I get what you are both saying.
@ILuvLadyDocs - take away the women and it sounds a lot like boot camp at Parris Island! Okay, not much medical, but a lot of verbal abuse and mental games.
@SubPatient4u - for me, it wasn't the doctors and nurses that sent me here. No, it was a combination of the overbearing of our local hypocritical church community, sexual assault at the hands of an evil & abusive cousin, and an alcoholic abusive single parent. Shoot, i rarely saw the doctor as a kid, except for shots and the occasional broken bone. I pulled myself from that hell by going to the "hell" of boot camp, but the insults and threats from the DIs were nothing compared to my old man when he was on a bender.
But you're right, that childhood trauma, that damage makes us who we are, and for many of us, that brings us here to find... what? Reinforcement? Validation? Punishment? Release/escape? Humiliation? Subjugation? Objectification?
For me, yes, all of the above.
I guess that the pursuit of those things has expanded my kink to my recent forays into the CFNM community and as a sub and sub's sub - and punishment, the pain, the humiliation, the role reversal....
Ingesting thread, which has helped me register on my journey and why I'm here.
Looking forward to reading other's thoughts.