I think the enema remains surrounded by mystique, even after hundreds of practicing scholars, philosophers and psychologists -- I'm using these titles tongue in cheek -- have tried to rationalize the fetish, the obsession. I've certainly been one of them! I've read many an interesting treatise on the subject at Zity, but never one that absolutely "nails it" for me, A to Z with no gaps. The EUREKA! moment is certainly elusive!
I recently read a statement by someone here that for him, the thrill and gratification of an enema is more psychological than physical. Right on. I'm sure he was pointing in the direction that has the answer, even if it's not lit up in flashing neon somewhere down the trail. For me, I'm sure it has to do with flow of authority from one person to another-- call it dominance and submission. In addition, maybe surrender and empathy should on the list of emotional states of the complete enamaphile. I'll try to explain what I mean.
Submission and dominance alone cannot explain the enema fetish -- there are many other ways to enact the controller/controlled relationship between two people that do not involve the apparatus necessary for enema giving and taking, and do not involve the same parts of the body. But the body parts that are involved with the enema are those that we're taught from childhood are so private, they're taboo subjects for anything like polite conversation. That gets us to the anus, and by extension, the sphincter; their function is to facilitate the most repulsing -- and maybe consequently, most fascinating -- of the bodily functions. Why this is the case with humans, I don't know -- but it is. The final area involved in the enema process -- the lower intestine -- is inside the body altogether. It requires an invasion of sorts in order to be reached from the outside. . . and for an outsider to reach it in any way requires complete surrender of the one invaded. The lingering question for me is WHY? Why would anyone actively seek lower status or power than one with whom he or she is intimately connected? In this day and age, when EQUALITY is the ultimate justice and the relentless pursuit of any person or group who feels they don't enjoy it, why, in secret and when the lights are out, would anyone want to be, contrive to be, under the arbitrary control of another? The answer might be ancient: protection and nurturing, in exchange for subservience and obedience. I know I'm going out on a limb here, getting into human or higher mammalian psychology in which I have zero training. So I'm just free-thinking aloud.
I'm up to the last point, empathy. That comes into play with the enema giver, and for me, is more difficult to explain without sounding like I'm resorting to psychobabble. But here goes: The times I've had the pleasure, with both women and men, to be in the giver role, I've been just as gratified as when I was the receiver. Why? Can the urges and desires associated with enema play be so non-polar; can the roles be reversed without having a pause or change in arousal? In this case of the enema, as I said earlier, I think it's about flow of authority, but with a common, non-directional pleasure overlaying the scene. When I'm giving, I know from my own experiences as a receiver exactly what my receiver is experiencing -- physically, certainly; but more arousing to me in that moment, psychologically. And being acutely aware that I'm the one and only one bringing that intense pleasure to my partner is its own reward, gives me a thrill and a rush. Before leaving this topic, I'll say that the one partner I gave to most -- a woman and an RN -- would begin to moan with pleasure almost before the clamp was released. . . and then writhe and quiver with pleasure as the enema and my caressing progressed. Those outward and unmistakable signs of her pleasure caused fierce sympathetic vibrations in me. I'd find myself having butterflies in my chest over the fact that she was swooning to the very thing that I controlled -- physically, nothing more than a latex bag full of warm soapy water, a hose and nozzle, and a simple plastic ratchet clamp that put me in complete control. But her most intimate parts were exposed to me, vivid and focused in my mind, and her most private act -- moving her bowels -- was the inevitable effect that would follow the cause that I was "inflicting" at my discretion. I was sending two to three quarts of "magical" liquid into her innards, and I took that fact not only as an extreme erotic indulgence, a thrill arising from the power of it, but as a responsibility to use my authority in ways that would maximize her pleasure. And when I was successful at doing that, I got a very special kind of fulfillment. I experienced that same feeling when giving to men. Pleasure, after all, is not gender-specific unless you choose to make it such.
So, for me, giving and receiving are equally appealing, both to muse upon and to actually do. And the erotic enema, which for me has an inseparable element of dominance, submission and therefore flow of authority, remains mysterious because that flow produces equal excitement in either direction.