Pain

Introduction
Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather and kink where your host, Edge (he/him), shares his 30+ years of experience in the community. For this episode we're going to think about pain.

In the first segment, Edge shares his experience with pain in his leather journey, both receiving it and giving it. Then, in the second segment, Edge offers his full class on pain processing, with many useful strategies for learning to thrive in pain scenes. Finally we talk with Vince, who shares his story of coming to enjoy pain scenes.

Also, this is the episode where I realized that "extraordinary" / "extraordinarily" are my favorite words! 🙄🤣

Related Links

• Leathermen's Discussion Group
• Leathermen's Discussion Group YouTube Channel

Transcript

Edge : 0:05

Let's talk about pain this podcast contains material intended for a mature audience. Before proceeding, please check your local laws and confirm that you are an adult. Welcome to full cow, a podcast about leather kink and BDSM My name is edge My pronouns are he him, and I am your host. As always, I am grateful that you're joining me for another episode as we discuss pain. In the first segment, I'll share with you my experience with pain and my other journey both receiving and giving. Then, I'm going to be offering you my entire class on pain processing, which I developed for local leather shop here. Finally, I'm going to be doing an interview with Vince, who will share with us his own journey in learning to love pain. And we get into a couple of other fun topics as well. A special note for this episode, since we are dealing with pain given your own personal history with trauma, some parts of this may be triggering. So please be aware and take care of yourself. I think it's a great episode though. And I think it's time we get started. I want to share with you my experience with pain and my leather journey. Before doing so though, I have to note that really quite poetically, I am fighting an extraordinarily painful headache as I record this segment. But we soldier on. The first thing to know is that I have never been into pain. I spent a good decade and a half being pretty much exclusively bottom. And pain was never a big activity for me. And that's an important lesson right there. You don't have to be into pain to be into leather to be kinky, ironically, even to be into SM even though you would think SM is all about pain. But the things we do are really a broad and varied spectrum of technologies for producing pleasure. And sometimes pain is part of that. But it doesn't have to be. So if you feel like Oh, I'm I don't like pain. I'm not into pain, I can't really be part of this community. Not true. There is room for you. That being said, during my time on the bottom, there were a lot of scenes I did that were pain based. And I took it, I took a lot of pain. And it was only in preparing for this episode that I realized I was able to do that because of my childhood bullying. Wow, won't that be something to discuss in therapy. Growing up, I was weird. And I was chubby. And I was definitely not one of the boys and I experienced a lot of bullying. Most of it was verbal, most of it was teasing. But there was some physical bullying. And what I learned to do was not react at all. And that translated became a skill set a defense mechanism, a coping mechanism that I used in a lot of the pain base scenes I did as a bottom. I grew though I learned instead to not just take it. But to really not mind the pain. There's a difference between that not minding the pain means that yeah, this hurts, but I'm not going to hold on to the pain. And I'm just not going to pay a lot of attention to it. And in the next segment, we'll talk a lot more about the kind of techniques you can use to help you process pain. The other reason I tended to do a lot of pain scenes is because I wanted to make the man I was was happy. Because he was hot. And he was in leather. And he was Sir and that's what boys did. Right? Boys make daddy happy. And that's okay. You know, I don't know that it was my best motivation or my purest motivation or my most authentic self in operation. But I do think it was consistent with who I wanted to be as a leather person. And at that point as a leather boy. So that was fine. It wasn't really until I first got my tattoo that I discovered endorphins. Now there are people out there we call them pain pigs who are sort of naturally wired their brains are inclined to produce copious amounts of endorphins, the body's natural painkiller in response to pain. I am not a pain pig. I do not have that wiring, but I finally understood what pain pigs experienced when I first got my tattoo. The needle starts in your ears, you're so afraid it's gonna be so painful. And I remember it's like, Okay, well that's that's not too bad. It's a little bit like the tip of a knife dragging across your skin. It's kind of scratchy. Alright, that's bad. And then In some minutes in one, oh, the endorphins head, and I was floaty and I felt like I was walking on the moon. And I loved everyone. And I loved everything I remember thinking, Oh, this, this is the endorphin rush. This is what pain pigs get to experience. But the you know what happens when you get tattooed because it lasts a really long time, like I was under the tattoo gun for a long time, the endorphins were off, and then it becomes really annoying. And it's like, oh, when is this going to stop? That's a side story. The big story is that I do understand how endorphins work, I have had that experience. But that has not been my experience in connection to my leather and my play, where my taking pain was really much more about tolerating it, not minding it and doing it for someone. The lessons there, which we'll explore even more in the next segment is that there are many different ways to be into pain, to respond to pain. And there are many different techniques in terms of what you do with pain. And we'll talk about those around the tournament millennium, I made a slow shift towards being a top. And at first, a lot of the things I did were things I did on the bottom, cigars, breath control, bondage, all I really had to do was kind of flip a switch. And a lot of that was also because that's what the men coming to me expected. But I did expand my skill set. And I did learn how to inflict pain. But at first when I was a top, that wasn't a primary activity for me. Here's the lesson again, you don't have to be into inflicting pain to be a sir, a daddy, a DOM, a master, a top a participant in the kinky community. These are not requirements. They certainly were not requirements for me when I first started topping only recently have I had an extraordinary evolution and transformation into a new level of dominance. And for me, pain is at the center of my expression of