A bit of interesting information for those who want to understand what happens in the human brain during favorite practices and how we turn pain into pleasure.
Link to the article below.
🍎 Researchers identify four different ways this magical transformation occurs:
• Pain transformation, where pain is a real, objective stimulus but is almost instantly perceived as something pleasant and non-harmful.
• Pain as an end in itself, where sensations remain painful, excessive, and unpleasant—but that’s exactly what makes it enjoyable.
• "Sacrificial" pain, which is unpleasant for the bottom and causes suffering where necessary (e.g., in cases of punishment or discipline).
• Investment pain, an unpleasant stimulus that must be endured to receive a reward in the future.
🍎Motivations behind this can include:
• pain as an intensifier of feelings of helplessness and submission; • pain as an enhancer of pleasure through contrast with painful sensations; • pain as a test of endurance, after which one can take pride in their resilience; • desire to forget or process everyday stress and alleviate emotional pain; • other motivations may include increased intimacy and trust, heightened sexual arousal, or the desire to enter subspace;
Gender plays an interesting role here: For women, pain is often a tool for intensifying the feeling of submission, whereas for men, it serves as a way to expand their perception of pleasure.
Now , let's get into the specifics. Pain and pleasure regulation centers physiologically overlap, allowing us to experience pain and pleasure simultaneously.
🔗 The pain transformation pathway looks like this:
Signals from the affected body part travel to the brain 🧠, carrying information about the nature of the sensations (bottom-up ⬆), while the brain, sending signals back down (top-down ⬇), regulates pain intensity using endogenous morphines (endorphins).
🍎 This cocktail of natural painkillers passes through the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus, into deeper spinal cord structures, and then down the nervous pathways. The involvement of higher brain structures and emotional regulation centers in this pathway suggests that personal experience, emotional state, and social conditioning can alter pain perception.
🍎 Endorphins (endogenous opioids) bind to opioid receptors in the brain and dull pain. Additionally, they actively affect structures like the nucleus accumbens and striatum, which are part of the reward system 🏆. This process triggers dopamine release in response to stress, making it feel more pleasurable.
🍎 Fear of external stimuli can suppress pain through the same endorphins. This response resembles the anticipation of intense sensations and is physiologically close to sexual arousal, which is why they are easily confused.
🍎 A similar mechanism applies to endocannabinoids, which are abundantly released in the reward system not only during intense physical exertion but also under any form of stress. They help improve mood, provide relief, reduce anxiety, and lower pain sensitivity. Unlike endorphins (and other opioids), endocannabinoids easily cross the blood-brain barrier, meaning they have a stronger impact than endorphins and induce even greater euphoria 🤯🤤.
🍎 Moreover, they actively interact with sex hormones, enhancing sexual desire, thus contributing to the perception of pain as pleasure.
🍎 And, in my opinion, the most interesting part: Running stimulates the highest release of endocannabinoids (compared to other types of physical activity) due to the rhythmic impact of feet on the pavement.
Rhythmic impact (such as spanking or other rhythmic painful stimuli) activates the same type of nociceptors as running, which may explain why it is one of the most popular S/M practices 😉.
The Pain-to-Pleasure Conversion Process:
INTERPRETATION OF THE PROCESS:
Pre-existing emotional and interpersonal context before experiencing pain, shaped by present circumstances, past experiences, and the individual’s sense of control. These situational factors can contribute to sexual arousal.
Sexual arousal before and/or during painful stimuli serves as an analgesic, influencing oxytocin and dopamine levels.
Contextual factors and sexual arousal lead to positive expectations of pain.
Context, arousal, and positive expectations create a foundation for reinforcing the association "pain = pleasure."
Once pain occurs, nociceptor stimulation activates ascending and descending signal processing, altering hormone and neurotransmitter concentrations. These biochemical changes influence pain perception as much as external contextual factors.
The combination of external (context) and internal (neurotransmitters and hormones) conditions can lead to a deeper awareness of the process or a unique state of consciousness, commonly known as subspace.
🍎 From all the above, we can conclude that the desire for pain is absolutely natural for humans. Does this mean that being into BDSM makes us any less "crazy" in the eyes of vanilla people? 😉
Adaptation by: @Rick_rr & @Agastasia
Read the full article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332239262_Bondage-Discipline_Dominance-Submission_and_Sadomasochism_BDSM_From_an_Integrative_Biopsychosocial_Perspective_A_Systematic_Review
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