Rough Sex

[kavih]

I couldn't find a proper topic to place this question under, so I'm placing it here.

 

I do not enjoy rough sex (receiving or giving), so it has been extremely hard for me to understand how and why someone would enjoy it and whether it is a problem. I know there are varying degrees of "rough" and varying degrees of intensity of the roughness. I'm referring to any of the following: spanking, hair pulling, biting, or choking, at any intensity.

 

I just can't understand someone wanting to do any of these or enjoying these being done to them. If I were to guess, it probably has something to do with childhood trauma relating to sex (molestation, rape, etc.), but that's just my guess. What do you think and do you think this is a problem that should be resolved prior to getting into a relationship with someone? In other words, do you think (through therapy or some other ways) that this can be "fixed" or will that person always be incompatible for someone like me?

 

Note: I'm not currently dating or seeing anyone with this desire, but it has come up a couple times with past partners and with reading online dating profiles.

[PatrickC]

Yes, I've known some women that have enjoyed a bit of roughness in the bedroom dept. Mind you, as you suggest, it's often by degrees. I don't always think it's necessarily a trauma thing. After all sex can be quite a powerful and urgent event for a couple, which can lead to quite passionate and athletic sex.

 

As a rule of thumb, anyone that enjoys humiliation or unusual levels of pain during sex more often than not should probably explore their reasons for this. I'd say childhood trauma would be a reasonable guess for this preference. The same goes for those that prefer to inflict humiliation and unusual levels of pain as well.

 

All said and done there is nothing immoral about the preference, if it's consential of course.

[Bouncelot]

I have discussed this in the past with a few female friends who admitted to enjoying it. None were without some past trauma, however none had a history of sexual or physical abuse (that they admitted to). For them is was mostly mild choking, and they enjoyed doing the biting "in the heat of passion".

The choking thing has been explained to me as "feeling the mans strength", more of a primal thing, as I suppose the biting would be as well. Could just be a throwback to the monkey brain.

[Pepin]

There are neurological arguments that could be made, as love and aggression seem to be in the same part of the brain, but I'm not quite qualified for that.

 

I think it could have been useful from an evolutionary point of view to have mechanisms which would allow for pleasure from aggression. Non-consensual sex is common in many species, and genes don't really care how you were impregnated. If not resisting rape increases the frequency of an individual's genes, then circuits for not resisting would be favored, and circuits which would even make the experience pleasurable would be likely emerge. People gaining pleasure from rough sex might simply be responding to a supernormal stimuli.

 

There is also what I will call the roller coaster effect, where doing things that would usually be dangerous in a safe setting can induce a lot of interesting sensations. Many people might do it because it is safe. Of course, there are those who like the thrill of danger, similar to those who go cliff jumping.

 

Nothing too kinky, but a girl once dug her nails into my back while I was climaxing. It was very interesting because it hurt  but also felt so good. If my skin wasn't so sensitive and didn't get itchy after, I wouldn't mind that again. Spankings and some hair pulling can also feel good. Pouring candle wax on me would also feel good, I know this because I've done this to myself for fun, though it wasn't sexual.

 

A girl wanted me to do some light choking with her, which I was uncomfortable with. There was a bit of temptation to do so because it would give me a feeling of power, but it would be kind of weird. Ironically, I think you have to be pretty close to someone for them to want you to choke them.

 

I do think that there is a line where it crosses into childhood disfunction, but I also think that a lot of this might just be exploiting circuits which just happen to be in our brains, with some people having greater dispositions. Perhaps I have a slight bias, but I think some pain play like light spankings and scratching might be within the healthy range, with the more extreme stuff being less healthy. There are some things like blindfolds and being tied up I think are pretty straight forward as to why people get enjoyment out of them.

[kavih]

I would like to hear Stefan talk about this on the show. I'll add it to the mailbag. Thanks for your insight and opinions, guys.

[DaviesMa]

If women like rough sex then it suggests that at least in certain circumstances there was an advantage to it.

 

Just some speculations on some genetic advantages:

• More dominant men are less likely to be considerate, (power corrupts) therefore it may be a mating signal that the man is high status.
• Women may have developed a reflexive arousal to rough foreplay to prevent damage during non consensual sex. It may be that women piggyback this reflex to enhance their pleasure. (If she is going to be raped anyway, then best to minimise the damage.)
• It may have been dangerous not to submit to forced sex, which may also have programmed a reflex.
• In a tribal setting, only the most dominant of men may have been able to force himself on a woman without having other men attack him or white knight the woman, therefore it may have been advantageous to have the alpha male's genes. It may also have been ideal for the women to keep an existing provider male from blaming her and still providing for her by putting up credible resistance and claiming victimhood.

