Why the Society Wants You to Feel Ashamed

Human sense of shame, embarrassment, and humiliation is a purely social construct. There is nothing inherently embarrassing about any situation that a human being might experience throughout their life. This brings up the following question: why do people perceive certain specific experiences as shameful? More importantly, how comes that the list of situations people perceive as shameful just happens to be beneficial for those with political power? In this essay, I intend to deconstruct and analyze our feelings of shame and argue that they are being used as a tool for manipulating us and controlling our actions.

What is perceived as humiliating differs by culture. For example, in some cultures having a child out of wedlock is seen as shameful; in some other cultures it is a non-issue. In some places failing to be monogamous is shameful; in other cultures nobody even cares about how many sex partners somebody has. In some cultures it is perceived as shameful if some person is seen in a public place without [insert some body part] being covered up with a piece of fabric. In other cultures nobody even thinks that the same body part must be covered up at all times. There are cultures, which dictate that it is embarrassing for a man to wear a skirt and to use make-up, and there are other cultures where those same things were the everyday attire for guys. In some societies draft dodging or deserting the army is shameful, while in other places not wanting to be cannon fodder is perceived as reasonable and being a pacifist—as noble. After all, the same act can be labeled as either cowardly and shameful or as cautious and rational.

Human opinions about what is shameful differ by culture. On top of that, it’s not inborn either. Small children must be taught to feel ashamed in certain specific situations. Children have a tendency to routinely commit some faux pas that leaves their parents embarrassed to witness the event. Some years later, if the child is reminded of that blunder they did back when they were five years old, they will feel ashamed.

So far, we have concluded that feeling ashamed is a learned behavior and the list of situations in which a person is supposed to feel this emotion differs by culture. The important question is—who made this list? In order to answer this, we can look at what the list entails and who benefits from its current form. It’s a bit simplistic to say that organized religion was invented when the first conman (and wannabe king) met the first fool, but I do believe that there’s some truth in these Mark Twain’s words. I think that “the list of things that are shameful” somewhat resembles organized religions in this regard—both of them are convenient tools that kings and priests can easily use for the purpose of manipulating and controlling their citizens. Not donating money to the church or dodging conscription is shameful? And devoting your life to the church or dying for the king is glorious? I wonder why. I also wonder just who decided that these acts ought to be seen as either shameful or noble. Oh, maybe it was because the king wanted some readily available cannon fodder for enlarging his empire and royal treasury, and the religious leader wanted to obtain even fancier golden robes (and maybe also a private jet, nowadays preachers seem to like those).

Let’s look at some random samples of life experiences that commonly get perceived as shameful, and let’s see if we can spot any patterns there. Being homeless and unemployed is generally perceived as humiliating. Being a rich asshole who abuses their employees, on the other hand, is perfectly fine. Getting raped is shameful. Being a rapist is something a guy can brag about to his buddies in the local bar. Notice a pattern here? The things that tend to happen with poor or weak people are shameful. The things that rich or powerful people tend to do, on the other hand, aren’t shameful. Is it really just a coincidence or was the “list of shameful life experiences” put together by the strong, powerful, and wealthy?

Notice how shame is used as a tool to facilitate abuse. For example, if being a rape victim is seen as humiliating, there’s a higher chance that the victim will hide the experience and won’t complain to anybody. Thus committing rape becomes easier for the wannabe sexual abuser. The same principle exists also when it comes to social class and wealthy people abusing those who were born poor. When poor people are shunned, routinely humiliated, and perceived as inferior, it becomes harder for them to demand a better treatment and equal rights; after all, nobody is going to perceive them as equal when being born in poverty is seen as shameful in itself. Shame as well as its counterpart, namely being proud of one’s aristocratic ancestors, can also be used to maintain the status quo and making sure that social class and status remain hereditary.

Of course, the prospect of humiliation can also be used as a threat to keep people in line. Parents and school teachers use it to force their children to obey. Domestic abusers use it to coerce their spouses to submit and be silent. Politicians and kings use it to manipulate their citizens. Religious leaders employ it to gain more power and money. Of course, once somebody disobeys, humiliation is used as a punishment. While the most disgusting forms of public humiliation, like the pillory, are no longer being used as a punishment in civilized countries (after all, there are laws against cruel and unusual punishments), the practice of publicly shaming people still remains, for example, school teachers routinely chastise their students. Never mind all the religious leaders who skillfully manipulate their believers’ sense of shame in order to control them.

I’d say that those who were in charge decided about what their subjects ought to feel ashamed, and, in my opinion, it is illogical for us to blindly swallow this list. Rationally, this list just makes no sense. Why should a bastard child feel ashamed about their circumstances of birth? It’s not like children can choose their parents. It’s illogical to feel ashamed about something you never had a say about in the first place. After all, people don’t feel ashamed if they become victims of a natural disaster. Then why should somebody feel ashamed about being a rape victim or having their head shaved or getting stripped naked in a public place? The victim simply got very unlucky and suffered abuse from another person. Why should a victim feel ashamed for that? Answer: they shouldn’t. The last thing a victim needs is feeling ashamed or even guilty about something that was never their fault to begin with.

