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Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose
An exploration of why people all over the world love to engage in pain on purpose--from dominatrices, religious ascetics, and ultramarathoners to ballerinas, icy ocean bathers, and sideshow performersMasochism is sexy, human, reviled, worshipped, and can be delightfully bizarre. Deliberate and consensual pain has been with us for millennia, encompassing everyone from Black Plague flagellants to ballerinas dancing on broken bones to competitive eaters choking down hot peppers while they cry. Masochism is a part of us. It lives inside workaholics, tattoo enthusiasts, and all manner of garden variety pain-seekers. At its core, masochism is about feeling bad, then better—a phenomenon that is long overdue for a heartfelt and hilarious investigation. And Leigh Cowart would they are not just a researcher and science writer—they’re an inveterate, high-sensation seeking masochist. And they have a few Why do people engage in masochism? What are the benefits and the costs? And what does masochism have to say about the human experience? By participating in many of these activities themselves, and through conversations with psychologists, fellow scientists, and people who seek pain for pleasure, Cowart unveils how our minds and bodies find meaning and relief in pain—a quirk in our programming that drives discipline and innovation even as it threatens to swallow us whole.
291 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 14, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 249 reviews
May 13, 2021
"Hurts so good
Come on baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don't feel like it should
You make it hurt so good" -John Mellencamp
Well, that did not hurt one bit! I enjoyed it!
Pain on purpose, why do some engage in it, while others will avoid pain at any cost? Is it the thrill, the danger, the endorphins released, the high one feels, the thrill of pushing yourself, or feeling good after feeling bad?
Yes, this book does touch on Masochism, but it also looks at deliberate pain involving ballet dancers who suffer for their art, for endurance athletes/ultra-marathoners who push their bodies to the brink, those who enter Carolina Reaper eating contests, those who take polar plunges, and those who engage in religious flagellants to name a few. Consensual pain and activities that involve pain have been around since the beginning of time.
Plus, there are those who enjoy watching people feel pain, "Hot Ones" comes to mind. If you have seen it, you have seen celebrities eating hot wings and struggling to answer questions as well. This inspired our household to hold our own, hot sauce eating contest. There are also those who enjoy watching people get hooks in their backs and be suspended from the ceiling.
I found this book to be a fast, interesting, and absorbing read. She provides examples, neuroscience, and history on various pain on purpose activities. The Author spoke to scientists, psychologists, and those who seek pain for pleasure plus shared a few personal experiences as well.
Hard to put down, interesting and informative.
Thank you to Perseus Books, Public Affairs and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.
**I always have a soundtrack or a particular song going through my head while I read books, for some reason John Mellencamp was on my playlist for this book.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com
Come on baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don't feel like it should
You make it hurt so good" -John Mellencamp
Well, that did not hurt one bit! I enjoyed it!
Pain on purpose, why do some engage in it, while others will avoid pain at any cost? Is it the thrill, the danger, the endorphins released, the high one feels, the thrill of pushing yourself, or feeling good after feeling bad?
Yes, this book does touch on Masochism, but it also looks at deliberate pain involving ballet dancers who suffer for their art, for endurance athletes/ultra-marathoners who push their bodies to the brink, those who enter Carolina Reaper eating contests, those who take polar plunges, and those who engage in religious flagellants to name a few. Consensual pain and activities that involve pain have been around since the beginning of time.
Plus, there are those who enjoy watching people feel pain, "Hot Ones" comes to mind. If you have seen it, you have seen celebrities eating hot wings and struggling to answer questions as well. This inspired our household to hold our own, hot sauce eating contest. There are also those who enjoy watching people get hooks in their backs and be suspended from the ceiling.
I found this book to be a fast, interesting, and absorbing read. She provides examples, neuroscience, and history on various pain on purpose activities. The Author spoke to scientists, psychologists, and those who seek pain for pleasure plus shared a few personal experiences as well.
Hard to put down, interesting and informative.
Thank you to Perseus Books, Public Affairs and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.
**I always have a soundtrack or a particular song going through my head while I read books, for some reason John Mellencamp was on my playlist for this book.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com
April 22, 2021
As someone who both enjoys sadomasochistic play and suffers from a chronic pain disorder, I found this book fascinating. I had never learned this much about how pain works in the brain and body before, despite having had an intimate relationship with pain for most of my adult life.
Cowart's writing style is sharp, funny, expressive, weird, and authentic. Their adventures and misadventures in the book are a delight to read about. I particularly enjoyed their visits to the pepper-eating festival and the backyard ultramarathon. Anyone who enjoys "pain on purpose" in any area of life – whether it be sex, exercise, recreation, religion, or anything else – should read this!
Cowart's writing style is sharp, funny, expressive, weird, and authentic. Their adventures and misadventures in the book are a delight to read about. I particularly enjoyed their visits to the pepper-eating festival and the backyard ultramarathon. Anyone who enjoys "pain on purpose" in any area of life – whether it be sex, exercise, recreation, religion, or anything else – should read this!
July 19, 2021
Hundreds of billions of dollars annually go into the research, production and sales of tools and meds to dull, lessen or avoid pain. Pain suffering is a universal human dilemma. And yet, there are untold millions, possibly billions of people who crave it. Pain comes in an unending variety of flavors, as Leigh Cowart discovers, explains and demonstrates in Hurts So Good. It’s bigger than we think. Cowart says “Once I noticed the propensity and enjoyment of certain kinds of pain in myself, I noticed it everywhere.”
Her book is a remarkable tour of people seeking pain. She attends an ultra-marathon, where people run for 60 hours straight, until only one person is left on the course. Millions of little girls live for the day when they get their first pointe shoes for ballet, so their nails can dig into their feet, their cuticles can blister and bleed, and maybe some toes break. She attends a chili pepper eating contest, and most unwisely chews on the world’s hottest pepper, followed immediately by rubbing her eyes with her capsaicin-covered fingers. She swims with other “idiots” in the Atlantic Ocean on New Years’ Day. If it causes pain, Cowart wants to explore it.
She opens, wisely, with an adventure in BDSM, her own current favorite source of pain. That gets the reader hooked for the long look back to Sacher-Masoch and Krafft-Ebbing, who brought sexual pain into the public realm, revealing, as this book does, that there is a very wide interest in reading about sex. That, plus their own stories are particularly revealing. If it’s sex-related, humans can’t get enough of it.
Back in the present, Cowart enjoys a good beating, being Saran-wrapped and hung from the ceiling, spanked till she can’t sit, manhandled abusively, and forced to orgasm amidst the blood and fluids. She glows from it, in more ways than one. This is not your mother’s Fifty Shades of Grey.
Pain seekers go back at least to the early Christians, with their animal hair shits and self-flagellation. It was well documented a thousand years later, as sects self-flagellated in public to atone for the Black Plague. Such activities were usually considered (at least until recently) mental illness, and treated as such. Cowart says however, that self-flagellating cults in the streets would not have been shocking in the 1300s. Pain has long been a normal part of daily life, with beatings at school and at work. Today, mankind has developed all sorts of ways to induce pain, seemingly for pleasure, with little or no stigma attached. It is even admired.
