BDSM and biochemistry

[zule]

I belong to a forum dedicated to BDSM (Bondage- Domination- Submission- SadoMasochism). I am besides a biochemist, which makes me very interested in the transformation from pain to pleasure.

 

There are a thread opened in the forum entitled “From the pain to the pleasure, is there only biochemist?” http://www.clubsumision.com/showthread.php?t=1633 (sorry, it is written in Spanish). On this thread we have argued about the steps who can produce this pleasant sensation when the pain and humiliation are produced in certain situations from certain people to certain other people. For example the action of the endorphins could be stronger in masochist people (perhaps they have excess of certain receptors for these neurotransmitters); dopamine could act more in pleasure areas than in pain areas in submissive people…

 

I have look up PUBMED for biochemist articles about BDSM, but I haven’t found anything interesting, there is only something from the point of view of the Psychiatry.

 

So I would be very grateful if someone could tell me about some work in this subject. If there is not anything directly related to BDSM, if could be some work dedicated to the physiology of the pain aimed to pain killers or something like that who could explain in part how the neurotransmitter routes could reduce the pain.

 

Thank you very much.

zule

[iNow]

I found this on a quick search for informatoin on "the pain response."

 

 

http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2003/painbrain.htm

At AAAS, the team will report that gender, sex hormones like estrogen, and genes appear to play a big part in how individuals' bodies, and emotions, react to pain.

 

In fact, their newest preliminary data suggest that variations in women's estrogen levels -- like those that occur throughout the monthly menstrual cycle, or during pregnancy -- regulate the brain's natural ability to suppress pain.

 

When estrogen levels are high, the brain's natural painkiller system responds more potently when a painful experience occurs, releasing chemicals called endorphins or enkephalins that dampen the pain signals received by the brain. But when estrogen is low, the same system doesn't typically control pain nearly as effectively.

 

Those results build on other recent data the team has gathered on gender-based and genetic differences in pain response. And they hope their effort to understand pain may aid studies about the brain's response to many other kinds of stressors.

 

"Pain has both physical and emotional components. If prolonged, it also becomes a stressor that influences our emotional states," explains lead researcher and U-M neuroscientist Jon-Kar Zubieta, M.D., Ph.D. "And the interplay of gender, hormones, genetics and brain neurochemistry appears to induce our individual response to it."

 

 

<...>

 

 

When pain or other sources of stress become significant and threatening, groups of cells in the brain release chemicals called endogenous opioid chemicals, commonly known as endorphins or enkephalins. The endorphins bind to receptors on nearby brain cells and regulate how the brain interprets and regulates the pain-related signals those cells are sending to one another. The effect is called antinociception, because the neurotransmitters typically suppress the pain response, as opposed to nociception, which is the actual perception of pain.

 

Mu-opioid receptors are found throughout the brain, but are concentrated in areas that scientists know to be involved in our physical and emotional responses to stressors, including pain. Natural endorphins aren't the only thing that can bind to them; so can painkiller medications such as morphine, some anesthetics, and illegal drugs such as heroin. No matter what's binding to the receptors, the effect is a quelling of pain and our response to it.

 

 

My personal opinion is that the enjoyment of pain is like enjoyment of spicy food. It's exciting, and the endorphins feel really good. If the rest of one's day is interpreted as boring, mundane, or even sad, then that release of endorphins reminds you that you're alive. I just do mine with spicy food, as I'm no so much into the humiliation parts.

[zule]

Thank you for your help, iNow. I hadn’t used that word combination and find that paper. In that paper was cited other paper that led me to other ones and so to useful information that I have still to review better in order to know about the subject I am interested.

 

 

My personal opinion is that the enjoyment of pain is like enjoyment of spicy food. It's exciting, and the endorphins feel really good. If the rest of one's day is interpreted as boring, mundane, or even sad, then that release of endorphins reminds you that you're alive. I just do mine with spicy food, as I'm no so much into the humiliation parts.

More than exciting me, BDSM relaxes me. Besides, it’s something that has always been inside me: when I was a little girl, I didn’t want to be the princess of the film, I wanted to be the slave or the kidnapped girl.