dominance now. And what I tell men who approached me is I'm going to beat the crap out of you. And I say that in part because it's kind of terrifying. And I like being scary. And it acts as a useful filter. Because people who are not ready for me generally go running. One of the reason I think men find that so scary to hear it because they think they need to take all the pain I have to give. That's not true. What I expect men to take is all the pain they can take. And that's a critical difference. I'm not inflicting pain, because of me because the infliction of pain causes me pleasure. I'm inflicting pain because I've discovered it is an extraordinarily useful tool. It brings people somewhere. And it's somewhere that I find extraordinarily interesting. And it's somewhere I can't go. I don't know how to go to that place. That pain takes a man. I don't know how to get there. But when I use pain, and take them on that journey and bring them to that place, I get to go along for the ride. Honestly, if I could get a man to that place by throwing Cheerios at them, I'd be throwing Cheerios at them. It's not about inflicting pain. It's about bringing you on an extraordinary journey. One that is cathartic. One that is so intimate. One that is so intense, and one that is so apps of fucking loosely beautiful. When it comes to pain my primary seen is beating inner thighs. And there are lots of reasons why I like to beat inner thighs. First of all, there are no organs. You know, some people are into God punching lots of organs and some people are into punching, lots of organs, some people are into flogging. Gotta watch out for the Oregon a lot of the impact play we do takes place near Oregon's and that's just a little too dangerous for me. I also love that the inner thighs are really private. You know, it's an area that's usually closed off that's enclosing the genitals and therefore is private and sensitive and intimate. And that makes it a beautiful target for exposing a person and exposing them to the pain I want to inflict. An X reason I like beating inner thighs is that it requires extraordinarily little skill. I've I can flog I have floggers. flogging is a lot of fucking work. You really kind of have to know what you're doing. Ideally, you're practicing. There's hand eye coordination. You know the video games I grew up with were poor. We did not develop this complex hand icon ordination that young adults have these days, all we had to do was move the paddle and get the ball. So I don't have advanced hand eye coordination. Plus, with flogging, my shoulders get so tired. I'm 51 I work out at the gym, which means my joints are always under stress and I don't need to be flogging someone. The beautiful thing about an inner thigh beating is it's just fists to flesh. And it requires very little skill. That fists to flesh this is also part of the appeal because nothing is mediating the energy between me and the man I'm hurting. It is a direct transfer. It is not going through flogger, it is not going through a paddle, it is going through my fist into his flesh. And I love that. The next thing I particularly love about it, and one of the things I think is most important about it is the amount of eye contact, I'm able to maintain with someone during an inner thigh beating. Most people, if they're getting flogged, usually they're looking at a wall. Usually I'm looking at your back, flogging does not usually allow for eye contact. And for me eye contact is everything. When I'm beating someone's inner thighs, they're in a chair I'm sitting across from them in a chair, and our eyes are maybe 10 inches apart, I'm able to maintain intense eye contact, unable to see where they are, I'm able to let them see the strength in me, we support each other on the journey. And it becomes extraordinarily intimate, in part because of that eye contact. The last reason I love beating inner thighs is because it's really painful. And it's not like I'm punching very hard. But you know, you don't have to punch very hard, you just have to punch repeatedly in the same place and the damage accumulates, I'm usually moving my fist now, maybe five inches. And that means both I don't have to be targeting, I don't have to be looking down because my fist is just moving back and forth. That means I can maintain the eye contact. But it means that the pain builds and builds and builds and in this scene creates the most beautiful fucking bruises you have ever seen. That blossom all across the inner thigh. And then over the coming weeks kind of dripped slowly down that lay eggs as the dead blood cells kind of drained down towards the feet. It's really extraordinarily gorgeous, as well as extraordinarily painful. My goal in an inner thigh beating scene is to break a man. And again, much like saying I want to beat the crap out of you. If I say I want to break you. I know that sounds terrifying. But what it really is, is beautiful. What I want to do is bring you to a point where you're able to let go, let go of control, let go of thinking let go of the walls you keep inside. And the key for me is that I want to make you cry. Again, that sounds a little mean, I understand that. But again, it is so beautiful and so intimate. I have seen so many men release stuff. I don't even know the stuff, right? deep emotions, old traumas, pain, grief, I don't know what it is. But I know they start crying. And when they do, I can hold them. And I get to let them cry. And I get to tell them how proud I am of them. And that moment is the whole fucking reason I use pain. It is the whole fucking reason that I am into pain, to have a moment where a man is completely raw in my arms safe and protected, and knowing he is safe and protected. And I get to see his soul in its barest form. And it's beautiful. It's so beautiful, that oftentimes I'm moved to tears as well. That intimacy that absolute vulnerability we share in that moment is everything to me. Because I have to say sexual intimacy is really challenging for me actual genital sexual intimacy. That's really challenging for me, the best way for me to access intimacy at this stage of my development is through this scene, because I am able to get so vulnerable, and I'm able to see them too invulnerable, and were able to be together in a beautiful and pure moment. So some of the takeaways here. Whether you're a bottom or a top if your bottom, you don't have to be in a pain, you can be in pain and just take it. You can be into pain and do it for a person. You can be into pain and be a pain peg and be flooded with endorphins, where you can choose to trust someone so deeply that you get to a point of total surrender and experience and extraordinary intimacy. For top, you don't have to be in pain. You don't have to hurt anyone. But if you do think about how it can be a useful tool not for