The pleasure comes in many forms, she says. It can be an adrenaline rush during the pain, or the endorphin rush afterwards. It can be satisfaction in knowing you can outlast the pain, or the accomplishment of doing something truly pointless, but which demonstrates superhuman exertion.
That possibly half of humanity enjoys some sort of pain is a revelation. It is far more important, and in a positive way, than we normally think. Here’s her best try at explaining it: “When people talk about pain on purpose, they almost always talk about what comes next, how they feel after the pain. The dominion over self. The endorphin rush, that hit of homebrew morphine, the lactic acid that makes the muscles tense with a pleasing burn long after the workout has ended. High-sensation-seeking people out there using their bodies to test limits, to feel something wild, to push themselves. There are masochists who are strictly pain-seeking for the sensation of it, but, in my experience, there are so, so many more who use pain as a tool to feel something else. To feed bad to feel better.”
It’s not just kinky sex. She says: “I believe, through research and interviews and personal experience, that using pain for its own sake is an everyday part of being human. I think the capacity to seek out and benefit from pain is built into us, embedded in the looping chemical user manuals that come installed in our rented primate bodies.” She says she is in awe of people who display such mastery. In other words, suffering induced pain is an accomplishment worthy of praise. Just ask marathoners, long distance swimmers, Everest climbers, or people who hike the entire Appalachian Trail in one go. They’re all examined here.
For Cowart, it seems to have begun at an early age with ballet, which punished her, put her in hospital, and nearly caused her to die. Like most ballerinas, she knew it was all part of the road to success, so she kept at it. But looking back, it was crazy: “What if you took your shoes off and kicked the wall with your big toe as hard as you could, over and over and over again, and then you kept doing it until your toenails turned eggplant purple and fell off?” So we train our children to not merely endure, but to seek out pain as being worthy.
The best segment, at least for me, was her description of her days in Chicago as an anorexic-bulimic. The days were all the same, working two jobs, stealing, downing various foods and immediately throwing them back up, in order to digest nothing, ever. The pain of hunger, of the deteriorating body aching for any kind of sustenance and her miserable lifestyle are all horribly real. She’s not proud of that period, but she demonstrates again how pain shapes her life. And that she is not alone.
Freed of anorexia before it would have killed her, she has moved on to BDSM-related pain. It must be done with trust and love, she says. While she would blanch at a stranger touching her arm, a lover inserting needles like stitches all over her back is immensely pleasurable, beyond the immediate pain. “I have come to think of my experiences with masochism as a kind of biohacking: a way to use the electrochemistry of my body in a deliberate way for the purpose of curating a specific experience. Something about my response to pain is different, be it inborn or learned (or both, I suspect). It’s something that allows me to craft a little pocket of joy for myself, an engineered release, be it through running a few miles uphill, getting a tattoo, or getting slapped in the face for fun until I cry.”
Pain focuses the mind. When Cowart is in induced pain, nothing else matters. She is totally focused on only the pain. All the worries of the day, all the worries of the world simply vanish. There is nothing at all in the universe besides her pain. That is part of the attraction. She heard the same sort of thing from marathoners, and when she joined the “polar bears” on January first for a dip in the Atlantic, she also focused, telling herself she would survive, it would soon end, and she could do this. Despite extreme cold being her worst fear. She heard that kind of recitation from others in her travels.
The book has lengthy explanations of how pain works, how the brain interprets it and filters knowledge of it as it deems appropriate. The brain can be trained to react differently to pain too. It’s all part of the game of pain, and for some the game is everything.
I like how conversational Cowart is, making her experiences very believable. She also is journalistic, checking details, backgrounds, interviewing scientists and taking far more notes than she could ever use in the book, she says. She even provides a Youtube video of her eating the world’s hottest pepper exactly as she described it – painfully.
I did not like all the F-bombs, often several per page. That always dulls their usage, without adding any information. They have no shock value in the book, though they might elicit the occasional giggle. But I came to realize the book would not be better without them. It’s part of the self-harm ethos that Cowart talks dirty. It is altogether a different world, and Cowart is an excellent guide to it.
David Wineberg
Her book is a remarkable tour of people seeking pain. She attends an ultra-marathon, where people run for 60 hours straight, until only one person is left on the course. Millions of little girls live for the day when they get their first pointe shoes for ballet, so their nails can dig into their feet, their cuticles can blister and bleed, and maybe some toes break. She attends a chili pepper eating contest, and most unwisely chews on the world’s hottest pepper, followed immediately by rubbing her eyes with her capsaicin-covered fingers. She swims with other “idiots” in the Atlantic Ocean on New Years’ Day. If it causes pain, Cowart wants to explore it.
She opens, wisely, with an adventure in BDSM, her own current favorite source of pain. That gets the reader hooked for the long look back to Sacher-Masoch and Krafft-Ebbing, who brought sexual pain into the public realm, revealing, as this book does, that there is a very wide interest in reading about sex. That, plus their own stories are particularly revealing. If it’s sex-related, humans can’t get enough of it.
Back in the present, Cowart enjoys a good beating, being Saran-wrapped and hung from the ceiling, spanked till she can’t sit, manhandled abusively, and forced to orgasm amidst the blood and fluids. She glows from it, in more ways than one. This is not your mother’s Fifty Shades of Grey.
Pain seekers go back at least to the early Christians, with their animal hair shits and self-flagellation. It was well documented a thousand years later, as sects self-flagellated in public to atone for the Black Plague. Such activities were usually considered (at least until recently) mental illness, and treated as such. Cowart says however, that self-flagellating cults in the streets would not have been shocking in the 1300s. Pain has long been a normal part of daily life, with beatings at school and at work. Today, mankind has developed all sorts of ways to induce pain, seemingly for pleasure, with little or no stigma attached. It is even admired.
The pleasure comes in many forms, she says. It can be an adrenaline rush during the pain, or the endorphin rush afterwards. It can be satisfaction in knowing you can outlast the pain, or the accomplishment of doing something truly pointless, but which demonstrates superhuman exertion.
That possibly half of humanity enjoys some sort of pain is a revelation. It is far more important, and in a positive way, than we normally think. Here’s her best try at explaining it: “When people talk about pain on purpose, they almost always talk about what comes next, how they feel after the pain. The dominion over self. The endorphin rush, that hit of homebrew morphine, the lactic acid that makes the muscles tense with a pleasing burn long after the workout has ended. High-sensation-seeking people out there using their bodies to test limits, to feel something wild, to push themselves. There are masochists who are strictly pain-seeking for the sensation of it, but, in my experience, there are so, so many more who use pain as a tool to feel something else. To feed bad to feel better.”
It’s not just kinky sex. She says: “I believe, through research and interviews and personal experience, that using pain for its own sake is an everyday part of being human. I think the capacity to seek out and benefit from pain is built into us, embedded in the looping chemical user manuals that come installed in our rented primate bodies.” She says she is in awe of people who display such mastery. In other words, suffering induced pain is an accomplishment worthy of praise. Just ask marathoners, long distance swimmers, Everest climbers, or people who hike the entire Appalachian Trail in one go. They’re all examined here.
For Cowart, it seems to have begun at an early age with ballet, which punished her, put her in hospital, and nearly caused her to die. Like most ballerinas, she knew it was all part of the road to success, so she kept at it. But looking back, it was crazy: “What if you took your shoes off and kicked the wall with your big toe as hard as you could, over and over and over again, and then you kept doing it until your toenails turned eggplant purple and fell off?” So we train our children to not merely endure, but to seek out pain as being worthy.
