Humiliation

What is humiliation?

Humiliation (Dutch: vernedering) is putting someone, with their consent, lower than the other, in posture, in rank or in words, because that drop is arousing for both. The Dutch word literally means to make lower. Within BDSM the drop lasts exactly as long as agreed. Outside that agreement, humiliation is one of the most heavily measured human experiences there is.

What humiliation looks like in practice

Humiliation is usually quieter than the word sounds, and often there’s no sentence in it.

A common picture is height itself. She kneels beside the chair, he sits in it, dressed, and for five minutes nothing special happens. He drinks his coffee and asks whether she slept well. Nothing is said about her. The height difference does the work, and that is exactly what the word announces literally.

A second picture works through rank instead of through height. That evening she asks permission for things adults never ask permission for: going to the toilet, having a drink, sitting down. The answer is almost always yes, and that is precisely what makes it clear who gives it. Women doing this for the first time often found the asking harder afterward than what came after.

Both pictures share something that looks unimportant on paper: a moment has been agreed at which it stops. Without that moment there is no drop but a condition.

Where the word comes from

From geometry, not from psychology. The Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (the great dictionary of the Dutch language, WNT) derives vernederen from neder with the prefix ver-, and the first meaning it lists is entirely spatial: to make something of a certain height drop in height, and with hills, mountains and walls even to level it with the ground. The oldest source is the Liesveldt Bible of 1526: “Alle dal sal verheuen werden, ende alle berch ende hueuel sullen vernedert werden” (every valley shall be raised, and every mountain and hill shall be made low).

Below that stands a meaning anyone in a scene recognizes. The WNT also gives vernederen reflexively, said of people: to bow or kneel, to bend the upper body toward the ground. So the posture this play most often arrives at is the very act the word originally described.

The meaning we use the word for now sits only ninth in that same series: to dishonor, insult, hurt, wound, humiliate. Calepinus’ dictionary already translates the Latin humilio with vernederen in 1545, so the Dutch and the English word have run alongside each other longer than the scene itself has existed. And there’s a quotation from 1785, by Wolff and Deken, that sounds as if someone posted it on a forum yesterday: “Veele getrouwde Lieden scheppen een laag vermaak in elkander te vernederen” (many married people take a low pleasure in humiliating one another).

The nicest part sits in the noun. The WNT gives the first meaning of vernedering not as what one does to another, but as humility: a quality, a posture, in the religious sense meekness. So the word began as something you did with yourself and only later became something you do to another. That a woman today asks whether she may make herself smaller for an evening is, linguistically, the oldest meaning of all.

Why people find humiliation arousing

Because for a moment nothing is expected of you, and because it is the hardest-landing emotion you can borrow on purpose.

That the emotion lands hard has been measured. Marte Otten and Kai J. Jonas of the Social Psychology department at the University of Amsterdam had participants read scenarios that evoked humiliation, anger or joy, and measured their brain activity meanwhile. The late positive potential, a measure of the intensity of what someone feels, was clearly higher for the humiliation scenarios than for anger and for joy. They call it themselves the first clear evidence that humiliation is an unusually intense experience. So anyone who plays with it borrows the strongest dial there is, and that is why a small act does so much.

The payoff varies sharply by role.

• For the one who undergoes it, the obligation to be someone briefly disappears. An hour at the bottom is, for a woman who runs things all day, not a loss but a rest, precisely because nothing hinges on it.
• For the one who gives it, the gain sits in precision. You can only set someone at exactly the right height if you know her well enough to know where that is still pleasant.
• For a couple, the payoff usually sits before the scene. The conversation where you have to name what makes you small is, for many couples, the most honest they’ve had in years.

The same literature shows why that matters. In Islington, George Brown, Tirril Harris and Catherine Hepworth compared women who developed depression with women who did not, and found that events involving humiliation and the feeling of being trapped went with a far greater risk of depression than loss or danger without those two. Kendler and colleagues took that measure to 7,322 adult twins and arrived at something sharper still: events where humiliation and loss come together turned out to weigh more heavily than loss alone, in whatever form the loss came. So humiliation restores no self-image. Anyone who has already felt worthless for months outside the bedroom is choosing the wrong month for this.

How people do humiliation

In three directions, and those three are already in the dictionary.

