Shame and Humiliation

[ErosWired]

There’s a fair amount of discussion on here about humiliating and shaming, mostly directed at bottoms, or at promiscuous sexual activity. There’s a subtext that interests me, though, about the roots of the concept of shame and humiliation in the context of men having sex with men. There is an undercurrent of sensibility that seems to exist that is not uniformly accepted or understood, but nonetheless hovers around every corner of our discourse - that is, the sense that somehow one man is brought lower by being penetrated and/or inseminated by another.

I think the roots of this go very deep, into our pre-sentient animal behaviors, but that was then and this is now, and we’ve had a lot of time to think it through since we climbed out of the trees. The idea of shaming and humiliating men by fucking them is a very real practice among invading armies that employ rape as a tactic, so it must have psychological currency. It’s not surprising, then, that a subculture of men here speak freely of the shame and humiliation of men who submit to being fucked.

I have to say that even though I am unashamed of being a public sexual servant for men, and of having had coitus with countless unseen strangers, I also have to admit that I cannot escape a sense of humiliation. Another man placed his penis inside me and filled me with his seed, and that can never, ever, be undone. Multiply that by orders of magnitude. I will always have been fucked, forever. I can always be more fucked, but never less. And I have been fucked so much that there’s no point in stopping.

Not only that, but when I am being bred by a Top, I look at him, and I feel a sense that I am beneath him in a natural order, and that he has dominance over me, and the humiliation and shame that I experience comes because I feel that it is right that it should be that way, no matter what my rational mind might argue. It doesn’t help that on one hand one Top will praise me for doing a needed service with my cunt, and the next will call me a dirty whore when he pounds that same cunt cruelly.

What I’m curious to know is how many of you actually feel a sense of shame, or feel humiliated to any degree, after you have bottomed. Does a thought pass through your mind that you have allowed another man to do something with you that diminishes or devalues you? Do you have any idea why you feel this?

[Loveitraw]

Food for thought.

I can only say that from my experiences I have never felt shame or humiliation from being fucked or offering myself up to be fucked. In fact the last time I was bred was in a cottage stall while some other guys stood outside listening to me getting pounded.

After we finished and rearranged our clothes he left and I walked out a few seconds later with a huge grin on my face knowing everyone else knew exactly what had just happened. As I drove away I was gigling and was actually buoyant for the rest of the day because it felt so good.

This is not to say that shame and humiliation cannot be great tools in the sex itself.  I love a controlling Top.  I love verbal during a hard fucking especially when a Top calls me slut, or bitch. During sex I want to be owned. Once the sex is over, however, we are on an equal footing.

Cliche time: Yes I am a fuckhole to be used; also I'm a person. Fail to see that side of things and you'll never get to experience the other. My pride is quite intact.

[CumDumpSLT]

I find the feeling of shame and humiliation an extreme turn on. I love being dressed up like a dirty cum guzzling street whore and owned by dominant black men with enormous dicks. I love being owned by them and being subjected to all sorts of twisted raunchy [banned word] kinks of their desire. Being exposed out in public, stripped down and caught or watched as I’m forced down, having my legs forced open and have an enormous black cock buried raw deep inside me is very orgasmic to me. I get turned on being watched, looked at with disgust as nothing more than some street cum dumpster whore. I love being verbally degraded as my hole is being wrecked and bred. I love going to sleazy motels, orgy parties, cruise spots where I get passed around total strangers and used as their cum dumpster whore. I love going home a hot mess with a leaking hole 

[CCbttm]

Yes and no, a bit of a "suggestion of the duality of man" I suppose. I do always feel a slight sense of shame in the moment of being fucked as being used/fucked (especially with more dominant or aggressive tops) we always seem to mark the person being fucked a lesser person in most societies, but personally always feel an immense rush of pride and joy taking it as I feel it's what I prefer in life. Like yeah I'm a bottom taking some dick, but I'm a damn good bottom that treats a cock right and many tops have very clearly enjoyed using me. So it's a split of "I know I should feel bad doing this" and "But I really love this" and "they're looking down on me.." AND "but they're lined up to fuck me." All depends on the moment I guess. At the end of the day the joy i get being a good and enjoyable bottom far outweighs any sense of shame I 'should' be feeling based on society, because when it comes down to it I'm fairly antisocial and rarely give a fuck about what they think.