The best segment, at least for me, was her description of her days in Chicago as an anorexic-bulimic. The days were all the same, working two jobs, stealing, downing various foods and immediately throwing them back up, in order to digest nothing, ever. The pain of hunger, of the deteriorating body aching for any kind of sustenance and her miserable lifestyle are all horribly real. She’s not proud of that period, but she demonstrates again how pain shapes her life. And that she is not alone.
Freed of anorexia before it would have killed her, she has moved on to BDSM-related pain. It must be done with trust and love, she says. While she would blanch at a stranger touching her arm, a lover inserting needles like stitches all over her back is immensely pleasurable, beyond the immediate pain. “I have come to think of my experiences with masochism as a kind of biohacking: a way to use the electrochemistry of my body in a deliberate way for the purpose of curating a specific experience. Something about my response to pain is different, be it inborn or learned (or both, I suspect). It’s something that allows me to craft a little pocket of joy for myself, an engineered release, be it through running a few miles uphill, getting a tattoo, or getting slapped in the face for fun until I cry.”
Pain focuses the mind. When Cowart is in induced pain, nothing else matters. She is totally focused on only the pain. All the worries of the day, all the worries of the world simply vanish. There is nothing at all in the universe besides her pain. That is part of the attraction. She heard the same sort of thing from marathoners, and when she joined the “polar bears” on January first for a dip in the Atlantic, she also focused, telling herself she would survive, it would soon end, and she could do this. Despite extreme cold being her worst fear. She heard that kind of recitation from others in her travels.
The book has lengthy explanations of how pain works, how the brain interprets it and filters knowledge of it as it deems appropriate. The brain can be trained to react differently to pain too. It’s all part of the game of pain, and for some the game is everything.
I like how conversational Cowart is, making her experiences very believable. She also is journalistic, checking details, backgrounds, interviewing scientists and taking far more notes than she could ever use in the book, she says. She even provides a Youtube video of her eating the world’s hottest pepper exactly as she described it – painfully.
I did not like all the F-bombs, often several per page. That always dulls their usage, without adding any information. They have no shock value in the book, though they might elicit the occasional giggle. But I came to realize the book would not be better without them. It’s part of the self-harm ethos that Cowart talks dirty. It is altogether a different world, and Cowart is an excellent guide to it.
David Wineberg
February 26, 2022
First off, this book should not be described as an exploration of "people all over the world," as the author does not visit anywhere outside the U.S. in her research, nor does she give much discussion to other places or non-Western cultures.
While the book starts off with interesting scientific and historical insights into masochism, it really devolves towards the end, when the author goes into excruciating over-descriptions of banal experiences: I had to put my audiobook on 1.5x during the description of eating the hot pepper, taking a polar plunge (who hasn't done this?), and WATCHING (NOT participating in) an ultra-marathon.
More on the ultra-marathon topic: The idea that ultra-runners are masochists is a common misconception held by non-runners. The organizer of a marathon tells the author as much. Then after observing (not participating in) an ultra marathon and talking to a couple of runners, the author concludes "I beg to differ." Based on what?! There’s a tangent about the history of marathons, but at no point is any evidence given as to why ultra running is included as an example in a book about masochism.
This book also just felt so self-indulgent, as the author throws in unnecessary asides to let us know she’s done drugs and had kinky sex and likes to swear. While her experiences with ballet, bullemia, and BDSM are highly relevant, I don't see any added value in the author telling us about her steaming used tampon in a port-a-potty.
Also, the repetitiveness: the author must have told us 5x at least that BDSM without consent is abuse. Noted! We get it!
I found out about this book through the New York Times, and it has great ratings on Goodreads, so I'm quite disappointed.
While the book starts off with interesting scientific and historical insights into masochism, it really devolves towards the end, when the author goes into excruciating over-descriptions of banal experiences: I had to put my audiobook on 1.5x during the description of eating the hot pepper, taking a polar plunge (who hasn't done this?), and WATCHING (NOT participating in) an ultra-marathon.
More on the ultra-marathon topic: The idea that ultra-runners are masochists is a common misconception held by non-runners. The organizer of a marathon tells the author as much. Then after observing (not participating in) an ultra marathon and talking to a couple of runners, the author concludes "I beg to differ." Based on what?! There’s a tangent about the history of marathons, but at no point is any evidence given as to why ultra running is included as an example in a book about masochism.
This book also just felt so self-indulgent, as the author throws in unnecessary asides to let us know she’s done drugs and had kinky sex and likes to swear. While her experiences with ballet, bullemia, and BDSM are highly relevant, I don't see any added value in the author telling us about her steaming used tampon in a port-a-potty.
Also, the repetitiveness: the author must have told us 5x at least that BDSM without consent is abuse. Noted! We get it!
I found out about this book through the New York Times, and it has great ratings on Goodreads, so I'm quite disappointed.
December 6, 2022
Cowart's argument is solid, I think: that "masochism" as an umbrella term is applicable to all the contexts in which, as the subtitle puts it, people seek out pain on purpose: not only BDSM but also classical ballet, anorexia, and marathon running, for three.
There's nothing wrong with this book, exactly; I just got bored with the personal anecdotes, with seeing everything chiefly through the lens of Cowart's experience. Hurts So Good opens with an extended (and hot) BDSM scene in which Cowart is pushed to some pretty impressive heights of pain and forced orgasm, and that worked for me as an introduction to the intellectual process of considering how chosen pain works and why, neurochemically speaking, it can be so satisfying. The trouble was that the discussion continued in personal-anecdote mode, and while I'd have been interested to hear about dancers in general and how pain works in their world -- Cowart's discussion of toe shoes and the damage to dancers' feet is blood-curdling; give me a singletail any day -- I wasn't terribly interested in Cowart's individual history as a dancer, etc. After a while I discovered that I hadn't opened the Kindle file in a week, so: time to return this one to the library and let someone else have a shot.
There's nothing wrong with this book, exactly; I just got bored with the personal anecdotes, with seeing everything chiefly through the lens of Cowart's experience. Hurts So Good opens with an extended (and hot) BDSM scene in which Cowart is pushed to some pretty impressive heights of pain and forced orgasm, and that worked for me as an introduction to the intellectual process of considering how chosen pain works and why, neurochemically speaking, it can be so satisfying. The trouble was that the discussion continued in personal-anecdote mode, and while I'd have been interested to hear about dancers in general and how pain works in their world -- Cowart's discussion of toe shoes and the damage to dancers' feet is blood-curdling; give me a singletail any day -- I wasn't terribly interested in Cowart's individual history as a dancer, etc. After a while I discovered that I hadn't opened the Kindle file in a week, so: time to return this one to the library and let someone else have a shot.
March 10, 2023
This book was much more memoir than science reporting.
March 12, 2023
you know what was really painful? “meat bag” ad infinitum
November 28, 2021
Hurts so good brings pain on purpose to light, but I think I expected so much more from this book. I expected to understand why we find pleasure in pain and masochism but feel I got more of a memoir with experiences from eating the hottest peppers in the world to swimming in freezing water.
