He is the original toxic dom. A non-consensual expression of shame and sanctity. A control freak who demands that you must submit without sanction. Bend to their rules, to their sadism, not for your own pleasure or fulfilment but to remind you must never feel proud for your soul is tarnished by sin. The entity I speak about is his holiness, the God of the Catholic Church.
The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa - Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome
Saint Teresa often is often inferred to be having an orgasm in her connection to God
“Pleasure and pain were the earliest forms of emotion to evolve”
Jaak Panksepp , American neuroscientist
(pg 320, Leknes, S,Tracey I, 2010)
Pain and pleasure are fundamental parts of the human-psyche. These sensations however are not singular auras on opposing ends of a spectrum but a webwork of neural pathways that interweave and intermix. Like any bodily sensation these feelings involve internal processing of the brain that rely on our own contextual history. Conversations between the frontal lobe and the posterior parietal cortex occur every time pain-potential nerve endings are fired. This deliberation sees these sections of the brain weigh up risk and context in order to create the searing feelings we end up feeling. From stepping on a nail to biting your lip your previous experiences may directly alter your current ones. We can acknowledge this by realising the same cause of pain can result in differing subjective circumstances between people, time and place. The interesting question arises as to whether pleasure can be found when pain is experienced.
“To our knowledge, neuroimaging studies of pain have not identified a single brain region that has not also been implicated in aspects of reward processing”
(pg 322, Leknes, S,Tracey I, 2010)
Of course there are the physical structures of the mind, the highways and interchanges that make up the maze-like nature of the brain. Along these pathways opioid and dopamine chemicals are hauled as cargo to be routinely delivered to the pleasure centres of the brain. The modulation of pain and pleasure rely on the same roads and the same chemicals. It's no wonder after knowing this, why some humans may seek pleasure through pain. From sadists and masochists performing an impact scene together to joggers running till they have shin splints there are constant examples of human becoming elated by what others would deem as a “displeasurable experience”. How these two threads of pleasure and pain interweave are both varied and nuanced, but one thing is certain, these connections are natural, they are commonplace and they should not be carried with shame.
“So it is not surprising, given the weakness of our fallen nature, that some things can become associated with our sexual nature that don’t in fact have anything to do with it in its healthy functioning”
Friar. Hugh Barbour, Priest of St. Michael’s Abbey
Diocese of Orange ,California
Shame, hypocrisy and subjugation. These are the weapons of the Catholic church, an institution that deems to lecture on what is considered spiritually and sexually healthy. A pack of repressed clergy who dare to tell what is right, what is moral and what we ought to be ashamed of. The absolute richness and deception of these namecallers to defile us, queer, kinky, consenting fun loving adults as the perverts. They are a clergy of men who at the best of times must be described as sexually repressed and dysfunctional. These cloaked men of faith and intolerance will put their noses up to leather-bound adults teasing and playing in safe spaces all the while many of them participate in acts of self-flagellation in the name of the original daddy, God. No kink deserved to be shamed, but hypocrisy and intolerance does.
Self-flagellation has been officially part of the church's idealism of self control since the 16th century. During this period changes into the practice were adopted where striking not only incorporated shoulders and back but also raw unclothed buttocks. This caused quite a stir in the church. Goodness gracious, could there be an element of sexual pleasure where these priests flogged their behinds till they bleed and their souls repented in ecstasy?! Of course like any toxic dominant does, these questions of intrigue were quickly squashed and silenced. The catholic calls this practice “the mortification of the flesh”; A literal translation of bringing shame to the body. It’s a degradation kink that's based on doctrine instead of consent. There is no communication in the Diocese, only devotion and servitude,dedication to Daddy deity and the robed men who surround him. In their utilisation of shame and pain the church has grown power through controlling human expression through only the outlets it deemed fit. This power has gilded their golden towers at the same time it has created complexes for those who wish to explore pleasure and pain within healthy realms and exploration and consent. Shame controls people, it stifles self expression and enforces the status quo. People hold themselves back from what might bring them fulfilment in the presence of the teachings of the vatican. All the while these men of God flog themselves in private enjoying their fucked up doctrines in their own un-healthly ways.
“We could hear it when we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he would flagellate himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own.”
-Descriptions of the late Pope John Paul II acts of self-flagellation that adhered to church doctrine.
(pg 10,Cirillo A, 2012)
Don’t shame the kink, shame the hypocrisy, shame the intolerance, shame the power.
Shame to the church that stands on marble floors willing to condemn us for our pride and our lust. Find pride in your own existence, find pride in what they deem sinful, for with pride there is no shame.
BARBOUR, H ,The Attraction of Aberrant Behavior, Catholic Answers , Accessed on 11th November 2023, <https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-attraction-of-aberrant-behavior>
Cirillo A, 2012, Self-Flagellation as Sanctification in the Roman Catholic Church's Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, Academic Article, accessed on 10th November 2023, <https://sa.rochester.edu/jur/issues/fall2011/cirillo_rel.pdf>
Vandermeersch, P. (2009). "Self-Flagellation In The Early Modern Era". In The Sense of Suffering: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
Leknes, S,Tracey I, 2010, "Pain and pleasure: masters of mankind." Pleasures of the brain: 320-335, oxford university press, New York City, USA
TEDx, 2011, TEDxAdelaide - Lorimer Moseley - Why Things Hurt, Youtube video, 22 November, Accessed on 23 November 2023, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs>
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