I am myself more submissive than masochist, but I know other people that are masochist and already during their childhood they liked producing pain themselves (not in a insane way as people that have problems and cut themselves because they almost can’t avoid it, but producing light pain that was rewarded with pleasure).

 

For all that, I think that this tendency to BDSM it’s produced by the interneuron connexions that are formed during the very first years of life. And I am specially interested in the interaction of the feelings with the perception of the pain and humiliation. Because submissive and masochist people like being humiliated or produced pain by people that are attracted to, but we hate the same that other people having a toothache or being humiliated at work.

[iNow]

I am glad the information I shared was of use to you. One area about which I am curious is the potential difference between enjoying physical pain versus enjoying psychological pain. Do those who like cutting themseleves also get some strange satisfaction out of grief or feelings of loss?

 

Either way, there are so many pieces to the puzzle which makes us who we are. It's fun searching for answers in the complex maze which is the psyche of each individual, especially when the subject of the puzzle is ourselves.

 

 

 

Besides, it’s something that has always been inside me: when I was a little girl, I didn’t want to be the princess of the film, I wanted to be the slave or the kidnapped girl.

I keep reading this part and smiling.

[Reaper]

Sometimes I wonder if this is something that is hard-wired into your brain, along with some other personality traits.

[iNow]

Sometimes I wonder if this is something that is hard-wired into your brain, along with some other personality traits.

 

Well, in many respects, yes it is. Everything is. All experience alters our neurophysiology, including what activates our pleasure centers and what we crave. While it's all built on the substrate or foundation with which we were born, and is limited to our biology, the structure itself is generally a result of experience. It's not "hard" wired, per se, since new connections are continually formed and old connections continually trimmed, but it's definitely "wired" in a plastic sense.

 

Also, it's more than just the brain. It's the entire nervous system and many subsystems each playing their little part, like a single instrument helping contribute to the overall performance of a beautiful symphony.

[zule]

Sorry for the delay in answering this post, but I need a little time to answer it properly and time is something that I always lose and never find. But I think I will be able to answer on Sunday at the latest.

 

Greetings.

zule

[zule]

One area about which I am curious is the potential difference between enjoying physical pain versus enjoying psychological pain.

 

There are people more submissive that get their pleasure mainly because the dominant get pleasure. The submissive is happy being humiliated by a dominant person who likes humiliating the first one, but that doesn’t mind that the submissive person like to be humiliated for anyone. When the dominant part produces physic pain on the submissive part, the submissive part gets pleasure because this pain made him/her feel subdued to the dominant one.

 

The masochist person obtains directly his/her pleasure through the pain. But I don’t know about any masochist person that gets pleasure when he hurts himself by accident and I don’t think that there are pure masochists or submissive persons. I think that each submissive person has more or less or masochist and vice verse.

When the painful stimulus is produced, first, the substance P prompts the physical sensation of pain, but the production of endorphins calm this physical sensation and even can produce a pleasant sensation. I suppose that a masochist produces great amounts of endorphins against the painful stimulus and so, pleasure can get not realizing of pain. The amount of pain for the threshold not being gone beyond would be different in each person.

 

But only in certain situations this pain is pleasurable: Feelings have to be implicated in order pleasure overcomes pain. The production of endorphin prompts the release of dopamine. Although dopamine is a “pleasure hormone”, main artist in the reward pathways, some works seem to indicate that it could be the cause of the psychological displeasing feeling of the pain.

D1 receptors seem to produce the displeasuring effect, while D2 would produce pleasure. So, my idea is that submissive people are prone to drive this dopamine to an area where there will be most of D2 receptors instead the area where the pain routes arrive with most of D1 in them. And this detour would be prompted by the nervous stimulation produced by the feelings. Perhaps submissive people have “pleasure areas” with D2 very near “displeasure areas” with D1, and that lead to “confusion”.

 

Some of I have wrote are of course only suppositions, so, if anybody want to correct me, I will be grateful.

 

Cordial greetings

zule

[iNow]

Zule - That was an awesome post. I can't see anything wrong with it, and, in fact, it taught me a few new things... so... thanks.

