The Training of Alexa
June 12, 2008
Over at Nina’s place this morning, she wrote regarding an article in the NYT about how women react and respond to sex and sexuality, in particular how they react to erotica and porn.
In it, she writes:
Curiously – women responded to watching not just straight sex, but also men having sex with men, and most significantly, women with other women, and the key trigger tended to be the intensity of the action. So in other words – the hotter the action, the more aroused the women became, which tends to follow my own experience there too.
I enjoy watching porn – to a point. It isn’t something I seek out, but it isn’t something I consider gross or a turn off either. I’ve often been turned on by porn; and usually, the more out on the fringes it was, especially in terms of BDSM or D/s – the more aroused I’d get. I would tend to visualize myself in the scenes I was watching, sometimes pulling feelings and memories from my own experiences, and the more I was able to visualize those things in my own mind, the more aroused I’d become. I don’t know that this is by any means a universal kind of response. Men and women process sexual stimulation entirely differently – or so we thought – maybe we really don’t?
Actually, it is more common than she might imagine. I will freely admit that I, too, get majorly aroused watching BDSM porn. The harder it is, the more aroused I become.
If you’re not familiar with the web sites run by Kink.com, you are truly missing out on porn, especially if you have any kind of interest in BDSM, even on a basal level. One in particular has caught my attention over the past few weeks, The Training of O. If you are not familiar with it, the web site’s basic premise is the training of a female to become a sexually submissive slave. The concept for the web site is based loosely around the infamous novel, The Story of O, by Pauline Reage.
The training takes place over the course of a week and, to the uninitiated, it might seem brutal, 
misogynistic, and degrading. I’ve even known people to become physically sick while watching the videos. The women are subjected to a variety of physical and psychological encounters that are designed to break their spirit and make them become submissive sex slaves for a Dom, or master. Of course, the reality is that it is porn, and therefore the basic premise of it is acted. The kicker in this case is that the women are actually beaten, flogged, caned, slapped, and brutally fucked throughout the entire week. They’re forced to assume painful physical positions and perform sexual services while they are abused. They are tortured with nipple clamps, forced orgasms, and endure a variety of other physical bondage scenarios.
All of the subs (submissives) in training record a video “journal” at the end of each day wherein they recount what they went though that day, how they felt during and after the sessions, what they learned, and what they think might be upcoming for them based on what their trainer has taught them during any given session. During many of those videos, you can see the bruises, welts and other marks left by the whips, flogs and other devices used on them during the training.
And, lest you think the women are coerced or forced into performing, Kink includes recordings of their consent at the beginning of each video and at the end where the model state explicitly that she consents to what is going to take place, that she’s aware of the safewords, and that she’s ready to go. Kink has perhaps the best reputation of any of the fetish porn producers, with a statement of values, a statement of model’s rights, and a statement of director’s shooting rules that guide their productions. I’ve exchanged e-mails with a couple of the women who’ve participated in their shoots, and both have nothing but positive things to say about their experience and the people at Kink.
I say all of this because, I, too, could and have projected myself into the models while watching those videos. I admit that I enjoy pain play during sex. Nikki and I often slap and bite each other during our more intense sex sessions. In fact, I had to finally give up the ring I had in my right nipple because Nikki would often pull on it so hard that I would bleed, and more than once it became seriously inflamed. We’ve been known to slap each other in the face during sex (and I don’t mean love taps). We have a nice little paddle that leaves a big bright red mark on your ass when it is applied with any significant amount of force. And very few things get me going more than Nikki grabbing and pulling my hair while she’s grudge fucking me in the ass in a doggy position with a strap-on.
I could easily see myself participating in the kind of scenes produced for TToO. And my apartment will be exactly one mile from where Kink films its videos. Luck? Fate? Who knows? 
All of this begs the question, “why?” Why would anyone, especially a woman, want to subject herself to being slapped, spit on, abused, humiliated, hurt during sex? That, my friend, has confounded a LOT of people, including a great many psychologists.
I won’t lie, there are times when I wonder why in the world I’d want someone to slap me in the face or spit in my face when I am being fucked by them. That pretty much defies any reasonable explanation, doesn’t it?
Perhaps, though, that is the basis of the conundrum. Human sexuality is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination. As Nina and I (and many others) have said on several occasions, the largest sex organ in the human body is the brain. How we each interpret, process and respond to sexual stimuli is determined by a wide range of things, both innate and experiential. So much so that it really isn’t possible to even summarize them in a short piece like this. Who’s to say what is or isn’t reasonable to someone else, though?
There is one train of thought that much of this has to do with giving up control. People who spend a great deal of time directing and controlling things in their daily lives long for some release where they can accede “control” to someone else. By allowing someone else to take control of you and use you for the piece of meat that you are relieves you of any “responsibility” during the sex, and they assume control over you, allowing you to just give in and allow what happens to happen. Our brains allow us to derive pleasure from this in some perverse way. This all takes place deep dark places in the psyche where our innermost desires can often be found. And, then, some people just want to submit; they want to serve someone else. Or, as Nina has mentioned in the past:
This is a pure truth – however, there’s something larger at work here for me, and that’s the idea which extends beyond simply wanting to submit. For me - I want to be made to submit. That it’s the process of feeling that personal strength and will slip away and surrendering the idea of self to someone else. It’s almost like being broken – that one strong willed person can be made to completely submit and love the whole process and feelings surrounding that.