 

It makes sense that if the woman's biology believes that she is in a traumatic environment and that pair bonding is less likely that she would be more inclined to want the benefits of an Alpha male and that non consensual sex would be a more effective reproductive strategy, therefore ironically, would be more desirable from a genetic point of view. 

 

From personal experience, a lot of women like to be slapped and thrown about but I do get the sense that the more insecure the woman, the more she likes rough sex.

[LovePrevails]

Rough sex is not my favourite but I think all of the woman who I have been with have wanted or expected it at least some of the time.

That makes me think it is a very mainstream preference.

[Livemike]

Oxygen deprivation also increases sexual feeling.  This has been known for some time, as has the risks.  Auto-erotic asphyxiation has led to many deaths.  Anyone adding choking to their sexplay should be very careful.

[TheSchoolofAthens]

Personally, I love rough sex. I was uncomfortable with it at first, but my girlfriend has gotten me into it. Just because I was initially uncomfortable with it doesn't mean it is a good or bad thing. I was uncomfortable with giving her my first romantic kiss ever, but it turned into something amazing with a million more kisses to follow. I was uncomfortable with the idea of teaching a preschool class at a church because of obvious religious reasons, I did it anyway and it made me a much better person, but I still ended up uncomfortable. 

As others have said, I see no problem with rough sex. Spanking, hair pulling, biting, squeezing, nail digging, pounding, slapping, choking, etc. can make for incredible sex so long as both parties consent. Now of course, there is sex which both parties might consent to but could still be very questionable. There are people who do sexual acts which are just disgusting in my mind, such as doing things with feces and throw up - good god no! I think the real issue is when a person wants to be humiliated and degraded, or when someone wants to humiliate and degrade someone else. To seriously want to be hurt or to seriously want to hurt someone should be a huge red flag. I would stay away from it, or if already romantically involved, do some serious probing and possibly consider therapy or seeing another professional.

For those who want to get into rough sex, or who have partners that want to get into it, I encourage you to do so! But do so at a pace which you are happy with, if she (or he) says she wants it a little rough, ask her if she wants some light choking, maybe she will tell you to squeeze harder, or lighter, just be very mindful and considerate of each others and it should be fun. 

edit: I really enjoyed reading some of the evolutionary/biological theories as to why some people may like rough sex. I never thought about a woman wanting the alpha male genes and therefore liking rough sex because historically the alpha male was probably the strongest, all around roughest guy. I also thought it was a good point to say that maybe woman have evolved to enjoy rough sex because rape was common, as unfortunate as that may be, animals rape quite a bit - well, I am no expert on that, but I have seen ducks go crazy and just pounce on female ducks (in a flock mind you) just to have sex. So in my amateur opinion, that makes sense. 

[aviet]

Rough sex is about marking territory and establishing a pecking order. Its obvious from watching animals where, often sexualised, attacks are used to establish a submissive-dominant social hierarchy. For example, rabbits will hump each other to establish who is dominant. Assuming a dominant position by these ritualised attacks leads to privileges, such as first rights to food etc. These sort of rituals are not always male on female, though across species males no doubt assume more dominant positions. And they are not necessity fixed. As within human hierarchies, todays alpha can be de-throned and a beta arise to take its place. Thus if you have reciprocal sexual violence, i.e. he chokes her, she throws him over and slaps him about. I'm not 100% sure what can be read into that, but obviously both are seeking a sense of dominance over the other. My guess is that most rough sex is one way as that would mirror other areas where one partner will typically dominate.

I don't think a desire for rough sex should be read as necessarily as childhood abuse, or that ball park. This is natural, base animal behaviour. I would argue, in line with Kavih's sentiments. that a desire to engage in rough sex is simply a manifestation of primeval, reactionary drives and a repulsion of such acts means that your higher through facilities have won out over these drives.

I would put rough sex in a similar mental space to bullying, which achieves the same goal: submissive-dominant relationships, but without such an overtly sexual malaise. In school, acts of bullying I remember include:

Physical assaults with: pointed compasses, padded baseball bats, snapped off ends of snooker cues
Being pushed down into a corner and farted on
Being rolled down a flight of stairs in a dustbin
"Nipple cripples"
Verbal jokes with the aim of humiliation

Bullying is just sado-masochism with clothes on.