[Pozguyinchi]

I think there may be men that feel shame for bottoming but it is not me. I actually feel more whole when I do. It makes me understand that at least sexually I know my place in the world. For me it’s whatever connection you can make with a man. He may just want to use your cunt to get off. That is perfect for me because it’s what it is for. Pleasing men. In turn it pleases me. 

[smallcocksissyboi]

I absolutely feel shame and humiliation as I am fucked. Knowing that, as my legs are spread and my small cock lies uselessly, I will never come back from having been penetrated and ejaculated in.

The shame is magnified if I cum before the top has finished. Then the libido dies and I almost detach my mind from my body and imagine watching this weak inferior boy being roughly taken in positions that convention would have a girl in, shame etched in his face, anxiety that the man who is overpowering him may actually be infecting him and there is nothing he can do about it. And yet, it’s the only sort of sexual interaction I am useful for and i manage to ejaculate from

[BootmanLA]

16 hours ago, ErosWired said:

What I’m curious to know is how many of you actually feel a sense of shame, or feel humiliated to any degree, after you have bottomed. Does a thought pass through your mind that you have allowed another man to do something with you that diminishes or devalues you? Do you have any idea why you feel this?

Not in the slightest.

I'm not here to tell anyone else what they should/shouldn't feel (unlike the hundreds of threads that start with bullshit like "Should a cumdump bottom always...." or "Should getting pozzed be the ultimate goal of...." - as though any of these mother fuckers have the slightest say, whatsoever, about what anyone else should or shouldn't do in their private lives). That said, I spent WAYYYYYY too long in my younger years learning to respect myself as an individual, the good and the bad, strengths and flaws alike. I'm a damned good bottom and frankly, if anything, I think some guys who only top and refuse to bottom are "lesser" than me - because I can do things they can't bring themselves to do.

Separately, as I've written elsewhere: it's well documented that there's a broad strand of misogyny in the gay male community. I think it's bound up with this whole notion of bottoms as "sissy bois" with clits instead of dicks and pussies instead of holes. People who utilize that language often are belittling bottoms and doing so by choosing words that reflect female anatomy - which screams pretty loudly about thinking women's genitalia (and thus women in general) are lesser beings.

Now - I realize each of us has a unique sexuality and it's not for me to tell you how you should do it. But man, I feel sorry for you people who feel shame doing what is a very natural act, instead of taking joy in doing this very natural act to the best of your ability. I can't imagine living my life thinking I'm lower than anyone else.

[ErosWired]

3 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

But man, I feel sorry for you people who feel shame doing what is a very natural act, instead of taking joy in doing this very natural act to the best of your ability. I can't imagine living my life thinking I'm lower than anyone else.

So, essentially, you’re meta-shaming those who feel shame for feeling shame? Shame on you. Not everyone is made of teflon. None of us is telepathic - we can’t appreciate the psychological minefield our brother has to cross to reach a place we may make easily. If you can’t imagine thinking the way another man thinks, that suggests a lack of imagination on your part, not a failure to think on his. Perhaps you meant your statement as a gesture of sympathy, but it reads like contempt. (Normally I find your posts well-considered and balanced, but this is not to your usual standard.)

Shame is far too complex and nuanced an emotion to be reduced to the kind of summary judgment you seem to apply to it. Shame relates to factors stemming from an individual’s childhood development environment, his culture, family and religion, the contemporary morals, ethics and beliefs of his community, and the direct influence of the individuals who shaped his personal worldview. A person’s sense of self, his sense of his place in his society, and his sense of self-worth as a function of both are subject to influence from the outside. And this is all to the good - it might be argued that a man incapable of shame is also incapable of humility.

