A little addendum I think bears mentioning since this post has been blowing up my notes lately:
It's easy for doms to understand that some subs are turned on by embarrassment, shame, humiliation, degradation, objectification, etc. That is an easier concept to grasp. But I think that's a bit of a simplified way of putting it and a more accurate way to explain what's going on is that some subs experience embarrassment, shame, humiliation, degradation, objectification, etc from their dom and are turned on by it.
I think putting the emphasis back on the painful emotion the submissive is putting themselves through is such an important distinction that needs to be made more often. Sometimes the fact that the sub is still experiencing these very powerful negative emotions during sex or scenes (for your benefit by the way, doms) gets lost in translation when someone says "it makes me horny when you humiliate me."
But they're NOT just horny when you humiliate them, they're still also humiliated. And for those of you saying "well duh, of course" please just trust me when I say, as a dom myself who went through learning this and has helped so many other doms learn this, that most doms are absolutely not making this connection at all and that's why my post above has been reblogged a bunch of times by both doms and subs.
As a dom, what we are incorrectly assuming is that the input is 'humiliation' and the output is 'horny' based on what we see and how our sub reacts when we play like this. We are not registering that they are also still humiliated because in the moment they're acting horny. It's an easy logical error to make due to faulty observations and this mistake isn't just limited to male doms in my experience. A lot of folks from all walks of life don't quite grasp this at first. And once you do grasp this you can give better aftercare.
The reality is that the output is both horny and humiliation and your aftercare as a dom better contain ways to treat the emotional pain you inflicted on your sub. In this case, reassurance (I'm so proud of you/of how much you took for me) and positive affirmations (you make me so happy, you're so beautiful/smart) are a hell of a drug for making sure their psyche stays intact and recovers properly.