1. Lower in space. Kneeling, sitting on the floor, waiting while the other stands. The oldest form, the most physical, and the only one you can stop by simply standing up. For anyone starting here, that last part is a big advantage.
2. Lower in rank. Asking permission, eating last, using a form of address, being given a task for something small. Here sits the form that works longest, because rank isn’t bound to the room and runs easily into an ordinary day.
3. Lower in honor. The word you’d normally never let pass. This is the sharpest branch, explained separately at verbal humiliation.

That three-way split is my own ordering of the meanings the WNT gathers under one word, not a scheme from a handbook. In practice the first direction usually happens with a small piece of the second added. The difference between a careful evening and a careless one sits in the way back, and with humiliation that is longer than with pain: count on hours instead of minutes.

When humiliation stops being play

When the word someone uses to make it stop is ignored. That’s not a moral claim of mine, it’s in a ruling.

In K.A. and A.D. v. Belgium, judgment of 17 February 2005, a judge and a doctor complained to the European Court of Human Rights about their conviction for serious assault during sadomasochistic sessions. The Belgian court of appeal had called the facts particularly serious because of the violence and because of the pain, the fear and the humiliation inflicted on the victim. The Court first established what often gets forgotten: criminal law should in principle not interfere in sexual practices that were consented to, and “particularly serious reasons” are needed for that.

Then the Court named two things that had gone wrong in this case. The people involved drank large amounts of alcohol during the sessions, so that they lost all control of the situation. And they had ignored the victim calling “pitié” and “stop”, the words by which, under their own agreement, they had to stop immediately. The appeal was rejected unanimously, and the Court added the line the whole subject rests on: whoever claims the right to live out their sexuality as freely as possible runs into the limit of the other’s will, whose own right to free choice must be protected just as much.

For an evening with humiliation, that is very practical. It’s not the weight of what happens that decides whether it’s still play, but whether the agreed word works. Anything that makes that word unreliable, alcohol first of all, takes the play away without anyone noticing at the time.

Misconceptions about humiliation

“Humiliation and degradation are the same.” No. Humiliation only says that someone comes to stand lower, and that can be one teasing remark. Degradation removes the rank order entirely and turns a person into a thing.

“If it’s agreed, nothing can go wrong.” The ruling above shows why that isn’t true. There was an agreement and there was a safeword; the problem was that nobody listened to it anymore. An agreement is an instrument, not a guarantee.

“Only people with low self-esteem want this.” There’s no evidence for that. What is true is the timing: anyone who’s just taken a blow to something that touches her identity is better off leaving humiliation for now. That says something about the month, not about her character.

“It’s just name-calling.” With name-calling nothing is fixed and nothing stops on its own. Humiliation has a beginning, a range chosen up front, a word that stops it, and a moment where someone is called by her own name again.

What I see of it myself

I’m Victor, a gigolo, over twenty-five years in BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. Humiliating isn’t my thing, and I write that on my own profile too: in my daily life everything turns on empowerment, and I never shout. Correctional taps, hair-pulling, being addressed as “sir”, all of that is fine.

Almost every woman who raises this starts with an explanation. Why she wants it, where she thinks it comes from, whether it’s bad that she wants it. That explanation isn’t needed as far as I’m concerned, and once that’s said the conversation runs a lot more smoothly.

The second thing I see back: the scene gets overrated and the day after underrated. On the night itself almost nobody startles. Two days later there’s sometimes something still sitting there, and that’s why I’d rather talk about this a week ahead than ten minutes.

What you can do yourself

• Choose one word that stops the evening and agree what happens in the ten minutes after, because that second part almost always gets forgotten. See safeword.
• Don’t drink, not even one glass to relax. Alcohol is the one element the European Court in 2005 named separately, alongside the ignored safeword.
• Put an end time on it. The convicted couple in that case stated themselves that they didn’t know where it would end, and that’s the point where an evening with humiliation goes off the rails.
• Start with the physical form. Kneeling or sitting on the floor you end without words by standing up, and that makes it far less nerve-racking to try the first time.
• Say what’s going on in your life that month. If you’ve just been publicly overruled at work or a divorce is running, put humiliation off; the depression research is about exactly that kind of event.
• Don’t pick a place you chose because it’s banned elsewhere. In that same case the two rented a private room because the clubs they went to banned these practices in their rules, and the Court noted that those very club managers can gauge the risks.