[Mr Skeptic]

D1 receptors seem to produce the displeasuring effect, while D2 would produce pleasure. So, my idea is that submissive people are prone to drive this dopamine to an area where there will be most of D2 receptors instead the area where the pain routes arrive with most of D1 in them. And this detour would be prompted by the nervous stimulation produced by the feelings. Perhaps submissive people have “pleasure areas” with D2 very near “displeasure areas” with D1, and that lead to “confusion”.

 

What if someone had a genetic defect that prevented or reduced the efficacy of D1 receptors?

[iNow]

What if someone had a genetic defect that prevented or reduced the efficacy of D1 receptors?

 

That would be an interesting avenue to pursue. Are you aware of such a defect?

[zule]

Do those who like cutting themseleves also get some strange satisfaction out of grief or feelings of loss?

When I talked about “people with problems that cut themselves”, I was speaking of mostly teenagers that feel so bad about themselves that need to self-hurt for mechanisms similar to other diseases like anorexia. I didn’t mean that people that like being cut for pleasure have problems. I know people that like being cut, put on needles or even sewed.

 

 

My personal opinion is that the enjoyment of pain is like enjoyment of spicy food. It's exciting, and the endorphins feel really good. If the rest of one's day is interpreted as boring, mundane, or even sad, then that release of endorphins reminds you that you're alive. I just do mine with spicy food, as I'm no so much into the humiliation parts.

iNow, talking about spicy food, I think you will find interesting

this paper http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/mcb/165_001/papers/manuscripts/_559.html that is about the capsaicin, the causing for the chilli peppers being spicy, which activate a pain pathway, causing in that way pleasure;) :

 

“So what is this addiction that chili eaters have with eating spicy food. If capsaicin initially induces powerful discharges of substance P in the pain pathway (and later reduces our sensitivity to pain), so much that many people hate to each spicy food, then how is it that so many of us cannot eat without it in our foods? This is due to the fine line between pain and pleasure. When there is an increased concentration of B-endorphins (an opioid agonist), this stimulates the dopaminergic system to release more dopamine, which activates the reward circuit. This reward circuit is also known as the limbic system area, which runs in the brain from the ventral tegmentum, to the nucleus acumbens”.

 

 

Sometimes I wonder if this is something that is hard-wired into your brain, along with some other personality traits.

Although our neural connexions are constantly changing because that is the way how learning and memory processes work, this are only little changes if we compare them with the high number of connexions in the brain. So, most of the connexions are already formed at three years old. When a baby has just born, any stimulus will produce big changes in synaptic connexions, but when we are adults we need very powerful stimuli to produce any notorious change.

 

 

What if someone had a genetic defect that prevented or reduced the efficacy of D1 receptors?

D1 receptors seem to cause the psychological displeasure of pain which is also produced previously to the pain. If submissive people had less D1 receptors, we would have less problems, for example, when we are waiting for the dentist to inject us, but I assure you that I have to put myself together for not going running from the dentist chair…

That displaceable sensation appears before and after the pain in “normal situations” for submissive people and even masochists. It’s only in special situations, with special people, that this displeasure is changed for pleasure and for that I think about the feelings as disruptors of the usual displeasure pathway.

 

On the other hand, I don’t know if D1 receptors are implicated in other process and what effect would have their decrease. But I read (now I don’t remember where, but I will try to look for it) that there are people that is born without pain pathways because the substance P is not active and most of them die when they are children because is very difficult to know if something is wrong with yourself if you don’t feel pain.

[amiya]

Very interesting question. Scientists will cook up receptors, their expression,up or down regulation, neurotransmitters, genetic inheritance even find their loci, identify parts of brain that become active during the process using fMRI, PET scans or EEGs and others; but interpreting them to the 'real answer' will remain elusive for quite a time to come. Recent advances in mapping neural circuitry as in 'Brainbow' may come handy, in solving problems like this.

The peripheral nervous system probably has little role to play. Its the 'perception' that is relevant and the CNS its connexions,neurotransmitters and others should be in the hit list.