I'm not sure how to rate this book.
I'm not sure how to rate this book.
January 1, 2022
A phenomenal exploration of the link between purposeful pain and pleasure. I’ve read my fair share of BDSM romance and erotica but I hadn’t thought much beyond the sexual application of masochism. Sure, we all joke about various things making us masochists but it’s so much broader than that. Some masochism is viewed as “normal” (eating hot peppers, running marathons, ballet dancing), while other forms are viewed as deviant or abnormal. There’s value in asking why and what purpose that serves. I will never think about it the same way again.
Cowart had me thinking through the times in my life when I have purposefully chosen pain, such as when I was on the crew team in college. One of my proudest moments was when I got a navel piercing twenty years ago and an employee watching exclaimed, “she didn’t flinch!” Or how about how nonchalant I am while getting tattoos? There might be more of a masochist in me than I thought.
This exploration is careful to distinguish the “on purpose” part from abuse. Masochism is inherently consensual. If it’s not consensual, it’s abuse. But the author took the book a step further by exploring when pain on purpose is okay and when it can become harmful and the sometime difficulty in distinguishing between the two.
This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It won’t be for everyone, especially those with certain triggers. At the same time, I hope people can look past their associations and assumptions about masochism and give this one a chance. Cowart has such an engaging narrative voice and I really appreciated their approach.
Note: Cowart gives an explicit content warning before starting chapter 6 as it deals heavily with disordered eating and self-harm, both their own experience and those of others. Elsewhere, they go into detail about their own experiences with BDSM and medical trauma. People they interview mention their past addictions or being bitten by a poisonous snake. This book has so much value in it but I will readily admit I was not prepared to read about tongue forking. But hey, now I know what that process is like.
Content notes: BDSM, on page pain play, on page sex, on page needle play, disordered eating, self-harm, vomit, medical trauma, tongue forking procedure, body modification, genital torture, discussion of abuse under the guise of BDSM, interviewees with history of substance abuse, Flagellant Movements, history of Black Plague, discussion of chronic pain, discussion of MDMA (ecstasy), mention of nun who starved herself to death, person who recovered from poisonous snake bite, alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, drugs, shoplifting
Cowart had me thinking through the times in my life when I have purposefully chosen pain, such as when I was on the crew team in college. One of my proudest moments was when I got a navel piercing twenty years ago and an employee watching exclaimed, “she didn’t flinch!” Or how about how nonchalant I am while getting tattoos? There might be more of a masochist in me than I thought.
This exploration is careful to distinguish the “on purpose” part from abuse. Masochism is inherently consensual. If it’s not consensual, it’s abuse. But the author took the book a step further by exploring when pain on purpose is okay and when it can become harmful and the sometime difficulty in distinguishing between the two.
This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It won’t be for everyone, especially those with certain triggers. At the same time, I hope people can look past their associations and assumptions about masochism and give this one a chance. Cowart has such an engaging narrative voice and I really appreciated their approach.
Note: Cowart gives an explicit content warning before starting chapter 6 as it deals heavily with disordered eating and self-harm, both their own experience and those of others. Elsewhere, they go into detail about their own experiences with BDSM and medical trauma. People they interview mention their past addictions or being bitten by a poisonous snake. This book has so much value in it but I will readily admit I was not prepared to read about tongue forking. But hey, now I know what that process is like.
Content notes: BDSM, on page pain play, on page sex, on page needle play, disordered eating, self-harm, vomit, medical trauma, tongue forking procedure, body modification, genital torture, discussion of abuse under the guise of BDSM, interviewees with history of substance abuse, Flagellant Movements, history of Black Plague, discussion of chronic pain, discussion of MDMA (ecstasy), mention of nun who starved herself to death, person who recovered from poisonous snake bite, alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, drugs, shoplifting
June 14, 2021
Humans devote a lot of effort to avoiding unpleasant sensations. I’ve even heard people philosophize that all human activity is about moving toward pleasure or away from pain, but this claim fails on two grounds. First, people don’t invariably flee from pain, sometimes they run into its arms. Second, the dichotomization of pleasure and pain, categorizing them as opposites, also fails for a wide variety of human endeavors.
This book reflects upon a diverse set of cases in which the pleasure-pain dichotomy breaks down, attempting to glimpse why this is the case. Cowart investigates pepper-eating contests, ultramarathons, Polar Bear Club mid-winter dips, flagellation by religious adherents, and sexual sadomasochism. One thing these diverse activities have in common is that individuals voluntarily and purposefully subject themselves to intensely painful sensations. Throughout the book, the author is forthright about the varied ways that she has been attracted to pain, including: ballet dancing, an eating disorder, and sexual masochism.
This book takes a story-centric approach. As the subtitle suggests, it does present scientific findings, but this information is tucked in amid the stories – both her own confessional tales and the stories of the masochists (broadly speaking, i.e. not referring only to sexual pain-seekers) she meets during her research trips.
As a student of both martial arts and yoga, I found that the changing of one’s perception of, and relationship to, sensation is one of the most profound and empowering aspects of these practices. I, therefore, was curious what brought people to the purposeful pursuit of pain and what benefits others found. Not surprisingly, there isn’t just one reason for all cases, and Cowart discusses neurochemical, social, and psychological reasons. If you’re curious about why people engage in pain purposefully and voluntarily, this book is a must-read.
This book reflects upon a diverse set of cases in which the pleasure-pain dichotomy breaks down, attempting to glimpse why this is the case. Cowart investigates pepper-eating contests, ultramarathons, Polar Bear Club mid-winter dips, flagellation by religious adherents, and sexual sadomasochism. One thing these diverse activities have in common is that individuals voluntarily and purposefully subject themselves to intensely painful sensations. Throughout the book, the author is forthright about the varied ways that she has been attracted to pain, including: ballet dancing, an eating disorder, and sexual masochism.
This book takes a story-centric approach. As the subtitle suggests, it does present scientific findings, but this information is tucked in amid the stories – both her own confessional tales and the stories of the masochists (broadly speaking, i.e. not referring only to sexual pain-seekers) she meets during her research trips.
As a student of both martial arts and yoga, I found that the changing of one’s perception of, and relationship to, sensation is one of the most profound and empowering aspects of these practices. I, therefore, was curious what brought people to the purposeful pursuit of pain and what benefits others found. Not surprisingly, there isn’t just one reason for all cases, and Cowart discusses neurochemical, social, and psychological reasons. If you’re curious about why people engage in pain purposefully and voluntarily, this book is a must-read.
October 5, 2021
Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose
by Leigh Cowart
⚡️ I was provided an e-ARC by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
🌟: 2 / 5
📚: A personal and scientific exploration of why experiencing pain can be the greatest pleasure for some people.
💭: I’d like to think that in my years or loving to learn about how weird bodies can be, I have developed a decently strong stomach for anything that science writers could throw at me. Reader, I was wrong.
What I assumed would be a book about the science, psychology, and culture of different folks that use pain in various forms to build community and find pleasure (such as BDSM, extreme athletes, and religious flagellates of yore), but this book really devolved into something beyond that. There came a point where I could barely keep going with reading this book and was doing so exclusively to list out exactly what this book contains for my fellow readers who assumed that they had strong stomachs and did not.