causing damage and not for forcing someone into submission and not for their subservience. But think about the ways in which pain can be a tool for intimacy. It's a really beautiful thing. And I invite you all, to at least explore that journey to find someone you trust, and to take it together. Because from my experience, it can lead to someplace so wonderful. If you're a pain pig, if you are naturally wired to produce copious amounts of endorphins in response to pain, then you can probably go ahead and skip this segment. But for the rest of us, let's talk about pain processing. Because here's the good news. It is something you can learn. It is a skill you can develop. And none of this was ever taught to me when I was on the bottom. No one took the time to teach me how to process pain. And so I'm especially grateful to share with you what I've learned in the hopes that your leather journey may be a little easier than mine in relation to pain. First, you have to figure out what kind of pain you're more inclined to like. Now kinky scenes have all sorts of pain, but generally, particularly with impact play, there are two kinds stinky pain and fatigue pain and they kind of are what they sound right. So stinky pain is things like spanking most pedals, some floggers and 30 Pain is some floggers, some paddles and punching. Some people really like stinky, some people really like 30 And you should figure out which is which by exploring both. I for one cannot stand stinky. I will react very poorly to Stickney pain, but I have a much higher tolerance for 30. And that helped guide me as I did that part of my leather journey. Second, you want to spend some time figuring out your psychological script. You know non erotic pain, like a headache or stubbing your toe has a pretty simple scrip, stop. But erotic pain tends to be mapped onto other psychological scripts, scripts, which we may or may not even know which may be as old as childhood. These scripts determine what pain means to you. And so it's pretty essential to know your script. Here are some of the ones I found common among players, particularly for men, there's a script that a boy is supposed to take it like a man and pain is a test of manhood or about stoicism. For many others pain is a sign of your submission, what are you willing to do or take for the person you serve? For others pain is about punishment, or humiliation or something you quote unquote deserve. For some others, it can be about spirituality, embodiment, connection. And for some of us pain is love, which can be healthy or unhealthy. It's critical to know which script is your script, and to make sure that your script matches the top script. Because if the verbal interchange does not match, it's not going to be a very good scene. So if your script is all about a sign of submission, but the top is using a script about punishment and humiliation, that can be really confusing for you and make it harder for you to process it. If I know that your script is about stoicism, then I can really encourage you to take more and take one more for me and Oh, I'm so proud of you. So the use of the script creates a verbal interchange that can support you as you move through the pain. Third, breathe. Fun fact, humans need oxygen. So you want to make sure you're breathing. And I know that sounds silly, but you'd be surprised how many people hold their breath during a pain scene. They'll do that as part of clenching up in particular and throw a really bad idea. We'll talk more about why in a minute. But keeping a focus on your breath gives you something to focus on besides the pain, it helps makes you calmer. It helps detoxify the body because it's increasing circulation. And therefore it's also aiding the release of endorphins and breathing can also induce meditative states which would be very useful for processing pain. Fourth, rather than clench return, I tend to run into a lot of players who are clenches I don't know if this is a particularly male thing related to that ticket like a man script. But these are people who tend to think their response to pain is to be absolutely silent, react little or not at all and make little noise and they were literally clench their body and clench their miles. Now, first of all, you're experiencing more pain because of this, because when you tense up, you're actually making the muscles tighter and therefore the damage is worse and therefore the pain is worse. And the sad thing about lectures is that many of them think they're being good boys, but they're really not. You know when I'm hurting a person, it is an investment of fear. physical energy, and if it is not returned, and I feel like my partner is being a little greedy and a little selfish. So instead of clenching, I want you to imagine a literal loop of energy from the top, into your body, through your mind back to the top. Ideally, kinetic energy that I'm placing into your body becomes electrical energy through your nerve impulses become Sonic, Sonic energy, because you're screaming or kinetic energy, because you're thrashing. There is a literal loop of energy, as well as a more sort of mental, psychological, spiritual loop. And obviously, not only pleasures, both parties and completes the scene, it also gives me as a top essential feedback, if you're not reacting if you're a clencher. If you're not reacting, then clearly I am not hurting you enough. So I'm going to ramp things up, your ability to react to return energy to me to relax and not clench, lets me know exactly where you are, so that I can guide you through the scene. The fifth technique is related, and that's learning how to scream. We are culturally conditioned on multiple levels not to scream, it's just not very polite, right. But in order to process pain, we really need to recondition ourselves. And I want to invite you to learn how to screen, I often will guide the people I'm playing with through this by telling them every time I hit you to say ouch, just say ouch. And then eventually, that ouch becomes a more real, and then it becomes a Yelp and then it becomes a screen. I will note that people respond in other ways. Besides screaming. I know one player whose response to pain is a series of animal sounds, that's great. There are a few people whose response to pain is laughter and they're fantastic. Because then, oh my god, they get in so much trouble, right? Like, Oh, you think this is funny? Oh, you're making fun of me. And then they know they're in trouble. And then that makes them scared. And then it's more fun and everybody's having fun. It doesn't really matter how you respond through a scream through animal sounds through laughter through grunts. Responding is key, that Sonic feedback, again, creates the return loop. And that becomes essential for me to know where you are. And screaming also helps you