As for the reason some people "like" being submissive, I believe this is also of primeval origin. If you are being dominated sexually by an alpha, this shows the recipient the strength of the alpha and that brings with it a certain amount of security in a world where other animals may come in the night and want to do much worse things to you.

My view of this is the same as any other area of life where one partner may seek to dominate the other - it's unhealthy. If one partner seeks to stop their other from seeing their friends, I am sure everyone on the forum would agree this is selfish and unprincipled. But seemingly some think that the sexual manifestation of the same sort of drives is fun an exhilarating.

[Mothra]

I couldn't find a proper topic to place this question under, so I'm placing it here.

 

I do not enjoy rough sex (receiving or giving), so it has been extremely hard for me to understand how and why someone would enjoy it and whether it is a problem. I know there are varying degrees of "rough" and varying degrees of intensity of the roughness. I'm referring to any of the following: spanking, hair pulling, biting, or choking, at any intensity.

 

I just can't understand someone wanting to do any of these or enjoying these being done to them. If I were to guess, it probably has something to do with childhood trauma relating to sex (molestation, rape, etc.), but that's just my guess. What do you think and do you think this is a problem that should be resolved prior to getting into a relationship with someone? In other words, do you think (through therapy or some other ways) that this can be "fixed" or will that person always be incompatible for someone like me?

 

Note: I'm not currently dating or seeing anyone with this desire, but it has come up a couple times with past partners and with reading online dating profiles.

 

I didn't see any other women respond so I thought I'd throw this out there. I'm also uncomfortable with rough sex. The idea of violence, sexual or otherwise, makes me uneasy to say the least. I don't have any problem with aggressive or athletic sex, such as throwing a person around on a bed, yanking legs in a particular direction, or pinning someone's arms down. But I think there is a line that gets crossed once you start slapping, spanking, or choking. As long as this occurs between consenting adults, I see no moral problems with it, but I can't help but think this isn't the healthiest approach to sex.

 

I'm frankly surprised by the other posts saying that they have experiences with a fair amount of women who were into this sort of thing. Of course I was also surprised to learn just how common parental abuse was, so maybe I just have no perspective on what "normal" is. I would be interested to know the histories of both men and women who either enjoy rough sex (giving or receiving) or do not. The evolutionary theory seems logical enough, but I suspect there's more to the story.

[kavih]

I would be interested to know the histories of both men and women who either enjoy rough sex (giving or receiving) or do not. The evolutionary theory seems logical enough, but I suspect there's more to the story.

I would be just as interested.

[Alice Amell]

Speaking for myself, I have not had rough sex so I can't say whether I would enjoy it or not but it is a fantasy of mine and I do want to try it. The thought of getting spanked or tied down or slapped around is a turn on. I consider myself a submissive person. I did have role play talks (texting) with one guy I which he wanted to be dominated. I thought it weird at first since my preference was to be dominated but I sort of liked role-playing it. It was nice to bring pleasure to him. Guys have rape fantasies too I learned.

 

As for my history, I never was hit as a kid. I would say I was emotional abused as a teen but not by my parents. I like the evolutionary theory about it though its possible I am trying to reenact that abuse in a safe controlled environment.

[LookupukooL]

I'm not sure if i'm adding something of weight to this conversation but what about thinking about sex as a medium?  A medium as in Sex is just another human behavior that takes advantages of the usual range of ancillary features of human psychology.  In a movie, you want to play around with violence, tension, release, mystery, as you do when you write music.  Sex, i think, gets a bad rap.  I wonder if its assumed that because sex is primal and functional it isn't a proper "Art" that behaves as other art forms do.  (taking advantage of various colors and tones of the human psychology).  

perhaps, i'm just playing with words, but if you conceptualize sex in this way it sort of alleviates you are the task of finding evolutionary motives for each and every little sexual proclivity.  just a thought?

[Leevan]

I've found that the idea of rough sex is a lot more appealing than the actual act. Depending on what you're doing, it turns out to be awkward or painful most of the time. (This is, however, from a homosexual perspective. Perhaps the vagina is more receptive and derives more pleasure from a battering.)

[shirgall]

There is a (at least Western) cultural meme that "primal" means "rough". However, I think what underlies satisfaction is a mindfulness of cause, effect, and long-term results and empathy (and a little curiosity) on what is going on with one's partner's same process. In the heterosexual system, one does not exactly know what is going on with one's partner (and, frankly, it is not helped in that partners vary a great deal in what they like).