From the very get-go, Cowart is very vocal about the context of the pain seen in this book: it is consensual, it is for pleasure, and if it is not, then that is abuse. She uses the case studies that she is given with the explicit statements that they were given to her with full permission to use in her book by people who were comfortable with speaking candidly about these more private (or extremely public) aspects of their lives (she does use one historical case study where that was not the case, and it is both a great juxtaposition and a heartbreaking story of someone whose sex life was put on display after his death by his ex-wife).
If I tried to review this book as objectively as I do with other popular science books, I definitely do think that the first few chapters read in such an engaging and well-researched way. The ways that people find community through shared suffering is GENUINELY so interesting, and the ways that it’s been studied and proven to help build community, reduce feelings of guilt, and can even lessen pain when more than one person is feeling it together is so intriguing. However, about halfway through chapter 3 is where things started to go downhill for me— fast.
By the end of chapter 3, this book starts to intermittently devolve into actual descriptions of body horror— think (and I apologize for mentioning the things in this list, but I wish that I had them before I started reading and was surprised by their appearances) being hoisted into the air by body piercings, graphic descriptions of eating disorders, the disfigurement brought on by ultramarathons and constant ballet practice, self harm, sideshow-performance-style body horror, amongst other things. And while I could definitely understand the inclusion of these topics in this specific book, the detail that goes into using them as case studies without much reference to research or science really threw me.
I think that there were times where I myself started to disassociate to just finish the book, much like in the descriptions of how people react to pain for pleasure, and I kind of applaud Cowart for that. However, this book is not for the faint of heart. It is less objective and more personal than most popular science books are, which lends it a lot of credibility but also will likely push other readers— who prefer this genre but not the actual act of pain for pleasure— away from finishing it. Reading it feels disjointed and jumpy at times, and I had trouble keeping track of what the narrative was because there was little logical structure to the content itself.
Do not get me wrong, there were parts of this book that fascinated and delighted me, but most of the book had me barely capable of going through with finishing it. I think that this book is definitely interesting, but it’s very much written for an audience who already takes part in some form of pain for pleasure and not the wider popular science readership. I hesitate to recommend it, and really only went through with reading it myself because I wanted other people to know what exactly they are getting into.
by Leigh Cowart
⚡️ I was provided an e-ARC by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
🌟: 2 / 5
📚: A personal and scientific exploration of why experiencing pain can be the greatest pleasure for some people.
💭: I’d like to think that in my years or loving to learn about how weird bodies can be, I have developed a decently strong stomach for anything that science writers could throw at me. Reader, I was wrong.
What I assumed would be a book about the science, psychology, and culture of different folks that use pain in various forms to build community and find pleasure (such as BDSM, extreme athletes, and religious flagellates of yore), but this book really devolved into something beyond that. There came a point where I could barely keep going with reading this book and was doing so exclusively to list out exactly what this book contains for my fellow readers who assumed that they had strong stomachs and did not.
From the very get-go, Cowart is very vocal about the context of the pain seen in this book: it is consensual, it is for pleasure, and if it is not, then that is abuse. She uses the case studies that she is given with the explicit statements that they were given to her with full permission to use in her book by people who were comfortable with speaking candidly about these more private (or extremely public) aspects of their lives (she does use one historical case study where that was not the case, and it is both a great juxtaposition and a heartbreaking story of someone whose sex life was put on display after his death by his ex-wife).
If I tried to review this book as objectively as I do with other popular science books, I definitely do think that the first few chapters read in such an engaging and well-researched way. The ways that people find community through shared suffering is GENUINELY so interesting, and the ways that it’s been studied and proven to help build community, reduce feelings of guilt, and can even lessen pain when more than one person is feeling it together is so intriguing. However, about halfway through chapter 3 is where things started to go downhill for me— fast.
By the end of chapter 3, this book starts to intermittently devolve into actual descriptions of body horror— think (and I apologize for mentioning the things in this list, but I wish that I had them before I started reading and was surprised by their appearances) being hoisted into the air by body piercings, graphic descriptions of eating disorders, the disfigurement brought on by ultramarathons and constant ballet practice, self harm, sideshow-performance-style body horror, amongst other things. And while I could definitely understand the inclusion of these topics in this specific book, the detail that goes into using them as case studies without much reference to research or science really threw me.
I think that there were times where I myself started to disassociate to just finish the book, much like in the descriptions of how people react to pain for pleasure, and I kind of applaud Cowart for that. However, this book is not for the faint of heart. It is less objective and more personal than most popular science books are, which lends it a lot of credibility but also will likely push other readers— who prefer this genre but not the actual act of pain for pleasure— away from finishing it. Reading it feels disjointed and jumpy at times, and I had trouble keeping track of what the narrative was because there was little logical structure to the content itself.
Do not get me wrong, there were parts of this book that fascinated and delighted me, but most of the book had me barely capable of going through with finishing it. I think that this book is definitely interesting, but it’s very much written for an audience who already takes part in some form of pain for pleasure and not the wider popular science readership. I hesitate to recommend it, and really only went through with reading it myself because I wanted other people to know what exactly they are getting into.
April 2, 2022
I honestly don’t have words to describe just how much I love this book. It’s a fascinating exploration of the many reasons people choose to experience pain on purpose, and while that certainly includes BDSM, it also includes marathons and hot pepper eating and ballet dancing.
It examines the way certain kinds of pain on purpose are treated as normal or not about pain, and others are considered titillating or deviant. It grapples with trauma and healing and the ways that pain on purpose can be self harming, and the ways that, in other contexts, similar kinds of pain on purpose can be healing and connecting and empowering.
This book doesn’t have clear cut answers, it’s messy and beautiful and full of questions, and I love it so.
The author mentions the terror of being seen and maybe understood, and oh boy did this book make me feel seen.
It examines the way certain kinds of pain on purpose are treated as normal or not about pain, and others are considered titillating or deviant. It grapples with trauma and healing and the ways that pain on purpose can be self harming, and the ways that, in other contexts, similar kinds of pain on purpose can be healing and connecting and empowering.
This book doesn’t have clear cut answers, it’s messy and beautiful and full of questions, and I love it so.
The author mentions the terror of being seen and maybe understood, and oh boy did this book make me feel seen.
August 25, 2022
It's hard to know where to begin talking about this book. I want to start with how it ended for me...the last chapter had me sitting on my couch dissolved in tears of recognition as I finished listening to the audiobook at 1 in the afternoon. The author begins and ends the book with graphic, tender, beautifully rendered descriptions of personal BDSM scenes. Their description of the intimacy and connection and trust between partners in these scenes is extraordinary. It resonated with me on a deep level, made all the science make sense.
In between, there is a whole lot of fascinating science, history, psychology, and personal testimony attempting to get at the heart of why folks engage in pain on purpose. Many different expressions are explored---a few of which I thought I had zero interest in(ultra marathons, competitive chili eating) but the borderline Gonzo style reporting kept me listening, rapt. The extremely vulnerable stories from the author's own "pain on purpose" journey are sometimes very difficult to hear, but vitally important to the flow of the book.
I wouldn't recommend this book to someone with merely a casual interest in the subject (and certainly not to anyone just looking for titillation)
If you are curious why and how masochism works in the body, the brain, and yes---the heart--- read it.