process the pain because you know what? Pain hurts, and we should scream when we're in pain. Method six is using visualizations, you can actually focus in your mind on a series of visualizations that will help you process the pain. Part of that might be a full fantasy immersion. If there's a larger sort of role playing going on in the scene. If the top is the cop, and you're the perp, you might be able to immerse yourself in the details of the fantasy to help process the pain. What's also useful is to visualize a heat map across your body with the intensity of the pain and a certain color and then spreading it out. Spread it out towards the edges towards the cooler edges. You might also imagine a single flame in your mind that burns very brightly when the pain is intense, but that you're able to lower the flame back down. I tend to use water, I tend to think of the pain as something washing over me that it's like rain or bucket of water that hits my body but then dissipates. Whatever visualization you choose, I think the key is to translate the physical sensation of the pain into a mental map that you can use to dissipate and release the pain that you're experiencing. Method Seven is to use music and rhythm. I generally like music with a strong beat when I am beating someone, whether that's dance music or anything, house music, something whereas there's a good thumpa thumpa thumpa what that does for me as the top is it allows me to sync myself to that beat so I don't have to pay quite as much attention to my rhythm doesn't mean I get boring, right? I can syncopate I can switch up my beat, but it gives me a place to place the beatings for the person I am beating, they are allowed to avoid anticipatory clenching, because they don't have to wonder when the pain is coming, it comes with the beat. And when you know it comes with the beat, it becomes easier to process. Not only do not have to clench in anticipation, but you can release the pain into the music itself. Aid channel it find a connection eye contact is a fantastic one. That's why I like to beat inner thighs because I can maintain eye contact. But it might also be through kinetic energy or Sonic energy as we've discussed already. The key is that you don't want to hold on to the pain when you hold on to the pain. It hurts more. You have to put it somewhere lakes, so you can channel it into the eye contact, you can channel it into thrashing and writhing against your bonds, you can put it into your screens, that channel becomes an exit point for the mental sensation of the pain, not the physical sensation, but the mental sensation. Finally, the ninth method is pretty simple. Know your limits. SM is not a contest, what you can handle is perfectly okay. So know your limits and communicate them beforehand. And during the scene, you also need to know whether or not pain tends to impair you. And that means you need to know whether or not you really get high on endorphins. Because there are men I play with, who have such a flood of endorphins that they don't know when to tell me to stop, I have to pay very close attention to them because I could take them past the point of pain into damage, simply because they're so high on their body's own chemicals so impaired, that they're unable to communicate to me when they've really reached their limits. If you know you have a tendency to do that, that's a very important thing to communicate to the person you're playing with. As a general summary, pain always hurts. The goal is to not pay attention to the hurting, to not mind that it hurts to give into the hurt to treasure the hurt. That's part of the magic that creates the transformation of pain into pleasure, mentally, if not actually physically. Always breathe. Always keep your body as relaxed as possible. Always put the pain someplace through a mental visualization through a reaction through a response. Don't hold on to the pain. Some general tips on painting before the scene as with any scene, make sure you communicate. That means talking about what types of pain you've experienced what you might like to experience if you are inclined to sting your 30. If you have particular processing quirks. Also talk about your limits and whether or not you might become impaired. And you should really get to know your top and tops. This is for you to write, let's think about this. Any pain scene should build pain, slowly. Any pain scene should build pain slowly. You don't start at level 10 You start very light, you build up, you back off a little bit, you build up, you back off a little bit, you build up, you take a break, you start even lower, build up, back up, build up back up. That's how you reach limits. And that's how you move past them. During the scene, it's also important to communicate. And some tops might use a red yellow green system or might have a safe word. Otherwise, you want to make sure that you're very least communicative with your whole body so that the top knows where you are. I play with men, what I've learned penis tells me nothing hard penis soft penis, that gives me no indication. I look at breathing sounds, body movements. Those are the ways I begin to understand where you are within your limits during the scene, remember, are their party always has the right to stop the scene at any time for any reason. After the scene considering processing it with your partner, what worked, what didn't, what you might want more of what you really loved what you didn't like, and that counts for both people. After the scene aftercare is also critical for both parties when I'm the top. My first priority is to make sure that I take care of the bottom that means obviously releasing them from any restraints, getting them water, putting them in a comfortable position. If there's significant bruising, I'm making an ice pack, checking on them, holding them, talking to them, comforting them. But bottoms keep in mind tops also need aftercare and that our aftercare may look very different than yours, in part because I'm busy giving it to you first. For me, I can tap into some really dark energies in a scene in order to really fuel the beatings that I'm doing. And sometimes what I need after the scene is to be alone, because I don't want that shit spilling out accidentally after the scene. I'm aware of what my aftercare needs are. And as a top I feel it's my primary responsibility to practice my own self care. What I need from my partner is to support me in that and those are my tips for processing pain and exploring pain scenes. If you're new to this journey, I hope you'll give it a try with someone that you care about or someone that you trust, or ideally someone that you trust and care about. For everyone else. I hope perhaps this knowledge will help you continue on your journey. I'm here with Vince Vince, welcome to full cow.