[BootmanLA]

Just now, ErosWired said:

So, essentially, you’re meta-shaming those who feel shame for feeling shame? Shame on you. Not everyone is made of teflon. None of us is telepathic - we can’t appreciate the psychological minefield our brother has to cross to reach a place we may make easily. If you can’t imagine thinking the way another man thinks, that suggests a lack of imagination on your part, not a failure to think on his. Perhaps you meant your statement as a gesture of sympathy, but it reads like contempt. (Normally I find your posts well-considered and balanced, but this is not to your usual standard.)

Shame is far too complex and nuanced an emotion to be reduced to the kind of summary judgment you seem to apply to it. Shame relates to factors stemming from an individual’s childhood development environment, his culture, family and religion, the contemporary morals, ethics and beliefs of his community, and the direct influence of the individuals who shaped his personal worldview. A person’s sense of self, his sense of his place in his society, and his sense of self-worth as a function of both are subject to influence from the outside. And this is all to the good - it might be argued that a man incapable of shame is also incapable of humility.

I'm not trying to shame those who feel ashamed. I'm calling out those who actively and deliberately seek to be shamed and try to normalize that for everyone else. I'm certainly willing to accept I may have phrased some of this badly.

As a young man just coming out in his mid/late teens (and Roman Catholic in a deeply conservative state, to boot), there was no end to the shaming heaped on people like me. I don't claim to be superhumanly strong or made of teflon (I was miserable for a good while) but ultimately I realized nobody else was going to make me "feel good about myself" until I stood up for who I was. My parents weren't particularly accepting of gay people even before I came out and I largely cut them out of my life for about six years until my absence forced them to deal with things and open up to me - which made for a LOT of really lonely holidays, among other things. But I had to deliberately and consciously reject that shame that had been heaped on me in order to grow into a self-confident adult.

So I can understand why people do feel shame over being a bottom or being promiscuous. I get how that shame is not only imposed from outside the gay community (straights looking down on those awful gays who are such sluts, especially the ones who do the nasty things like take it up the ass) but from within as well (that girl is pure trash, she's a bottom and she'll spread 'em for anyone). The latter is a lot harder for me to accept - why would we, as a long-persecuted community, do so much to tear each other down? - but it gets downright impossible when people deliberately internalize that shame *by choice* and brag about being "nothing but something for REAL men to use to get off". That mentality seems to be deliberately constructed to wallow in abuse; and it just boggles my mind that people who - by all appearances - OUGHT to understand how toxic that attitude is, and what it does to one's self esteem can gleefully inflict it upon themselves. 

[ErosWired]

18 hours ago, CCbttm said:

So it's a split of "I know I should feel bad doing this" and "But I really love this" and "they're looking down on me.." AND "but they're lined up to fuck me."

Exactly. The day I took over 30 cocks in my biggest gangbang, I had moments both during and after in which I could not escape a sense of self-perception that I had sunk lower than the men around me - how could I not? Thirty men accounted for more than half the men in the entire camp at the time. The next day, most everybody there would have experienced what the inside of my body felt like for himself, and left his seed behind like graffiti on the walls of my cunt saying “I had him too.” Every eye I met could accompany a smirk that meant, I know what you feel like inside. And they could all talk about me, because they all shared me. In the later part of it, I had been on a fucking bench and every time I started to raise up to leave, they pushed my back so I would stay put for the next fuck. They didn’t say a word - just made me stay to take cock.

Still today I have moments when I recall instances of that day and feel the humiliation of submitting to the whole camp.

But.

I also distinctly remembered the way many of those men praised my ass as they fucked it. They told me it was the best they’d ever had, was unbelievable, was so fucking good in so many ways, that I wrote them down that night. It made me happy that I had satisfied that many men that much. The fact that what they said was probably more about their excitement in the moment than the actual quality of my ass didn’t matter - I could walk through camp proudly because yes, I was their common cum dump, but I was good.

I still occupy that same mind-space, teetering on a tightrope between shame and pride.