In between, there is a whole lot of fascinating science, history, psychology, and personal testimony attempting to get at the heart of why folks engage in pain on purpose. Many different expressions are explored---a few of which I thought I had zero interest in(ultra marathons, competitive chili eating) but the borderline Gonzo style reporting kept me listening, rapt. The extremely vulnerable stories from the author's own "pain on purpose" journey are sometimes very difficult to hear, but vitally important to the flow of the book.
I wouldn't recommend this book to someone with merely a casual interest in the subject (and certainly not to anyone just looking for titillation)
If you are curious why and how masochism works in the body, the brain, and yes---the heart--- read it.
March 27, 2024
If you are squeamish at all about blood, needles and piercings, or are easily disgusted by explicit descriptions of sex and bodily fluids, you are going to have a rough time with this book.
I find crass language generally distasteful because I'm prissy, but Cowart doesn't use it merely for shock value. There is a raw vulnerability in her writing that overrides any objections I would usually have. She's not trying to be gross on purpose, she's making what she describes viscerally available to the reader, and that's legitimate.
There are discussions of cutting and bulimia, and flashlights are shone into many dark places. Cocaine comes up a few times to describe the feeling of some of the things Cowart put herself through. The descriptions of ballet injuries are graphic, as is the needleplay scene at the end of the book. The part of the book that personally made me wince was the hook suspension. Your mileage may vary.
The exploration of pain as a tool people have been using ritualistically, religiously and psychologically to make ourselves feel all sorts of things that go hand-in-hand with pain is an endless pursuit and has as many answers as there are people and circumstances. Worth reading if you have the stomach for it.
I find crass language generally distasteful because I'm prissy, but Cowart doesn't use it merely for shock value. There is a raw vulnerability in her writing that overrides any objections I would usually have. She's not trying to be gross on purpose, she's making what she describes viscerally available to the reader, and that's legitimate.
There are discussions of cutting and bulimia, and flashlights are shone into many dark places. Cocaine comes up a few times to describe the feeling of some of the things Cowart put herself through. The descriptions of ballet injuries are graphic, as is the needleplay scene at the end of the book. The part of the book that personally made me wince was the hook suspension. Your mileage may vary.
The exploration of pain as a tool people have been using ritualistically, religiously and psychologically to make ourselves feel all sorts of things that go hand-in-hand with pain is an endless pursuit and has as many answers as there are people and circumstances. Worth reading if you have the stomach for it.
August 29, 2021
Originally published on my book blog, TheBibliophage.com.
Leigh Cowart explores why people consent to experience pain in their upcoming book, Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. They take the science of pain and correlate it with a variety of intentional experiences from ballet class to eating wildly hot chili peppers, ultramarathons, and yes, BDSM. Cowart is unafraid to expose their own kinks, combining scholarship with intimate reveals and plenty of f-bombs.
Naturally, this isn’t the book for everyone. This is true of every book on the market, by the way. But for me, as a person with tattoos, piercings, and chronic medical pain, it’s a fascinating read. I connect with Cowart’s descriptions of ballet class because I did hot yoga for more than a decade in 110° heat and 60% humidity. Like Cowart, at the end of every class, I had a palpable high that no other exercise quite replicates.
Chronic pain can be isolating. But Cowart explains the science behind why collective experiences of pain bond people together and actually create less pain. Essentially, if I decided to run into the ocean on a Saturday night in January all by myself, the pain would likely be unbearable. But by taking part in a Polar Bear Plunge on a Saturday morning in January with hundreds of other people, as Cowart did, it would hurt considerably less.
And no matter what pain we agree to experience, the benefit is the endorphins our body releases. This neuropeptide, created by our nervous system, is the body’s own opioid. The name endorphin is actually a combination of the word endogenous (created by the body) and morphine (pain-relieving medication). So the payoff of pain on purpose is considerable, given the right circumstances.
My conclusions
As a massage therapist, I say the phrase “good hurt” multiple times every week. I ask for consent and check in often with clients. I know that the most important part of a good massage is trust and open communication, not the depth of pressure or the specific technique. This all explains what motivates this grandma to read more about how humans have agreed to experience pain for centuries.
Cowart discusses the historical aspects of pain, as well as today’s related choices. For example, hair shirts and flagellation as a part of religious rituals connect pain to a desire for absolution or for religious bliss. The history of masochism and its initial diagnosis by the fledgling world of psychiatry is also interesting social history. The moments of levity that Cowart inserts here and throughout the book create a helpful balance too.
Yes, Cowart covers the science, including peer-reviewed studies and discussions of how our body’s complex system of pain works. There’s physiology and psychiatry, alongside discussions of what constitutes abuse versus consent.
Blended all throughout is some very personal, vulnerable stuff from Cowart’s own experience. They become part of the book’s case studies, but I never felt they put too much focus on themselves. Still, a book like this cannot be effective without the author having a true connection to the material. And Cowart certainly has that. They delve into descriptions with true heart and emotion, as well as specificity.
Their writing style is sometimes quite casual. At some points, this reads like a blog or sounded like a podcast. Still, Cowart is legitimate in their scientific exploration of the subject. I expect to return to the concepts and revelations often.
If exploring the world of intentional, consensual pain intrigues you, then I recommend this book.
Pair with Fierce and Delicate: Essays on Dance and Illness by Renee Nicholson for a memoir fully about life post-ballet. Or try Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctor’s Believe in Women’s Pain by Abby Norman. Both are memoirs about primarily medical pain, but the correlation is logical.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to NetGalley, Perseus Books / PublicAffairs, and the author for a digital advanced reader’s copy in exchange for this honest review.
Leigh Cowart explores why people consent to experience pain in their upcoming book, Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. They take the science of pain and correlate it with a variety of intentional experiences from ballet class to eating wildly hot chili peppers, ultramarathons, and yes, BDSM. Cowart is unafraid to expose their own kinks, combining scholarship with intimate reveals and plenty of f-bombs.
Naturally, this isn’t the book for everyone. This is true of every book on the market, by the way. But for me, as a person with tattoos, piercings, and chronic medical pain, it’s a fascinating read. I connect with Cowart’s descriptions of ballet class because I did hot yoga for more than a decade in 110° heat and 60% humidity. Like Cowart, at the end of every class, I had a palpable high that no other exercise quite replicates.
Chronic pain can be isolating. But Cowart explains the science behind why collective experiences of pain bond people together and actually create less pain. Essentially, if I decided to run into the ocean on a Saturday night in January all by myself, the pain would likely be unbearable. But by taking part in a Polar Bear Plunge on a Saturday morning in January with hundreds of other people, as Cowart did, it would hurt considerably less.
And no matter what pain we agree to experience, the benefit is the endorphins our body releases. This neuropeptide, created by our nervous system, is the body’s own opioid. The name endorphin is actually a combination of the word endogenous (created by the body) and morphine (pain-relieving medication). So the payoff of pain on purpose is considerable, given the right circumstances.
My conclusions
As a massage therapist, I say the phrase “good hurt” multiple times every week. I ask for consent and check in often with clients. I know that the most important part of a good massage is trust and open communication, not the depth of pressure or the specific technique. This all explains what motivates this grandma to read more about how humans have agreed to experience pain for centuries.
