Verbal humiliation

What is verbal humiliation?

Verbal humiliation is humiliation that works with words alone: name-calling, belittling, saying out loud what’s happening, from a set agreed in advance. No act is involved. What gives the words their charge is the role division underneath them, and that division is given with consent and is temporary.

What actually gets said

Almost always words about sexual reputation, and rarely anything original. Anyone who’s afraid of what might be said overestimates the list.

In the only population survey that measures this act separately, the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior of 2022, participants were given four examples under “name-calling”: bitch, slut, whore and fag. The researchers note themselves that these are consistently words that touch someone’s sexual reputation. In Dutch the list is just as short.

The nice part sits in the origin. The Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands shows that slet in Middle Dutch meant “rag, cloth”, with a source from around 1345: “Men bant zijn handeken mit sletten” (one binds one’s little hand with rags). Kiliaan gives “slonzige vrouw” (slovenly woman) in 1599, and the current meaning dates from 1655. A whole family made the same trip, from cloth to woman: del, dweil, slons, vod, lor.

A common picture. She names three words that may fall and one area that stays closed, usually her work or her motherhood. He uses two of them that evening, both at an unexpected moment. Afterward the closed area turns out to matter as much as the words that fell.

Why words land so hard

Because a slur isn’t a statement but a shift of position.

Mihaela Popa-Wyatt and Jeremy Wyatt explain in Philosophical Studies that conversation partners take up a role borrowed from a social role but existing only as long as the conversation lasts. In their analysis a slur is a speech act that changes the role of the one addressed and that of the speaker at once, and with it the power in the conversation.

Then comes the line that explains this subject. How wounding a word is, they argue, relates to how unjust that power shift is felt to be. Not to the word itself.

That’s the difference between a scene and a fight. In a scene the shift is given in advance, for an agreed time, by the one who undergoes it. The same word then does something else, and that isn’t an excuse but the mechanism.

Why people find verbal humiliation arousing

Because it’s the fastest way to be somewhere other than in your own head. A word costs no preparation and no gear, and it leaves you no time to have an opinion about it.

• For the one who undergoes it the distance between what happens and how you think about it disappears. With a tap that doesn’t work.
• For the one who says it the gain sits in precision. Choosing the right word is only possible if you know which word touches and which word damages.
• For a couple the subject forces you to name what someone is sensitive about, and that conversation is rarely about sex.

Words can’t be taken back. With an act the effect stops when the act stops; a sentence that lands you can still call up months later.

How people agree on verbal humiliation

With a list, and it has two sides that often run together.

1. Words about what’s happening. “Just look at the state of you.” When the situation is over, so is the word.
2. Words about who she is. Claims about her character, her worth or her past. Those stick, because they don’t refer to the evening but to her.

Most couples want the first kind and agree the second by accident, because a word on a list doesn’t show which way it works. A good agreement therefore consists of areas rather than words: looks are fine, work isn’t; what’s happening now is fine, what she did in the past isn’t.

The second half of the agreement is about stopping. “No” and “stop” are lines here, not signals, so there has to be a word that has nothing to do with the scene. That goes for the one who speaks the words too: anyone who notices he no longer likes himself may just as well stop.

Misconceptions about verbal humiliation

“If it arouses her, she wants it outside the bedroom too.” No, and with words that’s the most dangerous misconception, because words walk out of the room easily.

“It almost always happens with consent.” In the nationally representative sample of 9,029 Americans, 11.5 percent of women had at some point during sex been called a name with consent and 6.8 percent at some point without. For hair-pulling and light hitting the distance between those two figures is about four times as large. Words cost nothing, so they’re most often taken without asking.

“You can’t report what was said to you in bed.” You can. Article 266 of the Dutch Criminal Code (Wetboek van Strafrecht) makes simple insult a punishable offense, and Article 269 provides that it is prosecuted only on the complaint of the person against whom it was committed. The law puts that decision with her. This is not legal advice.

What I see of it myself

I’m Victor, a gigolo, over twenty-five years in BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. I never shout and humiliating isn’t my thing; it says so on my own profile. What is possible is the small side of this, being addressed as “sir” first of all.

Women easily name the words that may fall and much less easily the area that has to stay closed. That only comes out when I ask, and it’s almost never sex. It’s her education, her mother, or something someone once said.

