Pain and Pleasure

Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me!

Now the pain is my pleasure ‘cause nothing can measure...

Ok so my iTunes is in desperate need of an update but this got me thinking.  

I am at the gym and trying to ‘work through the pain’ on the step master and after completing my thirty minutes goal I head to the changing rooms.

It is true; the pain I feel in my muscles does feel good. It gives me a sense of satisfaction to feel it. This then lead onto me thinking about other kinds of pain and the pleasure that it can translate to.

The latest craze for a certain collection of books so named 50 shades of something made me wonder what the obsession with this particular genre is about. The general gist of the book trilogy is that pain can equal pleasure. The author uses a more colourful and elaborate words to describe it of course.

Songs about S&M, books about submission and admission becoming so common place and in demand is in fact a little shocking for me.  General tolerance for the deep and dark has become more lenient. Several years back these were specialty areas that only those who craved the darker world sought and went looking for in the underground and the darkest corners. It is  now readily available right there with your groceries...As much as an open minded person I try to be, seeing an old lady with her granddaughter picking up the entire trilogy did make my skin crawl and head off from the isle having dropped my lot like a hot rod. I did manage to get some copies at another book store eventually. As badly written the books are people are intrigued by the subject. . Honestly it amazes me how the ladies are reading it so fast, for me it’s been ten pages at a time until the next time. 

Trying to understand this need to feel pain is not so hard. You must recall a time when the person you so desperately wanted did not share your feelings or the feeling of jealousy and hurt that you feel in a relationship. The sting of the love and of being in love. Just like a moth is drawn to the light we are drawn to pain, we hunger for the hurt. 

The world is changing. We have so much stimulation, so many activities thrust down our throats. There are millions ways to entertain and pacify ourselves. There is untold medication and remedies available to numb any kind of discomfort or pain. We drink to ease the stress and the rest of the time when we are not winding down we rush around in a flurry of activity. So to feel that you are really alive could be exhilarating, to feel the adrenaline cursing through your veins, to feel the rush of excitement even for a short time. Maybe that’s what the obsession with the pain is. Hurting makes us feel alive again!