Vince: 30:04

Hey, thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Edge : 30:08

Oh my god, I'm so excited to have you here. So to start, can you tell us your pronouns and how you identify in the community?

Vince: 30:15

Absolutely. So I like to say use he him pronouns, but the royal we will also suffice. And identify as a switch within the community, I would say, depending on the activity, I might be more top or more bottom, but it just kind of like to have fun and do everything. And if I can't do it, I usually try it at least three times.

Edge : 30:36

That's a good rule of thumb.

Vince: 30:38

I will get that red hanky eventually.

Edge : 30:42

I'd be happy to help you with that. Very, very,

Vince: 30:46

various collapsible hands.

Edge : 30:48

A very collapsible, that's another episode. So we're talking about pain in this episode. And pain is normally something we try to avoid. So can you start by telling us how you discovered it was something you'd like?

Vince: 31:05

Absolutely. So I have a bit of an interesting relationship to pain because it started off as something that I was an absolutely not put it in my profiles that I don't want it. If someone even suggested it, I would run screaming in the other direction. TLDR that kind of went out the window, I found a scene that was really hot and got me interested. And then I wanted to explore it more. But to be a little bit more verbose. I had an experience in college with a DOM in the college town who wanted to do SM with me. And I went in there just curious, and I just wasn't ready for it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it was anything that the DOM did. I just wasn't ready for that experience. And as such didn't enjoy it. And that's kind of what prompted the years of this isn't for me, I definitely don't want it don't spank me, don't do anything, don't touch me. Fast forward a few years, and I started getting interested in bondage because I thought rope was rope work was really beautiful. And started going to leather discussions is if anyone knows the leather men's discussion group based here out of San Francisco, it's a large group of YouTube recorded conversations and demos about kink, and generally about kink awareness and health and those sorts of things. So I started going more to these events in these workshops. And I saw a flogging demo that was absolutely electric watching the chemistry unfold between the two participants, one of whom would eventually end up becoming one of my current partners, was absolutely astounding. And I left that experience going that I want to try that that was so different from what I had in college. And so I approached my partner at the time, I had an amazing mustache. And I said, Hello, sir. You know, I'm doing this Letterman's discussion group mentoring program. I am looking to try new things. And that was really hot. Would you flog me? And he said, Well, let's let's talk about it. Let's talk about it a little bit first. And after that, we had a conversation at a cafe. Our first date was him beating my thighs with a blackjack, which was not what I asked for, or what we had previously discussed. But I just remember screaming out midway through the session, why do I like this? And that the rest is history. That was that was kind of the start of me appreciating pain as a sensation, rather than just the scary thing that I thought I wouldn't like.