And, thus, the appeal of the scenarios in The Training of O to me. I’ve said here before that I have developed a strong desire to explore my submissive side. In every relationship I’ve been in, in just about every sexual situation I’ve been in, I have been the one in control. Or, in the case of my relationship with Nikki, it has been an egalitarian relationship. With my new line of work, I will largely be the one in control, so even with it, I generally won’t have the possibility of exploring my truly sub side (and in fact, it might even be dangerous to do so, at least initially). Putting myself in the model’s shoes while watching those videos allows me, for a brief period of time, to be made to submit. I find it very…cathartic on some level.
Then of course, there’s the pain. Why would anyone want to endure pain during sex? Sex is supposed to be about pleasure, right? Well, let’s frame it a different way. Think about jalapeños. Some people can eat them, with all of the searing pain it produces in the mouth and derive great palative pleasure from it. Others of us can’t stand eating something that makes our mouth sting, and can’t understand why someone else would. Same basic principle. Different things do different things for different people. And yes, you can quote me on that 
Pain releases all kinds of chemicals in the body, some of which heighten excitement and arousal (i.e., testosterone, adrenaline, and even endorphins). Let’s see….what other situation might one find themselves in that involves heightened states of excitement and arousal? Oh, yeah, sex! Ha! If you put the two together, for many people, the sex becomes incredibly stimulating, not just in the genitals, but across the entire body. So, maybe slapping and biting are the jalapeños of sex. Some people like it, some don’t. I know when Nikki slaps me while she’s fucking me, the hair on my arms stands on end and I get goose bumps. The sting of that slap sends a shot of lightning down my spine, right into my cunt as it is being penetrated with that cock. Talk about a feedback loop.
For many people, though, all of this would have an effect diametrically opposite to arousal. Some people just don’t get aroused by being slapped or being forced into submission. This is particularly true for people who grew up in an environment where they were forced to be compliant, such as with overly authoritarian parents, families where emotional, physical or sexual abuse was occurring, or people who’ve been raped or abused later in life. And a woman who was in an abusive or domineering relationship with a partner might likewise consider this kind of activity to be anything but arousing. Again, it all goes back to our own individual makeup and those experiential circumstances we’ve encountered that make us who we are. You have to have a strong sense of self and a pretty good dose of self esteem to be able to enjoy this kind of stuff to be sure.
And finally, there’s the subject of humiliation play. This includes things like name-calling (whore, slut, cunt, bitch), being spit on, being pissed on, being facialized, etc. As Franklin Veaux describes it, humiliation play is “…any kind of activity in which one person says or does something that causes embarrassment, shame, or humiliation in the other.” He goes on to explain that many people grow up in environments where any expression of sexuality evoked shame. As a result, shame and sexual arousal become inextricably intertwined. When you combine this with that sense of objectification that comes along with being treated like a piece of meat, the result can often be very sexually arousing (and yes, I know it’s not politically correct to enjoy being objectified). While some of it may be extreme, I think it is relatively easy to see why some women would enjoy being called a slut in the bedroom. I mean, we’ve been told all of these years that only sluts enjoy sex, and, well, we’re enjoying the sex, so we’re sluts, right? The bedroom is the one place where it is “safe” to be a slut for most women, and as long as they know it’s just play, they’ll often enjoy that kind of thing. (And a note to the guys reading this: Feel her out to see what she thinks about being called a slut in the bedroom BEFORE you do it. You don’t want the surprise you’ll be in for if she doesn’t play that).
Clearly, there is a vast untapped area of psychological research that could be done to figure out what’s behind why some people enjoy these kinds of activities. I know there are often times where I am inwardly embarrassed and disgusted by the fact that I have asked someone to spit in my face while they’re fucking me (or performing some other sex-related function with me). But I always turn to the knowledge I’ve gained through my studies, which have long since shown me that there is no such thing as “normal” when it comes to human sexuality. I just accept it and move on. If I squick someone out by requesting something they deem weird or perverse, I’ll just accommodate and move on. I don’t have the requisite knowledge, yet, to figure all of this stuff out, but I think you can tell that I am terribly interested in it, from both experiential and philosophical perspectives. I shall continue my…research.
To get back to the question I know most of you either have asked or will ask, no, I won’t do a video for The Training of O. The only reason, really, is that, years from now, those videos would surface and be used against me somehow. I mean, I am a woman, and any expression of any sexuality on my part immediately casts me in a disparaging light, right? *rolls eyes*
Anyway, I am off to download another video and fantasize about being forced to throat fuck James’ cock while my tits are being whipped with a wet leather strip. 
