Degradation in general touches strong emotional buttons, the more so when it becomes sexualised. Because of this, consent and (paradoxically) a high degree of awareness and communication is needed to ensure that the result is desirable, rather than abusive. For example, a painslut may enjoy being insulted in some ways, but be genuinely crushed and devastated if degrated or insulted in other ways.
Mortification play is also connected to sexual fetishism, in that non-sexual activities may become sexualised by association with arousal, and also may be associated with exhibitionism in the sense of wanting others to witness (or being aroused by others witnessing) one’s sexual degradation.
For some people, activities such as name-calling are a way of achieving ego reduction or getting over sexual inhibitions. For example, between gay people, terms usually associated with homophobia may be used, such as “faggot” or “dyke.”
As with all sexual activities, some people have sexual fantasies about degradation, and others actually undertake it as a lifestyle or in a scene. Sexual fantasies relating to mild humiliation are not uncommon. Some humiliation roleplay (pup-play and age play in particular) is combined with loyalty and care-giving to the extent that these fetishes can be seen as exercises in trust rather than primarily a chagrin fetish. Consider that the desire to be beneath the other partner during intercourse, the idea of “getting captivity” such as with having sex in the garden or woods, or mild rape fantasies (where the person imagines themselves to be forced in a way they would like, and which must be seen as completely different to any real form of rape), are mild emotional games that emphasise status, vulnerability and control. However, for most people such ideas remain a fantasy and they would have heavy reservations about it being made public, or engaged in with a partner for real, however erotic the idea may be. If a person does reveal their alternative to their partners, this usually is a result of a large amount of trust invested in them, due to the similarly enormous psychological struggle they would have had to have gone through to tell them. Many people have the worry of being ridiculed for their fetisch, and such ridicule from their partners could be psychologically catastrophic. Therefore, many people use online humiliation (where the humiliator and others are involved via the internet using chat, email, websites, etc.) as a compromise between exhibitionism and reality on the one hand, and safety and anonymity on the other
