Exploring Erotic Shame

We can recontexualize our feelings of shame about our erotic preferences when we explore safely with our intimate partners.

(Photo by Cathy Mu on Unsplash)

By Dr T J Jordan

Using our most potent sex organ — the brain — we can reframe nearly any experience as erotic. In the BDSM world, erotic humiliation is practiced to intensify sexual arousal for both dominant and submissive members of a couple.

Sometimes we crave greater intensity in our sex lives. We might explore role-play and consensual non-consent to generate a more intense power exchange than is typical for us.

Sometimes even the most intimate sex truly is about power — the power of freedom to release our deepest emotions and to find relief in the experience of sub-space or something like it. The other-worldly liberty that some describe experiencing in sexual sub-space is akin to euphoria, as adrenaline and endorphins flood the submissive’s system.

When we crave exhilarating intensity, a kind of “rush,” we might explore the universe of humiliation play. We might choose to mine the deepest of our secret desires to find the fuel for yet another level of intensity. We might want to leave the everyday world of responsibility behind and to enter a vastly different power exchange.