Posted by Alexa | Filed Under Alexa, Erotica, Sexuality
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Really great article. You verbalized the psychology behind enjoying that kind of sex play very well. <3
God, I love me some jalapeños. :p
Alexa,
First let me please express to you what a fabulous piece of work this is — I mean, you’ve truly given this topic an incredibly thorough treatment.
I am so happy and pleased that our conversations have been as inspirational and as personally rewarding for you as they always have been for me; especially with respect to our many discussions about human sexuality, and to an extent, alternative sexuality which is the primary premise here.
I tend to almost want to toss out the label “alternative sexuality” because how do we know where and when to draw those lines and distinctions? We really don’t, but I’ll use it judiciously here because that is really the only way we can frame these discussions about the darker sides of our sexuality. While I believe many of us, especially many women, have these darker sides; feeling safe enough to explore that is often the biggest obstacle, for a host of reasons. So in many cases, this type of pornography is truly the only outlet people have if they don’t have a partner(s) to explore some of these desires.
But rather than trying to add anything more to this brilliant essay, let me simply concur with many of your statements — especially with regard to the connection between humiliation and arousal, pain and arousal, and certainly the powerful psychological imagery which occurs while watching much of this material you referenced. It is indeed powerful. As are the experiences themselves.
I don’t know that I’m terribly comfortable discussing my own experience with these things here in your forum, other than to say that you and I share a great many things in common with respect to our own personal sexuality — and I would agree, it would not be wise to participate in a Kink.com production (as personally rewarding as that would be, to both of us) Your reasons are sound and considered for not doing so. Even tho they absolutely do have a great reputation for all of the issues you mentioned.
Perhaps, though, that is the basis of the conundrum. Human sexuality is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination. As Nina and I (and many others) have said on several occasions, the largest sex organ in the human body is the brain.
I truly feel that this is something, this very idea, is something we all need to pay more attention to. Why do we have sex? Why do we crave the experiences and situations we do? What needs are we meeting and/or trying to meet thru sex?
You will have a front row seat (or pillowcase view) towards answering those questions my dear.
Brava for you!
Goddess,
So in many cases, this type of pornography is truly the only outlet people have if they don’t have a partner(s) to explore some of these desires.
That is the case with me. And I know Nikki won’t care if I tell on her about this, but while she enjoys being slapped and bitten and all of that stuff, she has no desire to be whipped, caned or anything along the lines of “hard core” stuff. So the porn is my outlet for it.
She has given me permission to explore some of the BDSM clubs in SF, though. I expect there’ll be a story or two on that in the future.
Thank you so much for your insight and, perhaps more importantly, your inspiration.
One other thought that just occurred to me with respect to putting yourself in a scene. When I watch porn where a guy is getting ready to jerk off on the woman’s face or into her mouth, I find myself subconsciously opening my mouth and turning my head upward, as if waiting for him to unload on/in me!
Am I the only one who does that? *wonders*
She has given me permission to explore some of the BDSM clubs in SF, though. I expect there’ll be a story or two on that in the future.
Oh good lord… I’m beginning to wonder if SF should be more afraid of YOU … LMAO!
Well, hmmm, those kinds of places are… interesting! ;)
But — I completely understand about outlets and also too, about permission and about compromise. We do what we must.
xoxo,
nina
God, I love me some jalapeños. :p
@Ally — me too babe, me too…
Am I the only one who does that? *wonders*
Um… Well……………………….
(did I answer your question?)
I enjoyed the Training of O videos (or the ones I’ve seen). They really opened up a different world, or one I haven’t witnessed before about the world of the sub and just how intense it can get. And while I don’t think I’d be into that so much in real life, its a turn on to image yourself in their shoes because its a safe zone.
I’m glad Nikki has given you permission to explore your sub side. Kudos to her.
sc
OH boy, Alexa. I can’t get up from behind my desk again – gonna be late to another meeting. When am I gonna learn NOT to open these at work? Bad, bad dog! Woof! :)
blackdog, you should know better than to open something with that kind of title at work to begin with.
Seems I am not the only one with a fondness for The Training of O.
http://www.kinkerbelle.com/?p=556
AVN had a story about Princess Donna undergoing training that is interesting. Donna is the Dom and webmaster at one of Kink’s websites called WiredPussy.com
http://www.avn.com/internet/articles/30382.html
Thanks to Alan for the link.
I just ordered Story of O off of amazon I was interested in reading it, I didnt know trainingofo.com basically got the idea from them. I swear you were like reading my mind or something with this lol my boyfriend thinks im weird because im into submission when in everything else im a pretty dominate girl, but he doesnt argue with it, he just doesnt want to admit he fuckin loves it
I just ordered Story of O off of amazon
I, too, need to order it. I’ve read bits and pieces of it online, but I haven’t read the entire thing. You should come back and let us know what you thought.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080813081912AAkHuqr&r=w#EsAnWja6VWI2Q5LFctkN3PxbPUQd0L8gBdQNAC6KW1tnysk302gU