Every fourth Saturday in October is National Erotic Humiliation Day. This year shit is getting intense in my country with White supremacy operating at an accelerated rate while 200,000+ people die from COVID because no federal guidelines have been established to contain the spread. Humiliation is about vulnerability, and I'm tired of seeing people I care for harmed by people who enforce policies because they fear being vulnerable. Vote, organize, support communities, donate to grassroots organizations, march, do what you can to support those who are feeling scared and hopeless to these upcoming weeks.
I recently attended Princess Kali's class on Erotic Humiliation and I would HIGHLY recommend. Not only did Kali provide an amazing 2-hour (with no breaks) lecture on how to ethically practice humiliation kink, she approached it from a sociocontextual cultural perspective, highlighting the emphasis on cultural factors that influence what people find humiliating. As a counseling psychology student, I am trained to understand mental health and practice from a social justice lens. This includes understanding oppression of marginalized identities and how silence or avoiding discussion of these topics can strengthen oppression. As an example, colorblindness, the idea that "race does not matter" is a way in which white supremacy is maintained by trying to say someone does not see race and as such, racism isn't there. However, racism is not just a neo-nazi spouting off racist slurs (although it's certainly happening a lot in public now that 45 has empowered them), it can also be the subtle, silent form of discrimination, like a doctor under diagnosing a health condition for a black patient. To my surprise, Princess Kali was very comfortable addressing culture through a critical lens. My experience with kink spaces is that they are predominately white and the folks in these spaces are very uncomfortable talking about culture and oppression. Princess Kali did a great job highlighting that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we may be acting on dynamics of oppression. While we cannot avoid acting on them at times, we can be culturally mindful about how we act on them. She uses sissification and servitude of men as an example, highlighting that this type of play comes from sexist, patriarchal norms and acts out these oppressive dynamics. What makes it possible to change, is how one can identify that they are engaging in these oppressive norms and ensure that they are not actively enforced outside of play or on the involved players without leaving them feeling empowered after.
Embarrassed nude females is also part of oppression. This fetish stems from misogynist themes of stripping someone without their consent. Although it was used as a comedy trope in a lot of 60s comedies, it ranges from a form of sexual harassment (peeping in someone's room) to sexual assault (ripping their clothes off). Often times, this trope was a male doing this to a female, adding to it a patriarchal theme of male dominance in a man taking control by objectifying a woman's body when she did not want to. The embarrassment aspect, requires that the person being stripped does not want to be seen, and in this lies the lack of consent. So now that I've broken down my favorite kink of all time, how on earth can I enjoy something that in reality, is horrible? The answer, is it is a kink of mine, I find it very arousing. I don't know entirely why my body reacts in a pleasurable way to these images, I do know that the history of sexism in media led to this trope in the 60s and 70s and even the 80s, so when I was growing up I was exposed to these images. We understand now that such behavior is not okay, and in reality would be harmful and traumatizing to someone. What matters now, is what we do to not enforce this harm by normalizing it in real life settings. This is why romantically, I have not engaged in any humiliation play with my partners because none of them find humiliation or embarrassment arousing. I have talked about my kink with them, but I have known that they do not want to be humiliated or embarrassed and I do not push for this because I understand that my kink is MY kink, it is not to be enforced on someone else.
My choice to write lesbian erotica stemmed from taking the male-identified character out of the equation. As a cisgender heterosexual male myself, I understand that my stories and myself can never be immune from criticism of objectifying female characters. Although my attempts to avoid the male gaze by not writing male-identified characters comes from a place of good intention, I am also writing about characters whose identities are not my lived experience. I am not free from bias or inauthentically capturing someone's story. I also must acknowledge that as a cis-het writer, it can also be harmful writing these stories as I may be misrepresenting experiences in erotica. Early on when I started, I know I poorly wrote sex scenes between women that was based on my own lack of knowledge and instead, were influenced by porn. That resulted in an overemphasis on orgasms, that sex had to end in orgasm. This perpetuates heterosexist/misogynist norms and assumptions about sex needing to be about a goal or that the only sex that is valid is one where orgasm is achieved. This is also not true and an assumption that I need to challenge. As I evolve as a writer, I am questioning the need for this to occur in stories, or for any sex at all to happen in a story about humiliation. Although enf comes from a practice of non-consent, I try to write characters where there is at least some consent between them. In Reconciling, Robin is exposed when her ex walks into her after she willingly takes her dress of to clean it. In The Suit, Riot is forcibly stripped of her armor, but the humiliation is when she consents to following The Mistress through the bank, in just her panties, because she needs to be rescued. Non-consensual stripping still occurs in this story, but the focus of the story is not about the man who strips her (he gets pantsed and knocked out), the focus of the story is between the two female superheroes. I will always be thinking about these issues as I write more stories and while I will never be completely absolved of criticism or being called out, I can choose to actively engage in this dialogue. I will always need to do this work.
What I like about Princess Kali's approach to kink is that she approaches play through emotions. She encourages you to ask less about what the activity is and instead, what emotion are you trying to tap into? Embarrassed Nude Female for me is less about seeing a naked woman, and more about how a female identified character achieves vulnerability. You can find Princess Kali's book on erotic humiliation on her website. I would highly recommend you check it out in celebration of Erotic Humiliation Day.