[Delightful Might]

I like reading it, but not so much doing it!  I'm with Leevan.  Like when you think one of those rope-y trapeze things will be so sexy--I was everywhere, like a scrambling cat on a skating rink!! Haa haa  

[Mister Mister]

I think it's important to note that most sex in the animal kingdom is what we might term "rough".  Most mammals engage in some sort of male competition, the female selects the winner, and he mounts her doggy style, humps away hard and fast, ejaculates, and dismounts.  Having sex facing one another, kissing, touching, foreplay, emphasis of female orgasms, are all uniquely human as far as I know.  The tradition of sexual tantra from the East is all about slowing and prolonging the experience, which they would say "transmutes" the base animal energies into higher spiritual ones or something like that.  I can say that in my experience, going more slowly makes it better for both parties, and that you feel the orgasm in your brain and whole body, rather than just your balls.

  To be honest, I think rough sex is preferred for both genders who don't understand the nuances of human sexuality.  So doing it hard and fast is easier for them to have an orgasm, but not necessarily the best.  Also of course it is easier to have rough sex than slow passionate sex with someone you don't care about.

[Frosty]

Something that has been on my mind recently, even though I'm now essentially celibate my last sexual encounter(s) was with someone who wanted rougher sex and talked about it, although how rough things got were mild given a wide range of what humans are capable of, just mild hair pulling some choking, no striking or humiliation though. All consensual of course.

 

My thoughts on this are scattered, I don't think that it's all from prior abuse but I do certainly think it can be triggered by it. There are women who I've talked with who have been through abuse and who consider their sexual desires to be in some way linked to abuse, in fact I read an op-ed piece by a woman admitting to these fantasies among others and having little doubt in her mind they're linked to prior abuse.

 

There are also other women who just love the idea and claim no prior abuse (whether that's true or not is hard to say). What we do know is that when studied, women report high levels of rape fantasy (it being the most common fantasy) and being out of control or ravished, and vice versa for men where we tend to prefer to display dominance and do the ravishing. So even just at the level of fantasy there's definitely a dimorphic and seemingly natural occurrence of it in at least fantasy, whether you dabble with this in real life probably has more to do with your level of risk taking and ability to step outside of your comfort zone.

 

I settled on what I think is a fair assessment that even if it is caused by prior abuse, that shouldn't be a problem if it remains consensual and both parties get something out of it, you can't really help what you enjoy and you shouldn't be ashamed of it.

 

Separately there's the consideration for can this be a red flag for prior abuse, well possibly, but what matters here is what untreated abuse can do to peoples actions and mentality in a relationship, getting into a relationship with someone who has suffered abuse and never dealt with it could be dangerous, but it seems plausible to me you could deal with the abuse and be a healthy person but retain the sexual desires.

 

I also think it's possible that abuse might be an introduction to sexual play which someone was too afraid try or unaware of as having positive stimuli (among the negative) and while the force was originally unwanted they may find future consensual sex play more fun. An analogy might be that you force me to eat a flavour of ice cream that I've never tried before, while the force is obviously immoral, if I enjoy the flavour, I might decide to go back and try that again in future. Does that mean I like that flavour because I was forced? No not really, it just means I discovered something positive through a negative experience.

 

When it comes to not understanding why other people get off on it, it might party be to being sheltered from a wider range of human behaviour and lacking in experience and willingness to give that kind of sexual play a chance. It might also be if you're clinging to a sort of blue pill fairy-tale vision of women on a pedestal, if your view of women is that they're gentle petals then this will obviously be contradictory in your world view, in reality some women (and men, although less so) really get off to being thrown around the bedroom, being struck, chocked and it can be kind of hard to believe until you've experienced it first hand and she's getting more sexually excited as you get rougher.

 

It may also be something you have to be introduced to slowly, it took me years of sexual exploration before any of this finally sat right with me, definitely becoming red pilled helped, it's just part of having a wider range of human experiences, pushing out of your comfort zone is something people tend to do slowly, if kids are into BDSM at like the age of 16 I'd be more worried for example. It's not exactly an unusual idea though, some people love horror movies, that's not exactly what you'd call a pleasant experience but it helps you broaden your perspective on the world. When I was young I used to be terrified of the movie gremlins which looks stupid now I've had a broader range of experiences with horror movies.

