Exposed – Humiliating Myself

Some people might feel exposed stripping naked in public. Having raspberries placed on their bottoms to have a photo taken. Or expressing their deepest, darkest desires. Me? Not so much. Perhaps I used to. Actually, there’s no perhaps about it, each of these things has held fear for me, but not really embarrassment, and definitely not shame. These activities have felt natural, even when I felt mild discomfort.

On my quest to experience humiliation we discovered, quite accidentally, that the best way of doing this was in vanilla ways. OK, mostly it has been when I’ve had to ask for help. Admitting that I’m unable to do something alone, reaching out and asking for support. I hate that feeling of being incapable, the flush of my cheeks, the creeping, crawling anxiety in the pit of my stomach. When a dash of kink is added to the request… That creeping sensation is ignited, the flush on my cheeks turns from pink to crimson and my whole being sizzles. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a love-hate relationship with humiliation. But my god it’s a buzz.

Naturally, sir used this to his (my) advantage. He would stretch me, watch me grow, while turning up the heat. By setting me tasks that I couldn’t possibly do on my own, the humiliation switch would be flicked instantly when I asked friends and strangers for help.

Some time towards the end of last year I lost sight of myself entirely.

I don’t know if you experience the same, but my demons can turn round and bite me in the arse without a moments notice. And after a long spell of feeling on top of the world, I left myself exposed to their cruelty. I went from happy, energetic and joyful to absolute self loathing, disgust at myself and feeling ugly. From the inside out.

By the time February came round I knew I needed to find my inner beauty. Self-sufficient and bloody minded I started on a February Photo Fest 2023 quest to do exactly that. By the time the end of the month had come round there was a slight shift.

Maybe I wasn’t convinced but I made better arguments against those demons, exposed them.

Over the weeks that followed I did some essential housekeeping and self care. There was a lot of introspection, thinking, not only about what is right for my world but also who. Some decisions were easy, others felt like cutting off a limb. I reached out to my former therapist, to book in some time where I could straighten the spaghetti of my brain. Maybe get to the point where things had some semblance of making sense. I made plans to see friends, got out under the big sky and kept writing.

Writing my way through this tricky time has helped with focus. The days and weeks would have swallowed me whole else. And I’m incredibly proud to have (almost) complete A-Z April. Now I just need a goal for May. One that’ll keep me focussed but not quite as busy. If any of you have an ideas, please pop them in the comments!

Back to the post… With my writing hat on and motivation on the up, I decided to tackle my Fetlife profile. Having all but wiped it just over three years ago when I hid the blog and deleted my old Fabswingers profile, to ease the concerns of an ex you’ve not really met yet. (I’m still weighing up if this is a safe introduction. But I have a while to decide yet. Now, where was I?

Ah yes, my Fetlife profile.

So, I tinkered and added, primped and edited. But it wasn’t quite working. One friend has a lengthy profile, I love reading through his words, it makes me smile. But he thinks it doesn’t read right and he should ask his friends to write it. Now that is a good idea! So that’s what I did, though it was deeply uncomfortable to do so I channelled my inner humiliation-slut and bit the bullet. What I imagined they’d come back with was some silliness and kinky jokes. Things I could weave together and form a fabulous profile.

What I didn’t expect was to feel quite so exposed to their kindness.

I have two views when it comes to me. I do deep introspection, where I pick myself apart, figure out how I could work better and then reassemble my troublesome interior. And then there is the beauty in the world around me. I create adventures for myself, and hope the people in my world think they’ll be fun too and want to join in.

What I don’t do is see ME. The me that shows up in the world. It’s not that I still see myself in the way that I was told for so long that I am (unless I’m really looking) but that I just generally don’t see myself at all. While it’s frustrating, to have such a massive blind spot it also adds a level of protection. Not being exposed to the opinions of others is like armour.. Having had no-one, after leaving P, other peoples’ opinions of me lost all weight. Except sirs, but with him now not in my world I didn’t even have that to anchor myself.

Running off my moral compass means I can drive the Barefoot car blindfolded, right?

When I started attending events my mantra was that no-one could think as badly of me as I did so I might as well go along. Nothing to lose. This has seen me good for many years. And, as I said further up the post, my expectations were for silly comments, fun, light-hearted, off the cuff. Instead I was greeted with love, warmth and kindness. I was suddenly rethinking my profile rewrite, I felt too exposed, too vulnerable, too scared. But there was one thought which stuck: I’d asked my friends for their thoughts, and they’d shown me what they think of me. I didn’t want to waste their time, or kindness, and besides… I do love a little humiliation.

Recognising that feeling as it swelled within me I set to work. The profile becoming something different again. A pile of words at the top, me-on-me. And a “review” section at the bottom.

I decided to share it here because this will be a permanent home for their words, somewhere to come back to when I’m struggling to see myself. A place to hold their thoughts on me, for me. My Fetlife profile will likely change, humiliating myself on my blog is one thing, but my Fetlife profile… That’s a different proposition altogether.

Don’t ask me why I feel less exposed here, I have no idea!

Most of the voices that follow already have a place here on the blog. I have purposefully not attributed the comments to them, but I know who they are. I wonder if you can guess any of them?

What lays behind an exterior of shyness and sometimes social awkwardness is an impish pixie with a mind like a steel trap and a penchant for kink and filth.
My gorgeous friend, the adventurous and delightful reprobate. Without any shame, she’s deliciously naughty yet always has my back. Can’t help but love her xxx
She is the kindest soul, always smiling – but don’t let that fool you! She loves mean ropes and has devious ideas up her sleeves. She’s always up for a laugh, a good communicator in ropes, and is a lot of fun to tie with.
…dependable. Not to be mistaken for predictable.
A lady with bravery in her bones, she sees deep into my soul.
A down to earth gentle soul, soft with cuddles but with a filthy side when it comes to the kinkier side of activities. A loving person with a soul full of wise wisdom, an adventurous spirit and an incredible hooman.
…Not exactly a snappy dresser…
A free spirit that finds joy and comfort in rope. She knows her boundaries and is not afraid to let people know when they’ve crossed them. A lovely person, full of love, that gives nice hugs.
Oh, the delightful barefoot princess. What to say about her? Truly one of a kind in the best possible way. Let her inside your head and she’ll be there for eternity. A breath of fresh air, a delight to know, an honour to call a friend, a singular and most amazing lady.
The_Barefoot_Sub is mischievous, intelligent, strong and a whole lot of naughty fun when it comes to the big wide world of kink. She also makes some interesting noises when you sit on her face.

While this was a silly ask, and the responses didn’t meet my expectations, I would recommend this as a task. Especially if you don’t see yourself clearly. It was both scary and lovely, to be exposed in this way, all in response to one short question.

Self-humiliation may have been an accidental by-product of this request to my friends, but in amongst the embarrassment I do feel The Love. Feeling the love is definitely an Mmm Moment for me so I wanted to share to Mrs K’s meme, Mmm Mondays.

Join me as I fly by the seat of my pants for the A-Z April Blogging Challenge 2023. You can find all of my posts for the month here. And you can also find previous years here. 2019 came first. I skipped 2020. 2021 was a full month of photography themed posts. And 2022 was a sparse collection of Q&A style writing, but there were plenty of boobs!.