More about humiliation

On this site, degradation covers the heavier branch, and the power of shame describes what it feels like to share something you’re ashamed of.

Off this site, the judgment in K.A. and A.D. v. Belgium can be read in full, and the WNT entry VERNEDEREN shows in one screen how this word moved from mountains to people.

Where this fits on this site

Humiliation isn’t on my list, and I’d rather say that right away than halfway through a conversation. What is possible are the small forms around it: an agreed form of address, correctional taps, hair-pulling, and an evening where the rank order is clear without anything ugly being said. If you want to know how that conversation goes beforehand and what exactly we set down, that’s on the page about the BDSM date.

Sources

• Affaire K.A. et A.D. c. Belgique. European Court of Human Rights, applications 42758/98 and 45558/99, judgment of 17 February 2005; full French text read, alongside the Registry’s English summary in Information Note 72. Supplies the finding that the Belgian court of appeal considered the facts serious partly because of the pain, the fear and the humiliation inflicted on the victim (§16), the two elements the Court weighed, large amounts of alcohol with loss of all control and the ignoring of the agreed words “pitié” and “stop” (§57), the fact that they rented a private room because the sadomasochistic clubs they frequented banned these practices in their rules, with the remark that those very owners and managers can gauge the risks (§57), the principle that criminal law does not in principle interfere in consented sexual practices and that particularly serious reasons are needed for that (§84), and the limit that the freedom to live out one’s sexuality is bounded by the other’s will (§85).
• VERNEDEREN (I). Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, via the Integrated Language Database of the Dutch Language Institute; the accompanying entry VERNEDERING was consulted separately. Supplies the derivation from neder with ver-, the literal spatial meaning with mountains, walls and a dropping water level, the source from the Liesveldt Bible of 1526, the reflexive meaning to bow or kneel, the ninth meaning to dishonor, insult, hurt, wound, humiliate with Calepinus translating humilio as vernederen in 1545, the Wolff and Deken quotation from 1785, and the first meaning of the noun vernedering as humility and meekness.
• Humiliation as an intense emotional experience. Evidence from the electro-encephalogram. Marte Otten & Kai J. Jonas, Social Psychology department, University of Amsterdam, Social Neuroscience 9(1), 23–35, 2014. Summary read; the publisher does not release the full text. Supplies the setup with scenarios evoking humiliation, anger or joy, the clearly higher late positive potential for humiliation than for joy and anger, the stronger desynchronization in the alpha band, and the authors’ conclusion that this is the first clear empirical evidence that humiliation is an unusually intense experience.
• Life event dimensions of loss, humiliation, entrapment, and danger in the prediction of onsets of major depression and generalized anxiety. Kenneth S. Kendler, John M. Hettema, Frank Butera, Charles O. Gardner & Carol A. Prescott, Archives of General Psychiatry 60(8), 789–796, 2003. Summary read. Supplies the sample of 7,322 adult twins and 98,592 person-months, the finding that the onset of depression was predicted by higher scores on loss and humiliation, and the finding that events where humiliation and loss come together relate more strongly to depression than pure loss.
• Loss, humiliation and entrapment among women developing depression. A patient and non-patient comparison. George W. Brown, Tirril O. Harris & Catherine Hepworth, Psychological Medicine 25(1), 7–21, 1995. Summary read. Supplies the comparison in Islington in North London between women from the population who developed depression and treated patients, the development of a measure for humiliation and the feeling of being trapped alongside the existing measures for loss and danger, and the outcome that such experience went with a far greater risk of depression than loss or danger without humiliation or entrapment.

Related terms

• Degradation. The heavier branch, where someone isn’t set lower but downgraded to a thing.
• Objectification. The nearest neighbor, where the rank order disappears entirely and you’re no longer reckoned with.
• Corner time. The mildest spatial form, and a good starting point if you want to know whether this is for you.
• Service-oriented submission. Lower in rank, but with devotion as the motive rather than the drop itself.
• Praise kink. The same axis, but with the movement up instead of down.
• Safeword. The word a 2005 European ruling shows what happens to when nobody honors it.
• Negotiation. The conversation where you set which subjects stay out of view.
• Debrief. The talk afterward, which with humiliation should come later than people think.
• Verbal humiliation. The branch that works with words alone, with the question of what exactly gets said.