[zule]

I wrote this article for a BDSM Spanish magazine, CUADERNOS DE BDSM http://cuadernosbdsm.googlepages.com/CBDSM6.pdf . I haven’t still finished translating it into English but it's only a little left and, as it is quite long, I have thought to already post about half of it and when I have finished the translation, I will post the remainder.

 

I would appreciate your points of view in the subject. Any language corrections will also be welcome.

 

As the article was not directed to a scientific public, I preferred not to indicate numbers of reference in the text for not making more complicated its reading. The whole bibliography is at the end of the article; however, if anyone wants references about a particular topic, they only have to ask for them.

 

 

BIOCHEMISTRY OF THE SUBMISSIVENESS

By zule

 

When I was invited by CUADERNOS DE BDSM to write this article, the purpose was explaining the biochemistry of the pain. But I am afraid I have mainly gotten to generate new doubts instead giving explanations.

 

Although it can be found a relatively high number of BDSM psychological or psychiatric papers in the scientific literature, BDSM has not been practically studied from a biochemical or physiological point of view. In fact, even the biochemical works centered in the pleasure study are few. It seems that hedonism has not been given importance in neurobiology. So, the only thing that I could do to write this paper was extracting ideas from studies which only share closeness to the BDSM topic: some of them deal with the pain, a little with the pleasure, and others don’t even deal with any of two subjects.

 

From these ideas, I have tried to establish hypotheses. I want to make clear that a lot of which I have written here are only hypotheses. Although these hypotheses have a scientific basis, I don’t claim them as immovable truths. For that, I would be delighted if anyone wants to discuss these hypotheses for trying to get close truths about the biochemistry of the BDSM.

 

 

FEAR

 

It is known that different sensations, both pleasurable and painful ones, prompt a first answer which is unspecific and similar. For example, both fear and sexual arousal, cause adrenaline release.

 

Adrenaline makes the body ready for fly, fight, or freeze. You can check that both fear and sexual arousal cause an increase in the cardiac pace, which is due to adrenaline. Therefore, the fear can probably help to improve a subsequent sexual arousal.

 

In a BDSM relationship, the sub knows that the Dom worries about their integrity. Then, why that sub is reacting with fear if they actually know that their Dom is going to look after them?

The amygdala is a part of the brain which is mostly activated by fear. Experiments made in relation with phobias, have shown that the amygdala answers fear before the person is conscious of that fear. Because of that, if somebody has a phobia to snakes, although they clearly know certain snake doesn’t have any danger, they are going to feel terrified by it. The phobic can suffer an anxiety state because the amygdala “thinks” there is a real danger and it is going to activate the release of big amounts of adrenaline.

 

The brain cortex also reacts towards fear, but it does it after the unspecific mechanism started by the amygdala has begun. The brain cortex is the part of the brain that allows us to be conscious about what is happening. We will realize we are seeing a snake; or our Master is thinking about what evil to do to us; or we are feeling aroused by a person. And now, this differentiated conscious sensation is going to interact with the undifferentiated sensation coming from other areas of the brain (like the amygdala) to get what we really feel. On this way, during a scene, it might be that our body takes advantage of the adrenaline produced by the fear to increase the pleasurable sensations of sex, surrender, affection…

 

The fact that the amygdala seems to be involved in unconscious sexual desire, besides being involved in the fear, adds more reasons for the fear being able to lead to pleasure. Several studies seem to indicate this involvement of the amygdala in sexual desire. Besides, we could say that the amygdala is a little “disorganized” organ: there is not a clear distinction between the area in the amygdala that is in charge of fear and the ones which are supposed to do other tasks. Even in an individual an area of the amygdala seems to answer to fear, whereas in another individual this same area answers to a different sensation.

 

Summing up, unconscious fear would cause an increase of adrenaline. The amygdala associates fear to excitement. Then, we would realize trough the brain cortex that we shouldn’t be afraid; but that couldn’t stop yet the adrenaline release process. This adrenaline would be added to the one release because of our sexual arousal, love, surrender, etc. In this way, the pleasurable feelings would increase its intensity by using the adrenaline produced by this irrational fear.