[ErosWired]

20 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

That mentality seems to be deliberately constructed to wallow in abuse; and it just boggles my mind that people who - by all appearances - OUGHT to understand how toxic that attitude is, and what it does to one's self esteem can gleefully inflict it upon themselves. 

I think it has to do with a kind of reinforcement of internally-interpreted positives, to use a clunky construction. For a regular bottom, this behavior is difficult to fathom - for a submissive, it is easier to explain. The submissive derives an innate sense of satisfaction, or purpose, or well-being from the act of submission to a Dominant will. By extending the submission into the realm of the sexual and intimate, the submissive intensifies that act. Then, by declaring that he is essentially reduced to that function, he intensifies the derived reward to the greatest possible degree, unless he can actually go further by acting on his declaration.

To the outside observer who does not perceive the internal reward the submissive receives, the submissive’s attitude and behavior do indeed appear toxic and self-destructive. The submissive is indeed made somewhat vulnerable by this - predatory Dominants can easily take advantage of the situation and create abusive situations that the submissive nonetheless accepts because the situation at least partly supplies the rewards he seeks through submission.

I’m not sure “gleeful” is a useful descriptor. I think that at some deep level all submissives retain the same level of basic human autonomy as everyone else, and at their core do not want to think of themselves as worthless. But for the submissive the urge to submit is strong, and its origins inscrutable. We know only that it feels good and right to do, and if the Dominant ones then express their Dominance more powerfully as a result, it feels better still. This atmosphere is only toxic to those who do not breathe this air.

[BootmanLA]

7 minutes ago, ErosWired said:

I think it has to do with a kind of reinforcement of internally-interpreted positives, to use a clunky construction. For a regular bottom, this behavior is difficult to fathom - for a submissive, it is easier to explain. The submissive derives an innate sense of satisfaction, or purpose, or well-being from the act of submission to a Dominant will. By extending the submission into the realm of the sexual and intimate, the submissive intensifies that act. Then, by declaring that he is essentially reduced to that function, he intensifies the derived reward to the greatest possible degree, unless he can actually go further by acting on his declaration.

To the outside observer who does not perceive the internal reward the submissive receives, the submissive’s attitude and behavior do indeed appear toxic and self-destructive. The submissive is indeed made somewhat vulnerable by this - predatory Dominants can easily take advantage of the situation and create abusive situations that the submissive nonetheless accepts because the situation at least partly supplies the rewards he seeks through submission.

I’m not sure “gleeful” is a useful descriptor. I think that at some deep level all submissives retain the same level of basic human autonomy as everyone else, and at their core do not want to think of themselves as worthless. But for the submissive the urge to submit is strong, and its origins inscrutable. We know only that it feels good and right to do, and if the Dominant ones then express their Dominance more powerfully as a result, it feels better still. This atmosphere is only toxic to those who do not breathe this air.

Here's the thing, though. I know (broadly speaking, and admittedly overgeneralizing) two types of submissives (and by extension, two types of dominants). The first kind are those who have an innate need to serve and service, and in fact derive a great deal of self-esteem from being a good submissive. If there were a non-sexual analogue, I'd think of the classic manservant, who's not the equal, so to speak, of his employer, but within his realm, he's the diamond among lesser rocks. He has to follow orders, but he knows (and his employer/master knows) that without him, things would all just fall apart. His employer/master may confide personal information in him that he wouldn't share with an equal, knowing it's safe. He derives his satisfaction/reward from a job well done, a job he knows not everyone could do, much less do well. This kind of guy is submissive, but from a position of self-awareness and pride in what he does.

The other type are those who have been abused into submission, whether it's physically or (much more likely) psychologically so, and probably for most of their lives. These are the guys whose self-esteem is non-existent, and the "reward" he gets is attention, even though that attention is negative in scope and reinforces his lack of self-esteem, Like all (or virtually all) humans he craves contact with others, but the only way he knows how to get it (or the only way he thinks he CAN get it) is to allow those he considers his betters ("real" men, or basically everyone else) to abuse him, because then at least he feels something - even if it's a negative feeling. The non-sexual analogue I come up with is the kid who desperately wants to be liked by the cool kids, the jocks, and he's willing to undergo any humiliation just so they pay him any mind: he'll do their homework, wash their cars, give them money to pay for a date with a girl, let them cheat from his exam, whatever it takes. I don't know whether it happens that a guy is submissive by nature and this allows users to take advantage of him, or if a guy becomes submissive because he's been abused by others so long that he's internalized that as normal. My suspicions lend toward the latter. 

