If you said that the dom enjoys hitting/hurting the sub as their main priority and that if it brings the sub pleasure too then that’s a bonus, I would find it a bit easier to get my head round.
I can't say that, because it's not true. Someone who just wants to hit, and doesn't really care if their partner likes it or not, is not a dom. They're a bully. A dom strikes someone who desires to be struck, and gets fulfilment from the pain. And they are controlled about it.
Ultimately the dom wants control. When I'm dommed well, it makes me want to return to the dom and please him so I'll get more. It makes me thrill to surrender to him and please him. That's the control - in making me want to please him so that, as usedtobedomme said, he can eventually just give me a look and I'll know he means business. If I didn't get that feeling from him, he wouldn't be my Dom.
I feel like it sort of seems a bit like denial (‘he/she only does it to pleasure me’) when that doesn’t seem to be the case at all as if the pleasure involved something like stroking, they have no interest so they don’t want to pleasure the sub so why phrase it like that? Is it because the way bluntness describes it feels uncomfortable?
Bluntness isn't making me uncomfortable at all (and I don't think she's trying to). She's just continually using the wrong word and it's annoying. I have never assaulted anyone.
It's just a matter of understanding what this pleasure is. Stroking is a pleasurable sensation, and there's no reason you can't do that; domming is not all about pain. But what's also pleasurable is yielding to a stronger power, surrendering your will (if you're submissive, which I am). Inflicting pain is part of asserting that stronger power, and lends it some edge. I submit rarely, but when I do I do it properly. To me, the pain was in part about expressing just how submissive I had become, that I wanted to do this for him. It was a sign of the power to which I was yielding.
In other words, the pleasure is both physical and psychological. So yes, sometimes you find yourself being pushed to things you wouldn't otherwise do, but there's a thrill in that. Did you ever try an activity that you thought you could never do, it was totally unlike you, and then you pushed through, did it and felt incredible?
I find that in most cases, if we hit something I really, honestly, truly did not want on any level (rarely), an internal switch would flip.
WRT OP, she's said that she's more masochist than sub; I'm more sub than masochist. I can see why, if you're deeply into your subspace, you could yearn for more pain than you might normally be able to take. She's more hardcore on pain than I am, but she's also said she's not into certain other things that do it for me.