 

 

PAIN

 

The more widespread biochemical explanation about the pleasure caused by the pain is that endorphins released because of the pain would help to prompt an orgasm. However, studies have been made and it has been found an increase in the release of endorphins neither before, nor during the orgasm. There is an increase in the release of endorphins after the orgasm, which would explain the relax feeling subsequent to the coitus. But endorphins seem to make the orgasm difficult, so the pain would reduce the probability to get it. Endorphins due to the pain would cause pleasure, but not sexual pleasure.

 

On the other hand, endorphins are produced during the sexual attraction. It has been also observed that by putting together submissive and dominant animals, in the submissive ones there is a significant increase in the release of endorphins. For this happening, there is no necessary that the dominant animals do anything to the submissive ones; the only fact of being together prompts this increase in submissive animals, whereas the level of endorphins in dominants animals doesn’t seem to vary.

 

During the orgasm there is a significant increase of dopamine; actually the dopamine is perhaps the chemical of the sexual pleasure. Endorphins also cause the release of dopamine, so, here, we may have a pain-pleasure connection: although the endorphins would make getting the orgasm more difficult, the pleasure with or without orgasm would be greater.

 

But now, we have a new problem with this hypothesis: these days it isn’t clear if dopamine is actually the “pleasure neurotransmitter” or it is only the “desire neurotransmitter”. The production of dopamine during a pleasurable situation leads to want to repeat that situation. However, it is not clear if dopamine also is the cause of the pleasure. But then, what substance would be the cause of sexual pleasure???????

 

But it seems clear that dopamine lead to want to repeat the behavior which allowed its release. This agrees with a typical psychological explanation about the production of pleasure through pain: perhaps in a moment of their childhood, a person experienced pain and a great pleasure at the same time. A large amount of dopamine would be released because of that pleasure, and in our mind would remain recorded a connection between the pain and the pleasure.

 

Finally, other studies seem to demonstrate that dopamine wouldn’t be only involved in pleasure production (or at least in the desire of repeating that situation which caused the pleasure); but it could also be the cause of the unpleasant psychological feeling which the pain induces in “standard conditions”. I am not referring to the physical pain itself, but to the unpleasant feeling which cause that pain.

 

You perhaps wonder how the same substance could cause unpleasantness and pleasure. Neurotransmitters carry out its effect by joining to receptors, a kind of proteins. A neurotransmitter activates certain receptors, and in this way it is produced the effect of that neurotransmitter. But one only kind of neurotransmitter can activate different kinds of receptors. It seems that the activation of some dopamine receptors is related to pleasure, whereas their merging to other kinds of receptor causes unpleasantness. The result could depend on whether dopamine was released in areas where most of the cells had dopamine receptors which activate pleasure or unpleasant ruts. The hypothesis would be that masochistic people had more receptors for the pleasure than for the pain. Besides, the masochists would have to have neurons with mostly receptors for the pleasure very close to other with mostly receptors for the displeasure. In this way, our body could be cheated: part of the dopamine which would have to go to the displeasure centers, would join to receptors leading to pleasure.

Edited October 25, 2009 by zule

[zule]

HUMILIATION AND OTHER FEELINGS

 

Very little is known about the operation of the nervous system, and when it is leaded to a subjective feeling as the humiliation, this knowledge can be considered virtually nil.

 

I will only note that the humiliation and psychological “suffering” which subs are being subjected might lead ultimately to pleasure production by mechanisms very similar to the ones which lead from pain to pleasure.

 

Actually, it seems that unpleasant feelings can produce true pain. At least for the case of envy, it has been observed that it is able to activate the own routes of pain.

 

What about the rest of the feelings? Why pleasure is not gotten when a sub gets an accidental stamp? Nervous system is not formed by isolated groups of neurons being each one working independently from the others. On the contrary, all actions that take place in any area of the nervous system modify, in any way, the rest of the nervous system.

 

Painful stimuli activate nociceptores. Those receptors are specialized in starting the route which can lead to the painful sensation. But this activation not necessary leads to a painful experience. The brain cortex elaborates on the information coming from the nociceptores to give a certain perception of the pain.

