When Pain Becomes Pleasure

What happens when your partner thrusts deeply or vigorously and causes pain internally that arouses you? It is a tricky question and can be a real concern for your partner, who is probably not expecting for you to be aroused by pain.

Here's a way to think your way through it: If your partner can accept that some people can be aroused due to specific kinds of pain, that would be a positive sign.

If he thinks that it's "crazy," then you have a more difficult row to hoe. In that case, I would simply leave it at this: "I like it when you thrust deep and firmly, it feels really good to me and excites me."

If he is a very gentle man or particularly sensitive, he may have difficulty causing you pain -- particularly if he cannot wrap his mind around the idea that pain could cause pleasure.

Why does pain create a pleasurable response? If you are the victim of sexual assault, it's possible that your assaults are linked to this. Sometimes people unconsciously do their best to make lemonade out of lemons. They attach sexual arousal to circumstances that have been difficult for them.

I once had a client who was very brutally treated by his parents as a child. He had several choices as a child: Run away from home, try to kill himself, try to kill his parents, go crazy, or eroticize physical pain and humiliation. He chose the last option (unconsciously, of course). He really desired physical pain of many sorts and/or humiliation to be orgasmic.

The problem was he did not disclose this to the woman he married before they married. He kept his sex with her of the "vanilla" nature. After about two years of marriage, he revealed his true preferences to her.

The difficulty was that she had been sexually exploited as a child by her stepfather. She wanted nothing to do with the dynamic of humiliation, force or pain -- in either direction. You can see the difficulty inherent in this situation.

You may have a partner who is complying with your sexual wishes without understanding the full nature of what is occurring. It's tempting to suggest full disclosure to him, but I would ask just how many couples really know why the sexual behaviors they share arouse their partner?

Test the waters with a general question, such as this. "I was reading about this the other day: What do you think about people who say that they sometimes get sexual pleasure from certain kinds of pain?" You'll probably get a pretty good indication of what to do next.

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