Cowart discusses the historical aspects of pain, as well as today’s related choices. For example, hair shirts and flagellation as a part of religious rituals connect pain to a desire for absolution or for religious bliss. The history of masochism and its initial diagnosis by the fledgling world of psychiatry is also interesting social history. The moments of levity that Cowart inserts here and throughout the book create a helpful balance too.
Yes, Cowart covers the science, including peer-reviewed studies and discussions of how our body’s complex system of pain works. There’s physiology and psychiatry, alongside discussions of what constitutes abuse versus consent.
Blended all throughout is some very personal, vulnerable stuff from Cowart’s own experience. They become part of the book’s case studies, but I never felt they put too much focus on themselves. Still, a book like this cannot be effective without the author having a true connection to the material. And Cowart certainly has that. They delve into descriptions with true heart and emotion, as well as specificity.
Their writing style is sometimes quite casual. At some points, this reads like a blog or sounded like a podcast. Still, Cowart is legitimate in their scientific exploration of the subject. I expect to return to the concepts and revelations often.
If exploring the world of intentional, consensual pain intrigues you, then I recommend this book.
Pair with Fierce and Delicate: Essays on Dance and Illness by Renee Nicholson for a memoir fully about life post-ballet. Or try Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctor’s Believe in Women’s Pain by Abby Norman. Both are memoirs about primarily medical pain, but the correlation is logical.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to NetGalley, Perseus Books / PublicAffairs, and the author for a digital advanced reader’s copy in exchange for this honest review.
September 2, 2022
Pain reminds us that we're simultaneously fragile and strong to be alive.
There are very few good books tackle the topic of pain and masochism. I found the angle interesting and informative. While I liked it overall, "Hurts So Good" also feels a bit random at times. The chapters seem only to be connected by the author's experience, and the overall throughline often gets lost. It's not a thorough exploration of the topic but rather a personal exploration. There is also some repetitiveness involved, where I had to roll my eyes while thinking, "ok, I get it already". With these caveats in mind, I would still recommend the book to people interested and curious about the topic.
There are very few good books tackle the topic of pain and masochism. I found the angle interesting and informative. While I liked it overall, "Hurts So Good" also feels a bit random at times. The chapters seem only to be connected by the author's experience, and the overall throughline often gets lost. It's not a thorough exploration of the topic but rather a personal exploration. There is also some repetitiveness involved, where I had to roll my eyes while thinking, "ok, I get it already". With these caveats in mind, I would still recommend the book to people interested and curious about the topic.
December 5, 2025
The penultimate chapter about BDSM was so beautifully put it almost brought a tear to my eyes.
I learnt so much from this book and thought a lot about pain and my own relationship with it, I'm glad to have read this book at this particular moment of my life.
I learnt so much from this book and thought a lot about pain and my own relationship with it, I'm glad to have read this book at this particular moment of my life.
maybe-one-day
November 3, 2024more about the author's personal history and anecdotes
July 18, 2024
I had high hopes for this based on Ed Yong's recommendation but this was a big disappointment. There's potentially a good long form article in here but there's way too much self-indulgence and not enough science for me. I really struggled to appreciate the research that they clearly did when it all just seemed like an excuse to talk about themselves, often at the expense of getting deeper into the "science and culture" promised in the title. And there's nothing wrong with that but then the title should have included "memoir" or "personal journey." I very much want the book that this title accurately describes and not this person's journey of self-discovery.
July 10, 2024
boring - dull, DNF
This was about as interesting as licking a mailbox. The author goes on and on about her time in ballet, when science was promised. There isn’t, or doesn’t appear to be, any serious critical inspection of masochism. Or if it is it’s buried beneath “when I was a kid” .. “talking to my friend Jimmy, who is a runner” I don’t care about any of that - tell me why being hurt feels good, the science and some practical info about it and end the book. I’m not here for a collection of stories…
I paid real money for this book and I regret it.
0/12 ballet shoes
This was about as interesting as licking a mailbox. The author goes on and on about her time in ballet, when science was promised. There isn’t, or doesn’t appear to be, any serious critical inspection of masochism. Or if it is it’s buried beneath “when I was a kid” .. “talking to my friend Jimmy, who is a runner” I don’t care about any of that - tell me why being hurt feels good, the science and some practical info about it and end the book. I’m not here for a collection of stories…
I paid real money for this book and I regret it.
0/12 ballet shoes
January 1, 2022
fantastic! one of the best nonfiction books I've read in a while. brilliantly written, expertly researched, and amazing personal touches with the author's own stories woven through. I was moved, I laughed, I gasped, I learned a lot. highly recommend.
August 4, 2021
In Hurts So Good, science journalist Leigh Cowart seeks to understand why people voluntarily engage in physically painful activities. The book explores a wide spectrum of human experiences from religious self-flagellation in the middle ages, to pushing one’s body to its limits in ultramarathons, to eating the world’s hottest chili pepper. Merging science with her own sharp and compassionate insight, Cowart’s vibrant voice accompanies the reader on a journey of desire, bliss, brokenness, and grace.
(Note, the book does explore some pretty dark material and goes to some dark places – the readers should take care when reading this book)
(Note, the book does explore some pretty dark material and goes to some dark places – the readers should take care when reading this book)
August 16, 2023
A fascinating exploration of why some people seek pain for pleasure. Some chapters were more interesting than others, naturally, depending on the topic covered. I learned a lot; Cowart's personal anecdotes added to the readability and they just seem like a really cool person 😁 BDSM is only a fraction of the research, but the range is vast, from ballet to ultramarathoners to hot chili pepper eaters--all of it is wildly interesting into the deep dive of perhaps WHY people subject themselves to feel bad in order to feel better.
May 18, 2022
I found this book to be endlessly fascinating and so good that I ruminated on many chapters. I found myself having to read passages to others just to highlight how poetic the authors writing is and how truly visceral much of this book is. I found much of this to be informative if not downright inspiring. I also think I better understand the draw of running but I'd much rather get into hard drugs than fall down that rabbit hole.
January 6, 2022
So good. Such a smooth and easy read of some truly shuddering and thrilling experiences, thoughtfully framed and prodded to reveal an extremely common pull for humanity. I loved it.
September 29, 2024
the more i sit with it, the more disappointed i feel with this book. white woman goes to some events focused on extreme sensations and writes about them. refuses to talk about BDSM until the last chapter. ugh.
November 5, 2023
Two stars looks harsh, but I'm rating based on Goodreads description which is to say the book was OK or simply not bad. I think it was worth the read, but I just had a few problems with it which is why it isn't a book I'd read again, but it is a book I'd recommend to people who I think would like it better than I did.
I learned some interesting things about different ways people may recreationally enjoy pain and why, but I was hoping to learn more than I did about this subject, considering the length of the book.
One of my issues with this book, and many other recent scientific books that claim to be about a particular specific subject, is that more often than not, they seem to be more about the author and their various experiences than about the subject the title claims the book to be about. This is not the first book I've run into this problem with, and I already know it won't be the last.
This could be a matter of personal taste, but I just don't like when authors make a book into a sort of series of short stories that simply /relates/ to the subject in question, but don't make that clear in the initial description. I have no problems with memoirs and short stories and I even think that a lot of what the author talks about in relation to her life and experiences in this book ARE interesting... it's just not what I signed up for. When I read the synopsis of this book, I wasn't really expecting it to be almost entirely full of various stories told in excruciating detail with just scant raw scientific facts and insights thrown in.