 

This perception of the pain is influenced by former experiences and by the realm where the harmful stimulus is produced: As I have previously noted, dopamine causes a stimulus to be stored in our brain as pleasant and that makes to want to repeat that stimulus. This could lead to associate pleasure to some stimulus that formerly was generated joined to a pleasant one, although the first one should be an unpleasant feeling by itself.

 

Pain, similarly to fear, would activate nociceptores; these, would lead to the activation of unconscious mechanisms, like endorphin release; but it would be the processing in the brain cortex what really generated certain painful experience. There is an area in the brain which seems to be involved in the perception of the pain. Patients who have had this part of the brain extracted experience pain as a sensation, but not as a very unpleasant one.

 

Feelings are ultimately biochemical processes. And pain is the sensitive modality which is more influenced by emotional states and environmental circumstances. So, feelings (desire to make the dominant comfortable, to subdue to him; sexual attraction, love, attachment…) lead to generate brain routes which cross and modify pain and pleasure ones.

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

SLUMP

 

Both dopamine and endorphin, pleasure chemical substances, have a short action period and they stop early being released. So, the pleasure lasts only for a limited time. On the other hand, dopamine causes prolactin release. Prolactin is a hormone which decreases sex desire, as well as dopamine and endorphin release.

 

A big endorphin unloading has been produced; a big part of the reserves of these hormones in the organism have been emptied. It can take days to replace them. Besides, endorphin receptors may have hidden due to the high number of endorphin which has joined them. In his way, the remaining low number of endorphins has a remaining low number of receptors to join: it is difficult for them to do their relaxing and pleasurable function.

 

 

Because of that, subs can feel bad after a session: we will have decreased the capability of balancing any little unpleasant situation. Any help will be welcome to compensate this, and the after-care is a very good help, causing the release of endorphins although the deposits are low.

 

Another important help is oxytocin. Oxytocin is released in response to both arousal and pain. In contrast to endorphins and dopamine, has a longer period of action. It is directly related to love and attachment and can compensate the slump of endorphins and dopamine. These facts about oxytocin could explain some of the advantages of a long term relationship. It seems that in males much of the functions which the oxytocin has in females would be substituted by the vasopressin.

 

 

OTHER NEUROTRANSMITTERS AND HORMONES

 

So far, I have only spoken about a few neurotransmitters and hormones (adrenalin, dopamine, endorphins, prolactin, oxytocin and vasopressin). But that it’s a simplification of what really happens in our body in process such as pain. Actually what happens is a chain: Releasing of a chemical substance gives acts in a cell, making the last to release another chemical substance and so on.

 

Besides, other neurotransmitters greatly influence the process we have treated. For instance, serotonin influences pain, orgasm, mood… In fact, serotonin has such a wide range of actions that it is difficult to separate its influence in a concrete action. That is the reason I have not previously mentioned the serotonin in this article; it’s too complex, so, I will gig into it more deeply in other occasion. But serotonin might have a great influence in the pleasure of submission and even more in the pleasure of domination.

 

 

I can look very egocentric, because I have only spoken in this article about submission pleasure, and not about the domination one. But it is easier when you research about the cause of feelings you really know. For other article, I expect to be more focused in the dominant, as well as trying to clarify some of my doubts and in this way, being able to write an article with more answers.

 

 

References

 

Adeniyi et al. ”Yohimbine in the treatment of orgasmic dysfunction”. Asian J Androl, 2007; 9 (3): 403–407

 

Bancroft. “The endocrinology of sexual arousal”. Journal of endocrinology, 2005;186:411-427

 

Bressan et al. “The role of dopamine in reward and pleasure behaviour--review of data from preclinical research”. Acta Psychiatr Scand Suppl, 2005;(427):14-21

 

Burgdorf et al. “The neurobiology of positive emotions “. Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 2006;30(2):173-87

 

Do et al. “Evaluations of pleasurable experiences: the peak-end rule”. Psy chon Bull, 2008 Feb;15(1):96-8.