Edge : 33:42

I love that story. Because of course, I love to beat inner thighs. And I love that was the hook that brought you back into pain. So thank you for sharing that absolutely. Also love. I love the Letterman's discussion group. And because part of what your story also stresses is the importance of these sorts of entryways for people to get into the community that are the bar that are an app, but really allow them a kind of safe space to explore, ask questions and learn. And I'm so grateful you have that available to you.

Vince: 34:13

Oh, and it was interesting, too, because I felt very intimidated by the leather community. I would say I'm very type A and have the the bad quality of if I'm not immediately good at something, I don't want to do it. Right. So I have that that asymptotic barrier to get over to just get to doing the thing. So LDG offers a several month long, I think I want to say it's nine months, but it's been several years mentoring program, where they pair you up with someone in the community who's been around the block for 10 plus years, and mentor you once a month. They have regular meetings, and that really is what gave me the confidence to start going to these things and approaching them. So SFL DG, it's a really great organization and they have a lot of programs that are the really necessary and needed?

Edge : 35:02

Yeah, I will put in some links to that. I know you said you had a YouTube, they have a YouTube channel. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. So I will hunt that down and so people can check that out. And I also love that the program you described is something that can be replicated in other cities. It's a great model, this non predatory mentorship model where it's really just about mentoring and not about anything else.

Vince: 35:27

I mean, that happens but what are you going to gay men are gonna be gay man, right. You can only you can only do so much.

Edge : 35:34

That's how we got to monkeypox people. That's how we got to monkeypox. So tell me if you can what's going on in your head during a pain scene? Are there techniques you're using to process the pain? Or you focus on a particular verbal script? Or how do you Where does your head go during pain?

Vince: 35:52

Yeah, so I do not identify as a pain pig. I don't think I'm gonna I'm not someone who you can turn my back into hamburger meat as it were. And I have been single tailed I enjoy single tail breaking skin a bit is okay. So I you know, I like walking away with marks and a little bit of blood. But you can't go as heavy with me as you might go with some other folks. And I realized the fact that I even do single tail for some people is like holy shit. You know, I would never do that. But that is kind of my starting point. I tend to like 30 things. I can do stinky a little bit. So but I don't consider myself someone who just likes pain for the sake of pain. Or gets off on challenging How much can you hurt me? So for me, one of my fun party tricks that I like to pull out at leather events is to ask how many people in the room were raised Catholic. And then the other half are, you know, you get half the room and the other half are invariably like Mormon, right? Or something along those lines. And so I happen to fall into the group of folks who were raised Catholic. And so for me, looking at pain as a sensation. I, for whatever reason, have this penance headspace associated with it. And so I go into a place where I am atoning for maybe things that I've done or deserving of the punishment, letting all of that Catholic guilt wash over me. And going into that headspace, for me is really great, because it allows me to go farther, and depending on with the partner, so with Bob, my my partner with whom I do mostly SM stuff. It allows him to eventually break me right, which is a huge catharsis. I can start crying, I can let out all of the the frustrations I have. And then I feel great. And I love that love that feeling. So I kind of chased that. That endorphin high, that catharsis, that emotional catharsis, through kind of dealing with trauma from my, my Catholic upbringing.

Edge : 37:57

No, absolutely. You know, in the second segment, for this episode, I talked about the various scripts people have in their head around pain. And one of those is that sort of, I deserve it. And and it isn't necessarily a negative thing in terms of mental health, it can actually be a great tool for processing all sorts of things from childhood. But it's critical that like, the person you're playing with, knows your script. So they're not giving you the like, the wrong message that conflicts your script, you know, that gets a little confusing.

Vince: 38:23

And it doesn't even have to be verbal, right. So for me, it's less working out, maybe things that happened in my childhood, and more, I think, as adults, we find, we all make mistakes. And forgiving yourself can sometimes be the hardest part of that. And I find this as a way to justify, in my in my head, how I can come to forgive myself for those things. And so that that's really interesting. But people have all sorts of things, you know, envisioning. I think that for my first scene I that I did, I read online that people envision the sensation as rays of light that come off of your body as your as your stroked. And so I did that. And I still go back to that occasionally moderating my breathing, obviously modulating that, things like that there are million ways you can conceptualize it, and I am by no means the sole authority on how one ought to

Edge : 39:19

now but I also think in sort of rooting this in, in early childhood religion, you're also pointing to the spiritual potential of SM in general, and would you have you had spiritual experiences through pain play? Or what was that like?

Vince: 39:34

Have I had spiritual experiences through pain play? That's a good question. Let's say the closest I get to spiritual these days. Now as someone who identifies as an atheist, is the connectedness I feel with my community, being connected to whether it's my partner whether it's close friends and lovers, right? We are intimate friends quiffs, as my therapist calls them, being connected to those people and feeling an overwhelming sense of love for them and appreciation that oh my god, especially living in San Francisco, I get to live somewhere with a huge density of people who I love. And I can walk to their houses and see them and have these really deep, vulnerable experiences. That to me is I think the closest I get to a connectedness or a spirituality. And of course, that comes in spades with things like SM and pain.