 

Now I've kind of flipped over I actually kind of hope that if I ever break from being celibate that my next sexual partner is into rough play because that's something I've gone from being indifferent about to excited to actually try, only with someone who reciprocally enjoys it of course.

 

*edit*

 

One last edit in this ramble. I've read before that sexual stimulation, especially over stimulation can require more extreme stimuli in future, of everything I've read it seems like novelty in sex play and porn are common tricks to encourage arousal in people who are less aroused by more vanilla sex. I think that is probably what lead me to my current interests in this topic more than anything else. Arousal after all is a trick of biology to encourage reproduction, in civilized society we enjoy sex purely for stimulation alone so it makes sense we'd easily over stimulate our mechanism for arousal, no different to over stimulating our pallets with high sugar drinks and alike.

[Tweak]

If you look at the nonverbal behavior of women they do signal submission and helplessness when trying to get attention from males also with the help of makeup. 

 

When women are angulating they show even more desire for deep manly voices and otherwise male behavior. 

 

It is my own theory that by the male being the dominant one in bed you are showing the woman that you are able to protect here. With the reasoning being that if you cant control her, how would you be able to control male enemies. Since a man the same size as a women is twice as strong.

 

My personal experience that I enjoy being the dominant one. If i were to be submissive in bed that would leave me to feel emasculated. 

 

For example one girlfriend I had asked me why I never slappt her as anymore, you know during the day, not during sex (I still did that). In hindsight I suspect I stopped doing this because I now had her and I felt like I no longer had to prove myself as being the dominant one.

 

However this she noticed and asked me why I stopped as if it was like I no longer loved her.

 

Maybe TS is just a feminized pushover or so comfortable in his manliness that he doesnt need to show dominant signals. Witch one it is I dont know. If he is, you are someone who does not need to be the dominant one in bed, well enjoy it. 

[PatrickC]

Stefan touches on this topic in this YT comment revolving around some women and their response to Fifty Shades of Grey. It's at the 7.52 region.

 

[kavih]

Stefan touches on this topic in this YT comment revolving around some women and their response to Fifty Shades of Grey. It's at the 7.52 region.

 

So then a deduction from what Stef said and with what RoseCodex brought up would be that women who grow up without fathers or who have become dependent on welfare will tend to expect (and enjoy?) rough sex. Further, this is because their primal brain either thinks they are in a time of war (no father) or they are poverty stricken, and in both cases, spray and pray (R reproductive strategy) is assumed. Does this sound right?

[PatrickC]

So then a deduction from what Stef said and with what RoseCodex brought up would be that women who grow up without fathers or who have become dependent on welfare will tend to expect (and enjoy?) rough sex. Further, this is because their primal brain either thinks they are in a time of war (no father) or they are poverty stricken, and in both cases, spray and pray (R reproductive strategy) is assumed. Does this sound right?

 

Yes, I'd say so. Traumatic childhoods are much more likely within single parent or divorced households. So it seems to predispose either sex from those kinds of histories for a spray and pray reproduction strategy. Rough sex might be the preferred type of sex for the females of this strategy because it's a quick way males can signal alpha status to them perhaps.

 

Of course this doesn't mean that all women that like a bit of rough sex all come from a traumatic history. There is propensity it seems for all women to enjoy being submissive generally when it comes to sex.

[PGP]

I heard a theory (and I cannot remember where from), that because women have the selective power in choosing a partner, that there is a tension in this for her. As men, we do the chasing (dynamics may be different in the young folks now, IDK). So, when women "give in" and submit to penetration there is a release of tension, alot of it maybe even subconscious. So, the degree to which a man screws the living daylights out of her, the tension is released and indeed there is a reciprocal relationship in how much the man wants her and this relates to her resistance and standards in choosing. The evolutionary function is still there physiologically but social imperative to choose wisely or sparingly is gone. Therefore, it may be that women will need more and more extreme sex, and more of it, to get the same simulated rush of a socially vestigial, physiological function that in the past was an advantage in sex selection.

I experienced this, I think, with a Mexican girl that was here learning english and hadn't had sex in a year. Always reminds me of the scene from Southpark when the cat is in heat, gets catnip and goes completely haywire. Another, tragic example, is a girl I lived with in college that literally needed me to pin her down and simulate forcing myself on her, for her to enjoy it. She had been sexually abused as a child, I found out toward the end of the relationship, such as it was. Another one of those dodged bullets.