When it comes to humiliation, verbal abuse and insults are similar to physical abuse. Theoretically, there are many ways how one person can verbally humiliate another person. Just tell them some insult, address them in a degrading way. Call them something like “piggy,” “fatty,” “bitch,” “cunt,” “whore,” “slut,” “sissy.” Mock, deride, or ridicule them. Scold them in the manner typically reserved for children, verbally belittle the victim. If all creativity fails, just call them “fat,” “ugly,” “stupid,” “disgusting,” or “worthless.” However, in practice, it shouldn’t be as simple as just demonstrating how broad your insult-related vocabulary is. It’s not rational for the victim to just accept whatever was told to them as meaningful and therefore feel humiliated. Why should I even care about another person telling me some rude words? The fact that somebody tells me an insult doesn’t express anything at all about me as a person. Insults and rude words say nothing about the person to whom they are addressed. However, degrading words do tell a lot about the person who uttered this insult—it tells about their poor vocabulary, rude manners, biases, prejudices, primitive behavior, sometimes even lack of education. If I wanted to humiliate somebody, I could think of other much more elegant, sophisticated, and urbane ways how to do that. But then again, a desire to humiliate another person says nothing about the victim who is supposed to feel humiliated, but it says a lot about the person who is humiliating others—it tells you about their insecurities, sadistic tendencies, lack of empathy, and also lack of respect towards other human beings.

I see the exact same logical problem also with consensual humiliation that is part of BDSM play. A dom does something to their sub, and the sub is supposed to feel humiliated. Why? Just why? Logically, it doesn’t make sense. Why exactly is it humiliating for a sub to be made to eat and drink from pet food and water bowls? Or consider sissification. A male sub is supposed to be humiliated when he has to wear female clothes and he gets insulted with derogatory terms usually applied to women, such as “slut” or “whore.” If it isn’t humiliating for a woman to wear female clothes, then why exactly is it humiliating for a man to do the same? And why exactly was anal sex supposed to be humiliating for the recipient? If two people both enjoy some activity, then why should it be humiliating for one of them who happens to be the one getting penetrated?

Humiliation is being used to achieve dominance over another person through mental rather than purely physical means. What’s illogical is that it actually works. Why should the victim just accept it? Why, after being humiliated for the first time, should the victim acknowledge the abuser’s superiority and submit to their further demands?

The humiliation is not intrinsic to the act that was committed in order to humiliate some person. Rather, this act is semiotically charged by the shared attitude of all the people who are engaged in it. Humans invest specific acts, objects, or body parts with a humiliating aspect, which then can be used for abusing or controlling the victim (or, in the context of consensual BDSM play, for entertaining a person who happens to be a masochist).

After logically analyzing and deconstructing my own feelings of shame and embarrassment, I ended up with a conclusion that feeling embarrassed just makes no sense and is illogical in most of the situations. After reaching this conclusion, my own ability to feel ashamed plummeted. I’d say that’s a good thing—that gives wannabe bullies, and abusers, and politicians one less tool they can potentially use to manipulate and control me. The moment you recognize and identify how your feelings of shame are being used as a tool for manipulating your actions, you can simply refuse to obey, you can defy the person who is trying to pull your strings, you can just not allow somebody else to manipulate you. If some abuser physically locks you up in a prison cell, you cannot easily escape. However, when it’s your mind and your emotions that are being used as a tool to control you, you can just say “no” and refuse to submit.

Notice that so far I only talked about supposedly shameful experiences where something is being done to a victim against their will. Next, I’d like to contrast these kinds of situations with different experiences where people themselves do some faux pas. There is a difference between situations where you have control (for example, you commit a public display of your own stupidity) vs. ones where you are a passive victim and something is done to you against your will by other people. I think that in some situations it is actually reasonable for a person to feel ashamed about their own actions. Throughout this essay, I posted numerous photos and drawings of some person abusing somebody else. The way I see it, in every one of these photos the one who ought to be ashamed happens to be the person who is smiling. It’s not the victim who should feel ashamed, it’s the abuser. And in some situations, abusers should feel very ashamed about all the crimes they have committed.

By the way, personally I have become pretty resistant and desensitized also towards this type of embarrassment that’s caused by my own actions. I simply built up some tolerance for public embarrassment by having to experience it on a regular basis. I’m a polyglot, and I learned most of the foreign languages I speak when I was already an adult. One can learn a foreign language only by actually using it (a.k.a. speaking in it), and having to publicly speak in a language I barely understand feels pretty uncomfortable even if I don’t accidentally make any particularly embarrassing mistakes. For example, in Russian there is a verb писать. Spelling remains the same, but, depending on how it is pronounced, the same verb has two different meanings: (1) “to write”—писа́ть [pˈьsatˈ]; (2) “to urinate”—пи́сать [pˈisətˈ]. The problem with these two verbs is that they are pronounced differently from each other, but they are also so similar that a person who is learning Russian as a foreign language is likely to get it wrong. As you might already imagine at this point, I learned this the hard way. I wanted to say “I wrote a text”; instead I said “I peed a text.” Shit happens, and at one point I just got used to it.

And then regularly participating in debate tournaments only further cemented my “experienced that already, whatever” attitude towards public embarrassment. The first time I did poorly in a debate and had to listen to a better debater refute my arguments, it felt pretty awful. After a while I just got used to it. By the time I moved to Germany and started debating in German (despite not knowing German so well at that time), I no longer cared about how miserable I must have sounded struggling to put together coherent and grammatically correct German sentences.

Disclaimer: I have no objections to consensual BDSM play. As long as everybody’s enjoying whatever is going on, it’s great. I just think that humiliation play becomes irrational once you analyze and deconstruct the whole concept of shame, this is why I decided to discuss it in this essay. Personally, I perceive things like crossdressing or eating from a pet bowl as fun and amusing rather than humiliating. If I and my partner did any of that, I’d just see it as us being goofy and doing it for the sake of fun; I wouldn’t take it seriously as something that’s supposed to be humiliating.