Imagine an alien learning about food-binging for the first time. "I'm a fucking PIG when I'm hungry," some human being tells them. "I just shovel it in. I don't even care if it's good food—I'd eat fucking slop. Food dribbling down my mouth, onto my clothes even... fuuuuck, I have no standards where food is concerned."
"This person seems to love feeling disrespected," that alien might think to itself. "They enjoy losing all their dignity." Such a thing might feel awfully taboo to them: an emotional extreme that they find it hard to wrap their head around.
But people don't get gross with food because they're turned on by loss of dignity. People get gross with food because food is fucking great. Great enough that they'll put the rest of themselves on hold, if they're hungry or stoned or if the food hits the goddamn spot.
Degradation fetishes work the same way. You can like degradation and still want healthy, respectful relationships; you can want to be valued as a person even if "devaluation" is your number-one fantasy. If you're inexperienced with degradation, you might assume that people with that fetish get off on being treated like shit. But degradees don't fundamentally crave being neglected and disrespected. They simply want to engage with their desires freely and without reserve.
There are different kinds of degradation—and contrary to the title of this piece, not all of them are sexual. Some people might enjoy masochistic degradation: being hurt so badly they can't remember anything but their own pain. Others might like submissive degradation: being treated like they exist for the sake of another person. Sexual degradation—the good old territory of sluts and whores—is a classic, of course, but it's important to note that someone's being a slut doesn't mean they're a slut for everybody. No kind of hobby, no kind of desire, means you automatically forsake your propriety.
For some people, degradation is never about a loss of respect. It's possible to degrade people in ways that maintain their dignity, just as some people eat food without spilling it all over themselves. Intense craving, intense desire, can take many forms, even if those forms share a single root. Primal sex, for instance, shares a lot of traits in common with degradation, yet few primal "tops" would think of themselves as being degraded.ᵃ People who do start out with fantasies of being degraded are no different from anybody else with intense cravings: the nature of their fantasy makes them no less of a person, no less desirous or deserving of respect than anybody else.
We fundamentally misunderstand this, both as a society and as a community. We see it in the rote assumption that, if somebody wants to be degraded, they'll be grateful when you deny them their humanity. We see it in the way that "slut" gets used as an epitaph, and occasionally a justification for sexual violence: how dare someone enjoy wanton sex and want to choose who they sleep with! And we see it in how self-described submissives get treated: by would-be "dominants" who cold-call them and act like their submission has already been offered; by people who assume that submissives don't get to choose what they want, because the point of submission is to let so-called "doms" walk all over them.
Tragically, this kind of degradation is so misunderstood that many people who want it tell themselves there's no alternative. Either you're left sexually (or kinkily) unsatisfied, or you resign to letting yourself be treated like shit. Either it's hot but you're treated poorly, or you're respected and fundamentally bored. Our inability to understand that degradation and respect can peacefully co-exist leads to people being miserable and abused—and it helps abusers justify their seriously horrifying behaviors.
But if you've ever eaten something you shouldn't have, or ever laughed delightedly at a friend or a family member get a bit too enthusiastic about their food, you understand the fundamental impulse behind degradation. And you should understand, too, that there's nothing about it that ought to deprive a person of their dignity, or that permits you to treat them like anything less than human. You should also stop wondering if it's possible to degrade someone you respect, or if it's asking too much for someone you care about to degrade you too. Could you love someone and also buy them a treat at the grocery store? Could you stuff your face in front of a lover and still trust them to love you back? Of course. Of course of course. To make a fool of yourself in the name of lust is to be as human as you've ever been, whether that lust is for a person or a cheesesteak or a boot to the face.
For the record, I enjoy primal sex and love mixing primal topping with bottoming for degradation. They're two great tastes that taste great together!
SOURCE: https://fetlife.com/users/4832168/posts/5538833