today in random polling...

[eruthros]

Poll #6766

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 24

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I call the endorphin rush or euphoria that some peope sometimes get from kink:

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subspace
11 (50.0%)

headspace
13 (59.1%)

domspace
3 (13.6%)

flying
9 (40.9%)

floating
8 (36.4%)

diving
1 (4.5%)

My favorite term is:

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subspace
5 (27.8%)

headspace
8 (44.4%)

domspace
1 (5.6%)

flying
3 (16.7%)

floating
1 (5.6%)

diving
0 (0.0%)

No, wait, I call it something else!

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Yeah, we're doing kink_bingo stuff, and it's time for dealing with terminology again.

Comments

[blushingflower]

There's a floaty place that's based just on endorphins, which I call "floating". There's the space of feeling very submissive and centered on my dominant, which I call "subspace". I've heard tell of dominants getting into "domspace". And all of these are a kind of "headspace" (which I also use in non-kink contexts).

[eruthros]

Thanks for explaining! I think there are a couple of different feelings going on, and they have overlapping names.

[blushingflower]

Yeah, there's definitely more than one thing going on at a time.
"Headspace" is one of my favorite words for the idea that you have to be in the right frame of mind/mood to do certain things.

I tend to draw a pretty distinct line between bottoming/submitting, mostly because submission for me has a big emotional risk that bottoming doesn't necessarily have, so subspace is also a distinct thing for me that isn't necessarily the result of bottoming.

[cypher]

I tend to draw a pretty distinct line between bottoming/submitting, mostly because submission for me has a big emotional risk that bottoming doesn't necessarily have, so subspace is also a distinct thing for me that isn't necessarily the result of bottoming.

Oh, very much this. Bottoming for sensation play and actually going into a submissive state are very different things (with different risk levels) for me, too. They can overlap, if the top in the scene is good at, hmm, combining stimuli? But they don't have to.

[stewardess]

Interesting questions! For me, there are different phases. There's the "thinking" or planning phase, which consists of imagining, planning, negotiating. This "creative" phase makes me intensely happy, even euphoric. Then there's the doing phase, which I would describe as a rush. The two phases of course overlap. I can go from one to the other without being conscious of it.

Both phases could be described as "headspace" but they are not equivalent. Hmm.

[eruthros]

It's definitely hard to define!

[stewardess]

Are there terms that can be applied to both a) what people are doing b) what people are feeling while they are doing it. *ponders*

For instance, "kink" to me doesn't imply a state of being, since for me "kink" means a tool or scenario that I use while bringing about a state change. But what is actually creating the state change is D/s dynamics. It's like the way I feel about measuring a cup of flour, compared to the way I feel while eating cake. But for others "kink" encompasses the whole caboodle: emotions, intense sensations, activity.

[sassbandit]

What? Whoa? To me, the question you're asking here indicates a serious mismatch between your model/terminology and mine.

To me, I call an endorphin rush an "endorphin rush". It's a physiological/neurochemical response, and has little to do with "headspace", which I think of as primarily psychological. ("Subspace" and "domspace" I think of as role-specific subsets of the general "headspace".)

ETA: sorry, that sounded kind of cranky or something... apologies for the infelicity of my phrasing. I was just surprised at how different our terms seem to be!

[stewardess]

I think I know what you mean. When I took a class on sexuality, kink, and D/s from Midori, she referred to the end result as a "state change." D/s was what brought about the state change, but it wasn't the state change itself.

Can one term be found for both the state change, and what brings it about, for the purpose of creative prompts? Not sure.

[eruthros]

Yeah, I'd also say "altered state," or "going under," in conversation, but I don't think either of those are particularly common or descriptive.

We're trying to come up with two related phrases that between them would get the idea across - "subspace/flying" sort of thing - so we don't have to figure out just one word, but we do have to figure out how people differentiate between different feelings and experiences!

[eruthros]

No, no, it's okay! It's one of those confusing terminology things I think - I was googling and wikipediaing it right before I made this post and it was intriguing.

For me, I'd call it flying for just the endorphin rush, and subspace for endorphin rush + psychological factors (or domspace for same for doms). I don't know what I'd call a psychological state where the associated physical feelings weren't euphoria/endorphin rush/trance/fight-or-flight/whatever. I think mine is an online-kink-community-usage, though.

"Headspace" to me is generic and doesn't imply ... anything, really, except "the mindset people are in," which could be just about anything. But from googling, I think people use it sometimes to mean what I mean by "subspace."

[isagel]

I tend to always use "subspace" for the experience of the sub. I very rarely actually talk about domspace, though I hope it's there to see in my stories and I've definitely been there. It's a useful word. And I would use headspace as to describe both or either of those states. I would use more metaphorical expressions in fic, but this is absolutely my preferred terminology for discussion.

[eruthros]

Check! I think "subspace" has to be part of whatever description we use, because it seems to be one of the most common phrases.

[toft]

I pointed out to Megan that if you call it 'floating' or 'flying', regardless of the most common kink terminology, you're liable to get a million people emailing you to say, "Can I write superman for that?"