is just Him—in the jeans and boots that disarm me most—and His knife pressed to my throat, me on my back before I can figure out how. This isn’t about torture. This is about control. This is about how I have none of it.

This time, I don’t want His fingers curled inside me. I’m aching. I also know I will come. I know I will writhe. I know the knife is blade down. I know He does not care. In one swift motion, He tosses the knife to the side and presses His boot to my throat, all without pausing His assault on my cunt. I am coughing even as I am coming.

I think, dangerous. I think, unstoppable. He literally kicks me aside when He is done, and walks swiftly off to the bedroom.

“Kiss these boots,” He calls out to me. “Crawl.” I moan in pain from the fetal position. “Crawl, bitch!” I crawl. “Now, beg. With reverence.”

I kneel up before Him and start to beg. I think the words coming out of my mouth must be someone else’s; I’ve always struggled with begging, but these are as genuine as my prayers. He pushes me backwards, kicks me backwards, and I keep kneeling until He snaps and points to the ground.

I bow as at an altar.

“I Love You, I Love You, I Love You,” the words fall out of my mouth even as He punches my worshipping body, presses my face down ‘til I’m sure it will mark.

“Damn right. Of course you do. You better. Kneel.” As He brings His boot up in between my legs over and over again, I feel surrender. If He leaves me black and blue and useless, I will not move. As He wishes. All He wishes.

When I am coming and screaming again, He leaves to undress. He takes off His boot and hands it to me.

“Get off with this,” He tells me. I rub the leather I so carefully polish against my clit and He presses His bare foot onto my thigh, onto my sternum. “You’re all mine. You’re mine forever. I could kill you whenever I wished. I will destroy everything about you that isn’t me; I’ll scrape those tattoos out of your flesh until you own none of yourself, you are nothing without me. You are nothing.

“How easy it would be,” He puts more weight on me. I am gasping pain and looking up at Him watching me come How he pleases, so far above me. I think, objectified. I think, conquered.

I am the subject beneath His heel and I have no will left of my own.

When He does go towards the shower, I go straight into it and kneel with my mouth open without being told. He is my King, and I am infinitely low, and I know exactly what I am worth. I tell Him so.

I drink His piss without hesitation and think how it was once a limit of mine and how now, I could live off of it. He tells me to touch myself again and to hold it in my mouth until I am coming; it is easy despite how it feels like every nerve is on fire. He covers me, mouth closed, less than a urinal, pissing on my face and in my hair and on my cunt and it tastes wonderful: His waste and my lack of control.

“Suck the rest out,” He says quietly. “Faster. Better. That’s it? You can’t show me any more? You don’t deserve my cock. Not ever. You’re disgusting. Useless. Come on, bitch. No good. A waste of my time.”

I think, yes, Owner. I think, yes, Owner.

“All fours,” He says. “Right here.” He is on the carpet while I am slipping, urine-covered, on the hard tile. With every thrust I think my forehead will crack on the ground. I struggle to push back against Him and at one point fall completely in my own filth. I feel empty, a hole, no dissonance in the degradation, simply acceptance. Disgusting. Useless.

“It is going to come again,” He tells me, “though it doesn’t think it can. Tell me why.”
“It loves how well You use it.”
“Do better.”
“It loves being covered in Your piss!” He comes inside me then stands up without any gentleness. I am shaking, slipping, shocked by my own honesty.

“I will shower first, then you,” He says. “You don’t deserve to be clean before me.” He tosses a sponge out towards me. “And not until that floor is clean, either.”

I try my best to clean the mess up off the ground while He talks so calmly from the shower. He tells me how pathetic I am, how desperate all the time, how ashamed I ought be at how little power I have over anything in my life and how much I’ve given up to Him. I am crumpling into myself at every word and at how He doesn’t look out and see me doing so once as He says this and at how I know He knows, anyway. I think, subjugated. I think, deserved.

When He is done He makes me sponge off with cold water. When I don’t move fast enough for Him, He grabs it out of my hand and flips it to the abrasive side, presses it against my inner thigh, my face, my finger that I pointed at Him earlier in mock sternness and rubs hard, leaving tiny red scratches and cuts. Then He turns the shower on and walks away.

I do not sob. I think, nothingness. There is nothing left but Him, my need to be useful, my need to serve. I have no wants or desires of my own. I have settled into my worthlessness.

“Come here,” I hear, when I have mechanically cleaned myself off, my whole self a ruled vessel. I move the curtain to see Him fully dressed. “Fix your collar,” He says. “It is not a toy.” I move the clasp of the metal worth more than me to the back of my neck. He pulls me in close to His lips.

I think, Love. I think, aftercare.

“You should know,” He whispers, “that I am very aware you will not be with me tomorrow. I know you will struggle. I know you will hurt. I know you will sob. And I want you to know that I will know every time, and I will be laughing at you. I will be laughing at how very sad you will be without me, how you have no reason to go on when I’m not there. How very mine you are. How you need me. How very dependent you are.”

And then He walks away, for me to sink into what He knows is my insecurity. To feel even lower. And lower. And more worthless. And more His.

I think, He’s got me. I think, I have no weakness He can’t find. I think, His.

Posted by vahavta