Edge : 40:32

And I do think the point of spirituality is connection. So I love that you're identifying that as your closest manifestation of the spiritual. You started by talking about a kind of bad well, not bad experience and experience you didn't love? Have you had bad pain scenes? And? And then what was that? Like? How did you cope with the scene or the aftermath?

Vince: 40:59

Yeah, that's a really good question. So the the person with whom I had the first experience is actually a friend of mine, we have stayed in touch, we don't really play anymore, but that certainly that experience did not preclude us from becoming friends. And now we're great friends and stay in touch, which I think is really, really, really great. I have to say, I've been a bit spoiled, being living coming of age, essentially here, because I've gotten to play with some world class players who all really know what they're doing. It is amazing, though, sometimes, no matter how good someone is, sometimes the chemistry between two people is just not, not there. And it's not that they're not technically skilled as a rope top, I consider myself extremely technically skilled. Sometimes the chemistry just doesn't work out with the bottom. And other times, you know, you do what you think was a mediocre scene, and someone comes back and says, Oh, my God, that was the best scene I've ever had in my life. And you're like, Oh, okay. You say if you like it, I love it. So I've certainly had those experiences where the chemistry just didn't really match up. Maybe their headspace was a different place than where I was coming from. Or, for example, it got a little too deep in Father, Son, then maybe I necessarily wanted to for for that activity, right? If you fuck me, and we want to do daddy boy roleplay sounds great. Not necessarily where I go for pain. And those, I've had a couple of those experiences with, with really good players, where, for me, I don't necessarily let them get to the breaking point that I mentioned earlier. Right. So that catharsis is what is the ultimate feeling of connection for me, being able to let go and be fully vulnerable. Not every pain scene that I have gets to that point. Sometimes it's just yeah, you're going to beat my back for a while, I'm going to make some good screams and make some good noises. And then I'm going to call it and say, Okay, let's go fuck. Now, let's go do something else. So that's how I've processed them. Sometimes I will push through just to get through the scene. And don't you know, don't want to make the top feel bad, because I know my own limits and feel comfortable doing that. But those are, those are some of the strategies I use either transitioning the scene gently into something else, or getting through it, and getting to a point where I think the top is satisfied and being able to then transition to something afterward.

Edge : 43:20

Although it's worth noting that anyone can always end a scene for any reason at any time.

Vince: 43:26

Absolutely. And that's is solely my comfort level. And it's funny, when I when I first started tapping my partner, you know, the big, big leather daddy, with all the experience, part of what was great about it is he's like, you're not going to hurt me, just let you know, I'm kind of indestructible, I'm good for you to make mistakes on. And now having been in the community for a while, I'm kind of in the same place where I know how to handle this. I know how to process it. I feel comfortable kind of just the Japanese were just coming to me. But I can't think of the English word persevering. Like persevering through what I'm going through, and, and being okay with it. But absolutely, you know, in my earlier days, I would just ask people to stop like I did with that, that very first encounter.

Edge : 44:11

Actually, what what I find brilliant about what you've just said, is it made me think, you know, we have a very common notion of a service top who just sort of, you know, I'm going to do this to you, because I know you need it, even though I'm not really into it at this moment. But what you're kind of describing as a service bottom, who sort of like, All right, yeah, you want to give me some more, it's gonna be fine. I can take it I'm not fully connected, but I'm gonna let you do your thing. And that's, you know, it's a different kind of service bottom. We normally think of service, but I think it's a really brilliant concept that you're kind of introducing there.

Vince: 44:42

I think that's an important distinction, right? I'm usually not as a as someone who does service bottom in the traditional sense. There are some times where I'm getting off on the pleasure that I'm bringing the top that's usually not what's Yeah, I can try and access that headspace but that's usually not where I go if I I'm not enjoying a scene. So I try to reconceptualize things in ways that will be positive, but it just sometimes doesn't work. And I think that's also, since I've introduced it something that I have used as I explore kink this idea of I'm going to try and understand what people like about this thing. You know, with pain, initially, I didn't like it. But there was a part of me that said, people love this, people get off on this, and people have been doing it for hundreds, if not 1000s of years. There's something about it that I'm not, I'm not getting. And I want to understand. So that's why I say out, you know, I kind of try anything multiple times just to see if I can re contextualize it in my head and get to where to appreciate what other people see.

Edge : 45:47

Fantastic. And, you know, you you did point out how really privileged you are to be sitting in the heart of this sort of SM capital. But what advice would you have for people who might be interested in exploring pain? Who aren't living in San Francisco maybe aren't living in the big city at all? Like, what what wisdom can you pass on to them that they might use in exploration?

