For The Love Of Shame.

I am so ashamed of my pleasure.

Not all kinds of pleasure. I'm certainly carrying no shame about pleasure from pain, I don't have any qualms about being into control, fear or knives. You won't catch me expressing any regret about spending a week in a basement or a month in a state of neglect, I will go wherever I need to go to chase my pleasure, and I'll do it with the entitlement of it being my right but there's something, something much more innate that makes me *oh so ashamed.*

It's my cunt.

All of my shame lives in my genital reactions and responses. First of all, it's not a socially-learnt form of shame. Funnily enough, and extremely fortunately, I missed that part of growing up where you're supposed to be ashamed of the potential lack of sexual appeal of your body. I went too radically in the other direction for a while, just assuming everyone in the world definitely wanted to have sex with me if I just asked but I calmed down about that when I started asking whether *I even wanted that (and turns out, I kinda did but it's exhausting to keep up)*. Sure, I have had my share of body image issues (and even continue to sometimes), but they never impacted how *desirable* I felt to another person or myself. A long time ago, my sister had a boyfriend who made her feel terrible about the smell of her vagina and that was the first time I even considered that it could be something I too could have felt bad about. When my friends talked to me about feeling worried and scared about getting naked around another person, or the shape of their genitals, or the hair on them, I couldn't exactly relate because I've always just felt most comfortable when naked around other people. I will shove my cunt in the face of the willing at the slightest provocation.

It's also not a form of shame I learnt from how society treats the pleasure of vaginas. I noticed the shame, I noticed the patterns, the expectations, it came for me too, I took my time understanding it but it didn't become mine. It's not that I was raised in a very sexually progressive household (though by comparison to the norm, I absolutely was) but also somewhat fortunately, I realised very young that the adults who were giving me information were not trustworthy, unbiased or very well-informed themselves, I recognised that they were operating out of a space of gendered bias and I refused to learn their lessons of shame about my sexuality. When they suggested corrective therapy for my *leanings* and forced it on me, it was extremely clear from how violated I felt that this was not the right course of action so their message couldn't be right either. Stroke of luck, I could have *easily* had a different thought. I had the occasional partner and several incidents where my right to my pleasure (through casual sex, kink, pain etc) was put on trial and value-judgement about me as a person was passed, but through whatever stroke of luck, I chose not to internalise that message. I am not ashamed that I am a woman who *loves* to fuck, has fucked hundreds of people, will fuck a hundred more should I want to, want a lot of sexual engagement, am kinky in extremely filth-driven ways, do not view my rampant sexuality as an *illness*, am not trying to *fill an emotional hole* and place a high premium on the sexual component of relationships. I am who I am. It's not that kind of shame.

*It's much more deliberate than that*.

When I first started seeing my spouse, he said something about enjoying humiliating people for their pleasure, and I didn't fully internalise what he meant. It didn't feel like it applied to me, he talked about making partners cry from the shame of wanting to orgasm and I thought, why would someone do that? I understood crying from the pain of an orgasm, but shame? Come on. Every single time I come, I reverse the pleasure gap a little bit bro, my orgasms are literally social work, I have *feminist* orgasms, why would that make me ashamed of that? (And sure, I am not an orgasm-person, it's not my thing, but that is because I find my peaks in arousal not because I am ashamed) He talked about getting off to the thrill of making someone feel like their genitals were so dirty that when someone else touched them, they felt the *need* to apologise. I mean, sure, I can apologise for *anything*, you just have to tell me something is wrong and I will make amends for it like the life of my clit depends on it (and it kinda does, I'm an apology-slut) but how can you make me feel the *need* to do that without a construct in place? How can you make me feel innately dirty? He also said that he hoped someday I would feel the need to be punished just for subjecting him to my cunt and its responses. Punish me for being wet. For being turned on. For wanting to be touched. For being touched.

I swear, I thought bro was full of it. You know how sadists are, right? So many are a little flex-dependent and don't get me wrong, I am not demonising the flex, a little bit of it, in fun and games, is attractive and fun. Masochists do it too. I have *definitely* iced a sadist's hand after they pummelled my face just to make a point about who was still standing, for the cheek and flex of it. They didn't really need the ice but I needed it even *less*. It's cool when it's just benign and flirtatious and that is how I saw it. I didn't actually think he could do that.

But, the bastard did it!

He has many talents, this man (don't tell him I said that), but perhaps his most enviable trait is his patience. I am constantly inclined to maximizing output *right now* (which is why my efficiency-boner is always about how much more I can get done faster), but he doesn't think like that. For fuck's sake, he met me, refused to come home with me, waited a month to see me again and then didn't fuck me even though he spent the night with me. The fucking audacity of it was so shocking. It's not that he didn't express interest in me, give me a lot of time and attention, nor that he didn't show me he was developing feelings, not at all, he wasn't *playing hard to get*, he was just enjoying withholding my pleasure right from the beginning. I should have known I was in trouble right then, I probably did and that's probably why we're here now (and *thank goodness*). Because he is so pateint and implements long-term plans with care and precision, he took his time taking over my relationship with my vagina and then making it his relationship with my vagina, and then teaching it to inform how I *feel* about my vagina.

First, he just started by making me thank him and clean off his fingers whenever he touched my genitals. Very simple, barely noticeable, almost mundane. He started to be overly observant of responses like wetness and other physiological indicators of arousal and then randomly forbidding them but how I can do that? How can I not be wet when I am wet? The first time he said that to me, I actually cried because I was so confused. It's kind of a trigger for me, confusion, and in particular, being told to follow instructions that I am *physically unable* to follow. Then he started doubling down on my *disobedience* when I did get wet, and all of a sudden, every response of my cunt felt *wrong* and it didn't help that he would *punish* me for all of it. Constantly. He still does it. Like, 6 times a week. (Side Note: I don't know who to express gratitude towards for having a life where we are able to play sorry-for-my-wet-vagina six times a week, but whoever it is, *thank you*).

Then same the humiliation. First, everything my cunt did was wrong, and then, everything it did was *dirty*. And pathetic. And sad. And disgusting. He was very thorough with his messaging. He did it himself, then he invited other people to join in and then he made me reinforce it to myself *constantly*. There was a time when he was fucking someone and I was tied up on a chair, useless except for the display of my cunt and every once in a while they'd look up from fucking, point at my cunt and laugh at it (seriously, whoever it is, *thank you* for letting this be my life). He put other people's genitals on pedestals and made me explain why mine were disgusting in comparison *and I just did it* (because, remember, I'll go very far for my pleasure). Then one day, he touched me, and I felt fucking terrible for *making him touch something so dirty*. Terrible. Gutted.

A few days after that, he called my cunt *ugly* for the first time. I remember it so well (because, obviously, I wrote about it then). It was a turn because it felt like a deeper insult than the rest and then he defined ugly as hairy, unkempt, leaking, needy and pathetic, and whenever he felt I was being a little too joyous, he'd force me to demonstrate all of the ugliness. He'd make me be all of those things and sudden, I was apologizing to him every single time he touched me. I still do it. I cannot stop. I *beg* him to punish me for being this way, I don't know how he did it even though I know exactly how he did it. He never explicitly gave me any of these instructions, yet here we are. I cannot adequately express the *dread* I experience when I feel his hand creep towards my cunt. I have cried just from the touch, not a single word spoken, not a single hand raised. I feel the shame constantly like bilious vomit in my throat. I've buried my face in my hands. I've wanted to die of the humiliation.

How did he do it?

And also, t

hank you so fucking much.