My other problem, which I noticed other people mentioning as well, is that she repeats the same things a LOT... almost even verbatim. This might be the most real critique of this book since I honestly think that sort of thing is bad writing and not just based on taste. It comes off like a student trying to reach their minimum word count on an essay but not actually having anything new to say. There were points where I felt like my time was just being wasted by being made to reread the same info over and over and over.
My final critique, which is entirely based on taste, is my dislike for the authors "edgy" way of writing. I'm not opposed to edginess, and it's not like swearing and crude language offends me, it's just that it felt very forced or sometimes entirely out of nowhere and it reminded me again of a child who tries too hard to sound badass around their friends. There were points where I found the swearing and crude language to fit in just fine (it is a book largely about BDSM after all), but there were other points where it was just awkward or even annoying. Like her recollecting interviews with scientists who are just explaining different processes in the brain and she has to interrupt this with a "So what the fuck is going on?" and all I can think after reading that is "Damn, settle down." or "God, stop swearing at me lmao." It really takes me out of it for a moment, which I found very irritating.
To end on a positive note, I want to say that I did overall enjoy reading this book. There were things I wish I could change about it so that I could have enjoyed it more, but in the end I think it was worth the read. There were a lot of very graphic descriptions, but I didn't mind those, and even though I was disappointed with the amount of stories that lacked much scientific insight, they were at least very interesting stories. I'm sure many people will thoroughly enjoy this book and even enjoy the aspects that I did not like, so I'm open to recommending this book to people.
I learned some interesting things about different ways people may recreationally enjoy pain and why, but I was hoping to learn more than I did about this subject, considering the length of the book.
One of my issues with this book, and many other recent scientific books that claim to be about a particular specific subject, is that more often than not, they seem to be more about the author and their various experiences than about the subject the title claims the book to be about. This is not the first book I've run into this problem with, and I already know it won't be the last.
This could be a matter of personal taste, but I just don't like when authors make a book into a sort of series of short stories that simply /relates/ to the subject in question, but don't make that clear in the initial description. I have no problems with memoirs and short stories and I even think that a lot of what the author talks about in relation to her life and experiences in this book ARE interesting... it's just not what I signed up for. When I read the synopsis of this book, I wasn't really expecting it to be almost entirely full of various stories told in excruciating detail with just scant raw scientific facts and insights thrown in.
My other problem, which I noticed other people mentioning as well, is that she repeats the same things a LOT... almost even verbatim. This might be the most real critique of this book since I honestly think that sort of thing is bad writing and not just based on taste. It comes off like a student trying to reach their minimum word count on an essay but not actually having anything new to say. There were points where I felt like my time was just being wasted by being made to reread the same info over and over and over.
My final critique, which is entirely based on taste, is my dislike for the authors "edgy" way of writing. I'm not opposed to edginess, and it's not like swearing and crude language offends me, it's just that it felt very forced or sometimes entirely out of nowhere and it reminded me again of a child who tries too hard to sound badass around their friends. There were points where I found the swearing and crude language to fit in just fine (it is a book largely about BDSM after all), but there were other points where it was just awkward or even annoying. Like her recollecting interviews with scientists who are just explaining different processes in the brain and she has to interrupt this with a "So what the fuck is going on?" and all I can think after reading that is "Damn, settle down." or "God, stop swearing at me lmao." It really takes me out of it for a moment, which I found very irritating.
To end on a positive note, I want to say that I did overall enjoy reading this book. There were things I wish I could change about it so that I could have enjoyed it more, but in the end I think it was worth the read. There were a lot of very graphic descriptions, but I didn't mind those, and even though I was disappointed with the amount of stories that lacked much scientific insight, they were at least very interesting stories. I'm sure many people will thoroughly enjoy this book and even enjoy the aspects that I did not like, so I'm open to recommending this book to people.
March 21, 2025
This book was ironically a painful read itself. And the only pleasure I got from it was when it was finished.
The author did do a decent amount of research in reading peer reviewed articles and interviewing the authors of the papers for follow up questions, I will give them that, but I think they had a hard time organizing that information and presenting it in a way that was engaging and interesting.
After reading this I feel as if I got hit with the good old bait and switch. What started out as a promising read on the science and culture of the nature of people actively seeking painful experiences for self gratification, quickly turned into a piece of sensationalist journalism with a writing style clearly influenced by modern romance novels.
I did not like the structure of this book, the journal pieces did not add to the original thesis. The humor sprinkled in to entice reader engagement was not in good taste, and the casual usage of profanity as emphasis negatively impacted all the research that was done. The tone of this book was not good.
I thought I was getting myself into something profound and a work of art seeing the average 4 star reviews, but I walked away thinking I was taking crazy pills for finding very few redeemable qualities defending this book being published in the first place. How this book made it through the hands of editors and publishers without severe pushback baffles me.
If I had to give a recommendation, I would only recommend the first chapter of this book, after that you might as well shelve it as it loses all its steam the further you go.
The author did do a decent amount of research in reading peer reviewed articles and interviewing the authors of the papers for follow up questions, I will give them that, but I think they had a hard time organizing that information and presenting it in a way that was engaging and interesting.
After reading this I feel as if I got hit with the good old bait and switch. What started out as a promising read on the science and culture of the nature of people actively seeking painful experiences for self gratification, quickly turned into a piece of sensationalist journalism with a writing style clearly influenced by modern romance novels.
I did not like the structure of this book, the journal pieces did not add to the original thesis. The humor sprinkled in to entice reader engagement was not in good taste, and the casual usage of profanity as emphasis negatively impacted all the research that was done. The tone of this book was not good.
I thought I was getting myself into something profound and a work of art seeing the average 4 star reviews, but I walked away thinking I was taking crazy pills for finding very few redeemable qualities defending this book being published in the first place. How this book made it through the hands of editors and publishers without severe pushback baffles me.
If I had to give a recommendation, I would only recommend the first chapter of this book, after that you might as well shelve it as it loses all its steam the further you go.
February 17, 2024
As a psychotherapist and also a freak, I find I can make topicss more interesting for myself if I learn about them through a sexual lens. I have been meaning to learn more about the controversial world of chronic pain theory and management for a while now. I read this book first, before any others written by psychologists trying to sell a way to cure pain with the mind, because Leigh is someone who courts pain, inflicts it and enjoys it, rather than someone trying to solve it. I had heard Leigh on a podcast before reading this. Unfortunately, I think I learned everything from the podcast before reading it in the book. (The snakebite incident, which appears in Lorimer Moseley's Ted Talk "Why Things Hurt," also appears in this book, and apparently in other books about pain. The hadith of social work...we truly only remember things if they're little stories.) These essays appeared in magazines first, and they are written in a breezy, funny pop science style, though highly researched. I wanted more in-depth information on several topics and will have to read another book to find it. The vivid descriptions of gore were way too much for me and I skipped over a lot. As others have said, it's more of a memoir with some science for structure.
August 20, 2023
The tidbits about the history of pain and how it was and is viewed was my favorite part about this book, lots of good stuff here, but my god does meander.
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