But I don't think the latter kind of submission is healthy, certainly not like the first type. And I'm aware that there's no chasm between the two, and someone can have elements of both types in them, as you noted in your mixed feelings at that campground.

But as for how that connects with cumdump bottoms: a submissive of the first type is going to take the pride approach - he had a job to do, and by god, he did it. And more importantly, if he DID feel like he'd had all he could reasonably take, and he wasn't there for his Sir to show off, he'd probably insist on being able to stop when he damned well felt like it. He might respond to positive urging - "Come on, you can do it, just one more cock and load, I know you can" - but essentially letting someone rape him because he didn't feel like he had a right to say no? That guy, the healthy submissive, would say "Fuck that".

The second type is the sort that's going to get killed one day because he can't say no to anyone, and one day a guy's going to insist on choking play or gun play or whatever that gets out of hand, and he's just going to die because he never learned he was worthy of saying NO.

As I mentioned, there's (again broadly speaking and with overgeneralization) two types of dominants. There's the kind who helps nurture and mold his submissives into the best submissives they can be, in a way they can be proud of; and there's the kind who abuses (whether physically or mentally) his subs into complying with his demands simply because he demands it. The former kind may use discipline as part of training, for instance, but it's always as part of a reward system, including praise for accepting the pain and reinforcing his self esteem as a worthwhile man who just happens to be a submissive, and one he's proud of. The latter kind gets pissed off and decides the sub's going to suffer for his mood and he knows just what buttons to push to put the sub in the mental space that he'll accept whatever kind of abuse gets handed down. I hate these guys.

When a nurturing dominant connects with a proud submissive, the result's an incredible dynamic. When a shitty dominant connects with a proud submissive, either the sub's going to walk early on (if he's secure enough in his role) or he may end up damaged, especially if the shitty dominant is skilled at slowly breaking down a good sub's esteem.

When a nurturing dominant connects with an abused sub, he may be able to help that sub begin to heal, particularly if the sub is able to get mental health help and learn to overcome some of his toxic background. There's no guarantee it will happen - it takes a lot of work, and the sub has to learn how to value himself again - but it's possible. But when a shitty dominant connects with an abused sub, you can pretty much figure the sub's going to come out worse, not better, from the experience. If he survives.

[ErosWired]

13 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

I know (broadly speaking, and admittedly overgeneralizing) two types of submissives (and by extension, two types of dominants).

I am a submissive of your first type. I know those aspects of my personal attributes, skills and experience in which I am not inferior to other men, and indeed those in which I excel above others. I have, in fact, had an experience just of the sort you describe in which I was being gang-fucked by a group of four men, and at one point, after particularly intense oral use, I said I needed a break.

”You don’t get a break,” the leader said.

I raised my head slowly and purposefully, looked him in the eye, and replied, “When I say I need a break, I need a break.”

He backed down. This was a man who had been eagerly swapping his cock between my ass and my mouth for an hour and enjoying telling me each time he plugged back into my mouth, “That cock was in your ass.” (He was likely not a Dominant of your first type.)

I take your point about those who are essentially broken personalities starved for any form of affection or acceptance and therefore apt to accept even abuse if it offers some crumb of what they’re starving for. They’re trying to meet one of what Maslow defines as a basic human need, and to a starving man, any food, however vile, is better than none. You may be right that such a person is going to get killed one day, but in the sense that he cannot meet his hunger, he’s already dying as a person; in that regard, his actions may be more comprehensible.

