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Not only that, but I am coming from a very different set of assumptions about human nature. I tend to assume that human thought processes are more like those of animals than not.

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I am not sure what the OP was postulating, but my position is that BDSM is just a human sophistication of innately instinct-driven behavior.

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If you have a pet dog, you can watch him making a rational decision, first-hand, just by running this simple informal experiment, just for the sake of demonstration.


Put a steak on the counter with him in the room, and sit or stand where you can watch him but are not immediately threatening. My hypothesis is that the dog would look up at the steak repeatedly and present symptoms of agitation, but he would not immediately go for the steak.

When you put the steak on the counter-top, you created an approach-avoidance conflict for the dog. This conflict creates a heightened level of activity throughout his brain as it attempts to reconcile the conflict. Evidence of this presents itself as a heightened level of anxiety in the subject as he is torn between the prospective reward stimulus of getting the steak and the instilled guilt reaction related to trespassing on his master's boundaries.

Humans can do this, too, but we actually have the ability to do it with a much higher level of sophistication. For example, rather than just a vague, bestial sensation of guilt, we can think of things in terms of sophisticated moral principles. We have much higher quantities of pyramidal cells in our cortices, and this makes a huge difference in the level of complexity with which we are able to think.

It still works in the same way, though.

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ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

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Not only that, but I am coming from a very different set of assumptions about human nature. I tend to assume that human thought processes are more like those of animals than not.

This is the point I am clearly trying to make, humans have evolved past their base animalistic instincts. Do we still have them, sure but whe have evolved the ability to suppress or ignore altogether these base urges.

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BDSM is not a survival action,

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Sorry, but dogs do not make rational decisions.

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Try putting the plate of steak on the floor, where the dog can easily get to it, but tell him for the first and only time that he cannot eat it. What are the chances that this dog will rationalize your desire that he sit and stare at that juicy piece of raw meat and listen to you? Slim to none.

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These are animal instincts, food, water, sleep, comfort. The only way you can change them is by training. A human has evolved past all these simplistic white and black answers. We can delve into all the shades of grey that come with informed decisions, irrational emotion thought, or even blind rage.

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I am not sure what the OP was postulating, but my position is that BDSM is just a human sophistication of innately instinct-driven behavior.

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In my experience, human beings are governed by instinct a lot more often than they like to admit.

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On the contrary, if light BDSM play improved a couple's chances of reproduction, it would be an adaptive advantage.

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Well, I simply disagree with you there.

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Done it, just for obedience play. She was so hung up over it, she was shaking like a leaf and frothing at the mouth, and a thin whine started to come from her throat. Eventually, she parted her mouth and started making attempts at speech, which came out as an ear-piercing yodel.

However, the level of novelty in that situation was well within the limits of what a canid mind is capable of dealing with. You can do simple things like making slight modifications on familiar games or changing the word for a familiar command, but we're talking about a child's moped compared to a racecar. Dogs have severe limitations.

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The idea of a gray area is where I would like to start opening you up to a subject that you might be interested in.

I don't know your level of familiarity with the glutamatergic system, but parts of it are actually central to our neural plasticity. There is actually a certain receptor for glutamate that appears to affect neuroplasticity. However, the receptor requires the presence of aspartate in addition to glutamate to actually work. It is, of course, the NMDA receptor.

Now, if you are not completely lost, some research was done in order to determine whether there were any correlations between genetics and political leanings. It was actually found that liberals had much stronger genes for this particular receptor type. As you know, liberals do tend to have a much easier time of comprehending the idea of a gray area.

Now, the reason that some people are aversive to situations involving such a gray area is this: when our brains are caught in a moment of indecision, they drop a sort of depth charge in your cortices. Your prefrontal cortex lights up like a christmas tree as you try to wrack your brains for an answer to some kind of dilemma or another. Or perhaps try to decide whether you have an apple or an orange.

However, it's actually very uncomfortable for you if you stay in that kind of limbo for very long. There is only so much your brain can take. The advantage that you have if you have strong genes for your NMDA receptor, though, is that your brain is a lot better adapted for handling indecision and gray areas. Thanks to the NMDA receptor, we can avoid black and white, "this is just how it is," ways of thinking.

On the other hand, it can work against you. Consider living in a world where you had to think very hard to grasp that two different subjects were not really related to each other. Just try this for a thought exercise. Imagine that, when you thought of a certain subject, you didn't get one strong set of associated topics, but instead you got a foggy morass of loosely related subject matter. It would take you deep concentration to focus on a topic well enough that you could talk about it decisively.

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Again, not how adaption works. For this statement to be true, humans would have to activley, and en masse, participated in BDSM activities for centuries.

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But as my point is that humans have evolved past base instincts already, this is a moot point anyway

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Whether you agree with me or not is not the issue.

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Simple empirical data proves my statement. No one can take a new dog straight out of the pound, put a plate of steak in front of him, and expect him not to eat.

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Instincts cannot be rationalized away in animals, only humans. They can be trained, but no animal is born with the innate capacity we are

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Considering the subject matter is both the human brain, and the human genome, I hold all opinions until there is way more research into this science. There is no way you can make suppositions about the interactions of these two, until you actually fully understand how both work. And right now, we aren't even close

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And yeah, I don't steal because it's against my morals and values. My mom never hit me with a spoon or anything else.

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ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

I have no purpose other than discussion.

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I thought of two. A cat playing with a mouse is an example of sadism. And bringing up babies is an example of masochism.

ETA: Yes, that's right I'm taking this thread seriously. I'm a masochist, okay?

Pam

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ORIGINAL: Darkfeather
...I am afraid a cat playing with a mouse is all instinct... If that cat does not want to eat it, or simply cannot connect the dots from mouse to food, he will continue to follow the base instinct. Chase, pounce, bite down.

Sadism can simply mean deriving pleasure from the pain of another. The cat qualifies under that definition.

...sometimes we do things we don't want or like, even painful things, simply because they must be done.

Many mothers enjoy child rearing even though it's a huge pain. If you define masochism as deriving pleasure from your own pain, child rearing qualifies.

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ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

Sadism does mean in a simplistic definition, deriving pleasure from pain. But there is one key aspect missing. Knowingly inflicts for the sake of pleasure, or finds pleasure in the act.

So, depending on what definition you use, it could qualify.

Same goes for the mother bearing children. There has to be intent for it to be sadism or masochism. Each is a cognitive, active choice one makes to pursue. You can't be one by proxy. To that analogy, your mother would have to actively continue to give birth to children all the time, simply to feel that agony over and over again. We make those connections, between the act, what it does, and the effects it has. I enjoy caning a nice firm butt. When someone allows it, we both gain pleasure from the act. Hence I can say I gain pleasure from caning a nice firm butt. My choice, through my actions, to the inevitable conclusion.

I was talking about child rearing, not child birth. Mothers all over the animal kingdom actively choose to rear their young, despite the sacrifice involved.