And then the tone. Women expect hard and loud, while what works is usually soft and close.

What you can do yourself

• Agree on areas instead of words. Say which ground stays closed, because a word list doesn’t show whether a word is about the evening or about you.
• Choose a safeword that appears nowhere in the scene’s language, because “no” and “stop” are part of the play here.
• The first time, ask for soft rather than hard. Volume makes it more theatrical, not more piercing.
• Put this off if you already feel worthless that month. A word that connects to something already sitting there goes further than the evening.
• Agree to speak again in a few days. With words the aftermath comes later than with pain, and a debrief on the night itself misses it.

More about verbal humiliation

On this site the whole area is at humiliation, and types of humiliation women find arousing runs through the forms.

Beyond it, the research of Herbenick and colleagues can be read freely and is the only piece that counts this act with and without consent separately, and slet on the Etymologiebank gives the family of words that moved from cloth to woman.

Where this fits on this site

Humiliating isn’t on my list, and I’d rather say so right away. What is possible is an agreed form of address and a tone that makes clear who’s in charge; how that conversation goes is on the page about the BDSM date.

Sources

• Prevalence and Demographic Correlates of “Rough Sex” Behaviors. Findings from a U.S. Nationally Representative Survey of Adults Ages 18-94 Years. Debby Herbenick, Tsung-Chieh Fu, Xiaomeng Chen, Sabrina Ali, Ivana Simić Stanojević, Devon J. Hensel, Paul J. Wright, Zoë D. Peterson, Jaroslaw Harezlak & J. Dennis Fortenberry, Archives of Sexual Behavior 54, 3435-3469, 2025 (DOI 10.1007/s10508-025-03245-9). Full text read via Europe PMC. Supplies the weighted sample of 9,029 American adults from the eighth round of the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (2022), the ten separately measured acts, and for name-calling the lifetime figures: 11.5 percent of women received it with consent (table 5) against 6.8 percent without (table 9), versus 33.8 against 8.4 percent for hair-pulling and 43.5 against 11.4 percent for light hitting. It also supplies the four example words used in the questionnaire and the authors’ note that these are consistently words that touch women’s sexual reputation or are common homophobic slurs.
• Slurs, roles and power. Mihaela Popa-Wyatt & Jeremy L. Wyatt, Philosophical Studies 175(11), 2879-2906, 2018 (online since 30 September 2017). Only the abstract read; the publisher refuses the full text to a script. Supplies the claim that conversation partners take up conversational roles borrowed from social roles but existing only as long as the conversation lasts, that a slur is a speech act that changes the roles of the one addressed and the speaker and with it the power relation in the conversation, and the core finding that the degree of offense relates to how unjust that power shift is felt to be.
• slet. M. Philippa, F. Debrabandere, A. Quak, T. Schoonheim & N. van der Sijs, Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands (2003-2009), via the Etymologiebank. Supplies the Middle Dutch meaning “rag, cloth” with the source “Men bant zijn handeken mit sletten” from around 1345, the meaning “slovenly woman” in Kiliaan in 1599, the current meaning from 1655, and the observation that a whole series of Dutch words made the same trip from cloth to woman, among them del, dweil, slons, vod, lor and flard.
• Wetboek van Strafrecht, Book Two, Title XVI, articles 266 and 269. Wetten.overheid.nl, text in force as of 1 July 2026; the fragment was found in the retrieved html. Supplies article 266, which makes any intentional insult that does not carry the character of defamation and is done to someone verbally in their presence punishable as simple insult, with up to three months’ imprisonment or a fine of the second category, and article 269, which provides that insult is not prosecuted except on the complaint of the person against whom the offense was committed.

Related terms

• Humiliation. The main entry this is the verbal branch of, with where the word comes from and its four components.
• Degradation. The heavier branch, where the rank order doesn’t drop but disappears.
• Safeword. The word that here has to fall outside the scene’s language, because “no” is a line.
• Praise kink. The same axis with words, but the movement upward.
• Corner time. The quiet form, where nothing at all is said.
• Debrief. The talk afterward, where it only becomes clear which word landed.
• Negotiation. The conversation where you set the areas rather than the words.
• Sissy. A role name that draws its whole effect from a single insult.