You are right that there is no yawning gulf between the types, and possibly this touches on my inquiry that inspired this thread. No, I am not one of the submissives that considers himself a piece of trash for a “real Man” to use and throw away. I have value as a person in my own right, independent of my sexual role with respect to other men, and I have a different sort of value within the hierarchy of men (and there is clearly hierarchy of men in the world) related to a specific sexual role. The degree to which that role is naturally imposed versus self-assigned is a matter for debate, but I now accept it as a part if my intrinsic nature, which imparts value,

At the same time, however, a part of me has for some time now felt a growing need to be used in ways that degrade my value, that debase and devolve. I am not trash, but I strongly need to encounter exactly the kind of Dominants you place in your second grouping, who would use me like trash because they see me as trash. I need them, because a Dominant of the first sort won’t do - he lacks the negative qualities necessary to get the job done.

Why do I have this urge to be degraded by a certain kind of Dominant? I honestly don’t know. Possibly I wish to prove to myself that I am not undesirable, and fear that if I cannot even interest the men who use trash, then perhaps I might be worth less than trash after all. This conundrum is inconsistent with my general self-image, yet the urge and need is increasing as time passes, and given the least opportunity, I will likely act on it.

[Loveitraw]

54 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

Here's the thing, though. I know (broadly speaking, and admittedly overgeneralizing) two types of submissives (and by extension, two types of dominants). The first kind are those who have an innate need to serve and service, and in fact derive a great deal of self-esteem from being a good submissive. If there were a non-sexual analogue, I'd think of the classic manservant, who's not the equal, so to speak, of his employer, but within his realm, he's the diamond among lesser rocks. He has to follow orders, but he knows (and his employer/master knows) that without him, things would all just fall apart. His employer/master may confide personal information in him that he wouldn't share with an equal, knowing it's safe. He derives his satisfaction/reward from a job well done, a job he knows not everyone could do, much less do well. This kind of guy is submissive, but from a position of self-awareness and pride in what he does.

The other type are those who have been abused into submission, whether it's physically or (much more likely) psychologically so, and probably for most of their lives. These are the guys whose self-esteem is non-existent, and the "reward" he gets is attention, even though that attention is negative in scope and reinforces his lack of self-esteem, Like all (or virtually all) humans he craves contact with others, but the only way he knows how to get it (or the only way he thinks he CAN get it) is to allow those he considers his betters ("real" men, or basically everyone else) to abuse him, because then at least he feels something - even if it's a negative feeling. The non-sexual analogue I come up with is the kid who desperately wants to be liked by the cool kids, the jocks, and he's willing to undergo any humiliation just so they pay him any mind: he'll do their homework, wash their cars, give them money to pay for a date with a girl, let them cheat from his exam, whatever it takes. I don't know whether it happens that a guy is submissive by nature and this allows users to take advantage of him, or if a guy becomes submissive because he's been abused by others so long that he's internalized that as normal. My suspicions lend toward the latter. 

But I don't think the latter kind of submission is healthy, certainly not like the first type. And I'm aware that there's no chasm between the two, and someone can have elements of both types in them, as you noted in your mixed feelings at that campground.

But as for how that connects with cumdump bottoms: a submissive of the first type is going to take the pride approach - he had a job to do, and by god, he did it. And more importantly, if he DID feel like he'd had all he could reasonably take, and he wasn't there for his Sir to show off, he'd probably insist on being able to stop when he damned well felt like it. He might respond to positive urging - "Come on, you can do it, just one more cock and load, I know you can" - but essentially letting someone rape him because he didn't feel like he had a right to say no? That guy, the healthy submissive, would say "Fuck that".

The second type is the sort that's going to get killed one day because he can't say no to anyone, and one day a guy's going to insist on choking play or gun play or whatever that gets out of hand, and he's just going to die because he never learned he was worthy of saying NO.