 

Jabbi et al. “A Common Anterior Insula Representation of Disgust Observation, Experience and Imagination Shows Divergent Functional Connectivity Pathways”. PLoS ONE, 2008; 3(8): e2939

 

Kandel et al. Principios de Neurociencia. Macgraw-Hill. Interamericana, 2004

 

López-Ávila et al. “El papel de los receptores dopaminérgicos D1 y D2 en la corteza insular en un modelo de dolor neuropático”. XXVI Congreeso Nacional de Investigacdión Biomédica. Méjico 2007

 

Purves et al. “Neurociencia”. Panamericana, 2004

 

Sch et al. “The neurobiology of pleasure, reward processes, addiction and their health implications”. Neuro Endocrinol Lett, 2004 Aug;25(4):235-51

 

Stefano et al. “Anticipatory Stress Response: A significant commonality in stress, relaxation, pleasure and love responses”. Med Sci Monit, 2008; 14(2): RA17-21

 

Takahashi et al . “When your gain is my pain and your pain is my gain: neural correlates of envy and schadenfreude”. Science, 2009, Feb 13

 

http://www.sfn.org/skins/main/pdf/brss/

Edited November 6, 2009 by zule
Consecutive posts merged.

[giles_english]

That's an amazing article.

 

I read recently that "wanting" and "liking" were neurologically different; dopamine makes you want, and opiods make you like.

 

Does this mean that BDSM suffering is experienced as real?

 

For example, you wrote that a submissive gets an endorphin rush being around a dominant. That seems to explain why people like me enjoy playing at being a slave; we're hacking the ancestoral pecking order in order to get high.

 

Presumably, you can like being a slave, while not wanting to be one.

 

So, a submissive should be awash with opiods, dopamine (because that's produced by things you have a strong reaction to) and endorphins.

 

If so, how would they interact?

[zule]

The usual thing is that you want the same that you like. As I have explained, the opioids (endorphins) prompt the release of dopamine. So, the “like” is transformed in a future “desire”.

 

Other different matter is that at the same time you feel something that you like; you feel other thing, for example, humiliation. Your brain could be cheated about thinking that what you like is humiliation, and in this way, you can desire humiliation. However, the brain is flexible, if you really would hate the humiliation, then, the mechanisms which make you desire it, would probably disappear. On the other hand, this humiliation can lead you to remember the pleasure feeling you felt in the past at the same time, leading finally to pleasure.

 

Of course, there are always "mistakes" in our brain, so it would be possible that you want to be a slave, but you wouldn't get rewarded by that. But this wouldn't be the usual, it would be that something does not work properly.

 

The important matter to know is that our brain is extremely complex, and all its components interact in a certain degree, so we can not isolate one from another.

 

Note: Endorphins are a kind of opioids. I have only talken about endorphins because they seem to be the main opioids implicated in the pleasure of BDSM.

[giles_english]

What about people locked into (non-BDSM) dysfunctional relationships? E.g. as a young man I passionately pursued women who made me unhappy, and wished I could stop.

[Master Shane]

I have been in the lifestyle for over 20yrs and have been on both sides submissive during Training and now the Dominant,but classify myself as a Sadomasochist.

I have learned that endorphins play a huge part of the pain/pleasure aspect. At the same time there is a trust issue that will allow the endorphines to flourish to receive what I/They want/expect from the experiences. I am currently on a journey to better understand the why's and even perhaps the how of the submissive/slave mentality to further my knowledge. I have since become a huge part of the community and would like to further my knowledge.

[zule]

What about people locked into (non-BDSM) dysfunctional relationships? E.g. as a young man I passionately pursued women who made me unhappy, and wished I could stop.

 

This would not be a biochemical explanation, but I believe the fact of desiring to have a BDSM relationship and do not get it (because you think your feelings are not right, it is insane, or simply you do not find the right person to live this relationship), could drive us to abusive relationships.

 

So, in order to avoid those abusive relationships I think we must recognize what we really are looking for and so, looking for it in the right place.

[Moontanman]

I've often wondered why i get so much pleasure out of being a Dom. My submissive gets off on being submissive as well but if I were to accidentally really harm her it would take away all the pleasure for me. Why does the domination have to both pretend and the sub has to be willing for me to enjoy it? Really forcing someone or hurting them would destroy me but the pretend is very erotic.