Vince: 46:12

So I think the common answers you'll get are to go online, right? Go on recon, find the guy that's 30 miles away and the next town over and that him see if anyone has played with him those sorts of things, I think a more uncommon suggestion, which I would like to provide to the audience outside of Yes, of course, you can always go online and try and let people try and connect travel to Big Gay events like claw or Mao or IML, things of that nature. The other alternative, I would suggest is actually look toward the pan community. The gay community is obviously limited. But in these smaller towns or smaller cities, there's often a pan community that's well established, very close nearby. And as a rope top, as I was getting into the scene, even in San Francisco, there aren't many folks who do traditional Keane buchu. Or you Americans call it Shabari. Right. And so I started looking toward the pan community and I got tied up by men and women who ostensibly identify as straight. For most intensive purposes, straight ish. I took lessons from them, I sometimes played with them, not in the same way that I would play with other gay men who I'm sexually attracted to, but in ways that were still rewarding and good experiences for me. And I'm really thankful for that. So I think outside of the typical travel or go with the app route, try and see if there's a pan community, a pan Kin Community nearby and don't necessarily be afraid to play with folks that you aren't necessarily attracted to, or are the gender that you traditionally have sex with.

Edge : 47:52

That is such a brilliant suggestion. And for me, it's brilliant for so many reasons. It's about that ally ship across sort of these Outcast communities and building those bridges across these divides. It's also about the fact that kink isn't really about the genitals unless you're doing something like CDTs that, you know, even if the genitals doesn't match, you know, a flogger is a flogger, and I've also found you know, different sexual communities have different takes on play like cigar play in the heterosexual community is much more service oriented and less about smoking ash. But Heterosexuals are also like when they do knife play. They're out to draw blood and

Vince: 48:31

oh my god, lesbian, the meanest knife players lesbians, Jesus Christ.

Edge : 48:37

Well, I, when I was coming up, like blood was such, I mean, I came out at the height of the epidemic epidemic and blood was such a line not to cross for gays. And so to sort of sort of move into these other communities that have done things we've done in different ways. And to learn from that is really brilliant suggestion, and it really does expand your pool. So thank you for sharing that.

Vince: 48:55

Absolutely. And I would just echo that, right. Like my experience within the at this point, I've been to a lot of Pan events, they just operate very differently than how gay events do in their rules and their vibe in the way that people connect in the drama that's caused, right? straight straight community dramas, very different than gay drama. So that's, it's a little interesting to be an alien to, you know, a third party looking into that community getting to participate it in my own special way. And they've, I've certainly been nothing but welcomed. I shouldn't say that. I've been for the most part. What very welcome at the events that I've gone to, but they are very different vibes. And sometimes they aren't always the most friendly to how gay men might connect. Meaning there might not always be there might not always be fucking genital intercourse, which is for SM like you said, not necessarily a bad thing.

Edge : 49:53

It's not necessarily and I will echo that the events I've been to. They have been super welcoming and are often if they're branding of substance pansexual they're often pretty hungry to have some gay boys there to really, because you know, homosexuals don't be afraid of vaginas. vaginas are not scary. But we tend to avoid any place where we might accidentally see a naked woman. And so, you know, the events I've gone to they're, like, thrilled that I'm there and participating.

Vince: 50:17

Yeah, I mean, I that's, I think that's a conversation for another episode. I have a lot of thoughts about that. But generally, I tend to follow along the lines of I've had a lot of similar response, oh, my God, we've been trying to get more gay men to our event. And my answer, at this point, being fair, pretty experienced what the community is just like, don't don't evangelize, just create a welcoming space. And if the gay men want to come, the gay men will come, there is no secret to getting more gay men at your event, other than for someone to have a good experience and seek you out and then evangelize to others. Your promotion is not necessarily going to even land well. Even if you do get folks you might not get them come their expectations might be misaligned. So

Edge : 51:02

well, and I think you've just really pointed out, you've already kind of done a kind of evangelizing and suggesting that if you don't have access to the major community, and you can't get to claw or dark lands, that that these aren't good spaces to at least check out and explore. It's a really good option. I think it's a brilliant suggestion. Yeah. And people

Vince: 51:20

are people, right? And they're horny and and kinky and kinky. Everyone likes a little little Spanky and

Edge : 51:30

wonderful. I'm so grateful you've joined us, this has been such a fantastic conversation. I'm really, really thankful that you've been able to share so much of your experience with people. So thanks for coming on the show.

Vince: 51:41

Absolutely. It's been an honor to be invited and thanks for letting me participate.

Edge : 51:49

And that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining me, please consider subscribing or you can send feedback to edge at forecast dot show. As always, may your leather journey be blessed