As I mentioned, there's (again broadly speaking and with overgeneralization) two types of dominants. There's the kind who helps nurture and mold his submissives into the best submissives they can be, in a way they can be proud of; and there's the kind who abuses (whether physically or mentally) his subs into complying with his demands simply because he demands it. The former kind may use discipline as part of training, for instance, but it's always as part of a reward system, including praise for accepting the pain and reinforcing his self esteem as a worthwhile man who just happens to be a submissive, and one he's proud of. The latter kind gets pissed off and decides the sub's going to suffer for his mood and he knows just what buttons to push to put the sub in the mental space that he'll accept whatever kind of abuse gets handed down. I hate these guys.

When a nurturing dominant connects with a proud submissive, the result's an incredible dynamic. When a shitty dominant connects with a proud submissive, either the sub's going to walk early on (if he's secure enough in his role) or he may end up damaged, especially if the shitty dominant is skilled at slowly breaking down a good sub's esteem.

When a nurturing dominant connects with an abused sub, he may be able to help that sub begin to heal, particularly if the sub is able to get mental health help and learn to overcome some of his toxic background. There's no guarantee it will happen - it takes a lot of work, and the sub has to learn how to value himself again - but it's possible. But when a shitty dominant connects with an abused sub, you can pretty much figure the sub's going to come out worse, not better, from the experience. If he survives.

Well now, this whole conversation has become a deep dive into status dynamics and it is very interesting to read everyone's takes.

I'm actually impressed with how calculated most of the responses seem to be because this could easily be a minefield of being, unwittingly perhaps, abusive.

I'm finding myself nodding as I read through thinking to myself, "Good point." I like that vehement disagreement has largely been avoided.

For what it's worth I agree with you. No, not you specifically, the general "You." Because this is such a broad spectrum with so many myriad answers to why such behaviours happen we each have our understanding. The previous post mentions two types for submissives and dominants. I think those types definitely exist, but I believe it's much more complicated than that.

Status, class, caste. Sure these things exist, we all know they exist even if we wish they didn't. Some of us are lucky enough to be solvent and born in a world where they, largely, don't matter. Not everyone is and I think that belief in a tier system makes you identify strongly within it. Sexual politics often flies in the face of this.

A dominant in the boardroom is often the one begging for chastisement whilst your humble manservant will probably be the one with the collection of flogs, plugs and restraints. A generalisation but I hope it illustrates how dynamics often switch through a sexual filter.

I do agree that there are good and bad doms. Just as there are stronger and weaker subs. I deliberately choose those descriptives because it's the dom's responsibility to, as you say, nurture the relationship. Being either dominant or submissive is a mind set and once in that head space it can be challenging to "wake up."

I am sexually submissive, naturally. I respond better to a dominant partner, someone who mentally and physically challenges me. I love giving up control and being someone's plaything.  I am not some broken toy who just anyone can enjoy breaking further.

It's a strange relationship to see from the outside, but it is a relationship. For my understanding a sub has to prove their worth but equally a dom has to earn their right to that sub.

I know abusers exist and there are those who are easily victimised. I've seen them and met them in previous roles I have fulfilled.

Victims need building up and reassurance of worth. Its not easy and it won't always help.

Abusers, fuck those guys. 'Nuff said.

[Guygonebad]

Wow...great discussion... as a total sub/slave CumDump, I feel no shame.  I’m actually very proud to be on my hands/knees and let ANY anonymous top men use and breed me! Proud! For Alpha top men, I luv letting them use me, breed me, BDSM, and serve at their feet. It is my role and I’m proud to be in this position. I’m actually honored that I can do this for top men.  Shame...nope!!!
 

This was not always the case for me, but several years ago I went through a very intense BDSM training program under a great training Master. He taught me to accept my sexual role as a CumDump and total submissive. He taught me to be proud of what I do and what I give back to top men and he taught me that a true sub/slave CumDump is honorable and a well-trained CumDump is a valuable property for Alpha top men. 
 

The other item is humiliation; I always enjoyed and felt I needed to be humiliated in front of other men. I did it and let other men humiliate me. It was always hard to do and left me feeling less then the men watching. But through my training I learned it was a pleasurable activity for the Alpha tops. I now do humiliation things as requested by Alpha top men and if they find it pleasurable to command me to do these things, then I’m happy and proud to do it for him.  No shame!!!!