Contemplating the Power of Reinforcement
I have not had cable hooked up since last April. When we moved to our current home, we were so busy we didn't hook it up right away. After a while we realized how much richer our lives were by not spending hours in front of the television, so we decided not to hook it up at all. As a result, I've read more, written more, played more, DIY-ed more and socialized more than I likely would have with the television going.
Now fall is upon us, the days are getting much shorter and this past week I found myself perusing the internet and found the True Blood series. Last night I finished watching the last episode of the first season. I've watched about 120 hours in about a week. That's a lot of television fare for me. I love the program. The characters are engaging and the dialogue is entertaining. There's plenty of action and sex, and I love the twists in stories. I find I can't watch just one episode. Once I start, I'll cram in as many as I can in one evening.
But all this juicy entertainment has come at a price. I've not written a page since I started watching, I'm behind on my reading, and my hobbies have been neglected. My usual pattern after work has been completely disrupted. Why did I allow this to happen, especially after willingly giving up this form of entertainment for so long? My guess is because I had largely cut myself off from visual entertainment of this nature for almost six months. Because I had not experienced this form of pleasure in so long, its value to me had been increased by that period of abstinence. Amazing isn't it?
In any introductory psychology course, you will learn about the principles of reinforcement and how these can be manipulated to increase or decrease a behavior. Sounds straightforward enough, right? You reward the behaviors you want to see and punish the ones that you don't. Not so simple actually.
One of the first things you learn is that punishment used indiscriminately can have undesired effects. The subject may become avoidant, or withdraw and stop responding completely. This is called learned helplessness. The subject comes to expect that its behavior will have no impact on the outcome so it literally gives up. Punishment is tricky business. Whether I'm working with animals or interacting with people, the last thing I want is to become a trigger for avoidance or worse.
Reinforcement and withdrawal of reward (which is different than punishment) can be far more effective in shaping behavior. Consider my recent experience with televised entertainment. I willingly disrupted my own routines to overindulge for the better part of a week. The lure of the programming was increased dramatically by the period of abstinence. Now do you understand why diets that require abstinence are doomed to fail? Chocolate never tastes better than after you've wanted it a while.
The same rules apply to play. I like it that Lady and I do not indulge daily. I like it that I cannot torment my Pet every day. Why? Because it increases my want and I am motivated to willingly wait by the knowledge that the experiences will be that much sweeter when I do indulge. I also use these principles with my Pet and no doubt, Lady uses them with me. A skilful lover, top or dominant will not yield to their partner's desires too easily. This is why teasing, denial, etc. are such successful approaches: the reinforcement value meeting those desires is being increased along with the sense of anticipation.
From a Dominant/Top perspective, cultivating your partner's patience can be a heady experience. If you've rewarded this patience consistently enough he or she will hang on your every gesture and word. Your pleasure will become even more important as it becomes more intrinsically linked to their own.
It is the skilful use of principles of reinforcement that enable Dominants to trigger intense response from their partners sometimes with as little as a single command. In introductory psychology, you will hear the story of Pavlov's dogs. Pavlov rang a bell before presenting his dogs with food. He paired these two stimuli repeatedly until the dogs began to salivate when the bell was rung. A physiological response that had once only been triggered by the food itself could now be triggered by the sound of a bell. The dogs had been conditioned to respond to the bell. So of course, with the right conditioning, imagine the possibilities with a partner.
That being said, there are certainly ethical considerations here as well. There are milder examples of these principles in action such as teasing that may not require negotiation and are generally accepted in play situations. Personally, if I was to embark on a journey to change my response or my partner's response to any form of stimuli, I would want to discuss it with them in advance. For example, Lady and I discussed in advance the plan to help me eroticize my experience of the crop.
I use these principles to help me cultivate patience and nurture anticipation every day and this increases the sensual pleasure in all aspects of my life not just play. So, dear reader, how do you use reward/reinforcement to enhance your play or life experiences?
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