The Rush of Pain

I remember the first time I felt something other than numb grief following the death of my mother. I was in bed with “Chris,” a guy I’d been dating casually, and he spanked me hard on the ass, without warning. The rush of pain and pleasure awakened something in me. I asked him to smack me harder, and I shrieked, ecstatic to finally feel something, even if it was just pain. Little did I know that a simple slap would trigger a fixation that saw me risk my job, my safety, and even my life.

Turned on, I asked Chris to smack me and throw me around. He seemed eager at first, but when I asked him to slap me across the face, he said, “I respect you too much for that.” Turned off, I quickly left his apartment and vowed never to see him again. For a while, I’d been using sex to escape the stress and mundanities of life, but after that night, I actively pursued men who enjoyed domination, humiliation, and inflicting pain. On dating apps, I frantically swiped right and would open conversations with: “Tell me your darkest sexual fantasy, I will pass no judgment.” Men flooded my inbox with dreams of choking, biting, and pain that made me tingle all over.

I met “Rob,” who was in town for one night, an hour after we matched on Tinder. When his first message said, “You look like a girl who needs to be punished,” I couldn’t call a cab to his hotel fast enough. When he opened the hotel room door, I unbuttoned my coat to reveal nothing but a bra and lace panties underneath. He pushed me to the ground, grabbed my hair, and dragged me across the cheap hotel carpet towards the bed. The harder he squeezed, pressed, or pulled at me, the louder I moaned.

When he ripped off my flimsy panties and stuffed them in my mouth, I knew I was in for a good time. Bent over the bed, with my face buried in the covers, I heard him unbuckle his belt and knew instinctively that he was going to whack me with it. The first thwack of the belt across my ass hit me like a jolt of electricity. I screamed into the covers, not only because it hurt but because I wanted more.

Rob spent the next half hour fucking me from every angle, repositioning limbs and yanking me around like a ragdoll. I was clawed, bitten, and bruised, but I loved every minute. We didn’t speak a word to each other, just exchanging looks and moans of pleasure. When he came, I grabbed my coat and left. I wasn’t interested in pillow talk; he’d given me everything I needed.

The next morning, I stood in front of my full-length mirror and examined Rob’s handiwork. I ran my hands over carpet burns, fresh scratches, and the red belt marks that felt warm to the touch.  I took pictures, scared that when the wounds healed, I would forget the sensation. I started an unintentional Pinterest board of pain on my camera roll that I could show future partners. This is what I like and need you to replicate.

I spent hours on dating apps scoping out potential partners. I flirted aggressively, sending nudes almost immediately. Looks weren’t important; I just needed someone comfortable using me as a human sex doll, who’d push through my pain threshold with minimal concern for my wellbeing. I’d been sexually submissive in the past, but this was different; I knew what I wanted – annihilation – and I wasn’t afraid to ask for it.

My obsession with chasing that pain high made me call in sick to work whenever an offer of sex came up. I even faked a migraine and walked out of the office in the middle of the day to have anal sex in a stranger’s car. When I did make it to work, I was distracted continuously as I relived my exploits in flashbacks when I brushed my raw, bruised body against a hard surface. My boss scheduled meetings to talk about my frequent absences, but I played the grief card. I didn’t care about work and thought if I did get fired, at least I’d have more time to devote to fucking.

The next few months were a blur of names and faces I never bothered to learn. Some experiences were utterly forgettable, like the guys who loved to talk dirty but were too timid to deliver anything more than a light slap. Sometimes I could sense that the guy was thinking, “Wait, am I really hurting her?” I regularly put myself in vulnerable situations with little care for my welfare and didn’t tell a soul what I was doing or where I was disappearing to, for fear they would judge me or ask me to stop.

One time, after I took a taxi to a guy’s house in the middle of the night to hook up, I bumped into his flatmate on the way out. He’d been watching through the slightly open bedroom door and wondered if he could “get some.” It turned me on knowing that we’d been watched, and I followed him to his bedroom, bending over and offering myself up. He grabbed my hair and yanked me over to the wall, which he bashed my head against. I was temporarily stunned but let him do his thing. The sex was over in minutes; the flash of violence turned him on so much that he came almost immediately.

You’d think the threat of real danger or unemployment would have stopped me, but it took a while to realize that rough sex was a means of physically manifesting my inner pain, the sexual version of cutting. I had a history of compulsive behavior with alcohol, food, and spending, and this time my drug of choice was men. But as I saw it, I was only hurting myself, so I pushed any uneasy feelings to the back of my mind.

It was another slap that eventually broke the spell I was under. This one was to my face, to rouse me after I’d passed out during an overenthusiastic choking. As I gasped for air, disoriented and scared, I burst into tears. It was the first time I understood this obsession with physical pain could kill me. The guy who’d pushed me too far, at my own begging, was fiercely apologetic and offered to drive me to the hospital, but I declined. I gathered my belongings and rushed home, where I spent the night sobbing.

The next day I deleted all the dating apps off my phone and looked for a therapist. It was time to end the long-term abusive relationship with myself.

Recovery from any kind of addiction or obsession rarely follows a linear pattern, it’s more of a chaotic squiggle, and I had some slip-ups along the way. I can go from zero to “choke me daddy” in about a minute. There will always be a part of me that’s drawn to darkness, but rather than avoid my emotions, I attempt to face them head-on. Life is tough and messy and exhausting, but it’s even harder when you spend all your energy running from your feelings.

Catherine Renton

Catherine Renton is a UK-based writer specializing in mental health, sex, sobriety and culture who has written for Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29, NBC News, and NY Mag among others.