Sexual Masochism XI

It worries me the kind of attitude I see in S&M activism. They appear to assume they must choose between protecting S&Ms' mental health, and safeguarding their civil rights, as if one would surely cancel out the other. The S&M community is in dangerous hands, if these are the people who are supposed to protect it.

S&M is still illegal in many countries and in some American states, and even where it's legal, being diagnosed with a paraphilia (as indeed with any mental condition, including something as common as depression) can be used against you: an employer may allege that someone who is "unstable" is a liability, and use it as grounds for dismissal; or during a divorce it can be used to deny a parent custody over his/her children, etc. So fighting for S&Ms civil rights, absolutely, is a noble and worthy goal, but it can't be done at the cost of denying it's a paraphilia -- that's refusing treatment to those who need it.

Activists' stupid logic is simple: If S&M is considered a mental disorder people may get persecuted for it. Therefore let us label it something neutral like homosexuality, just another preference, a life-style, and say what's good for the gander.

I can understand that approach, but it's a lazy and dishonest one that's sure to back-fire and hurt those it's trying to protect the most. You can't effectively fight an inequity with another inequity. You can't neutralize society's intolerance towards a mental disease by asking everyone to pretend that it isn't one. Instead it's your job to demystify it and reassure people that it doesn't pose a threat.

Underlying the argument that S&M is ok because it's not an illness is the assumption that it would be ok to persecute them if they were ill -- the corollary being, it is ok to persecute the mentally ill (namely by taking away their jobs, their families, etc, as discussed above) turning a painful situation into a desperate one. How does persecution of the ill serve anyone's interests, either the individual's or society's? How about proving first that they are a liability, instead of condemning them until proven innocent? That's the case activists should be trying to make.

Above all, it's an unacceptable black-mail to pressure doctors to remove S&M from the list of paraphilias on the not-so-subtle grounds that it exposes their patients to persecution at the hands of the law and society. This is the thought police at its worst. And it's especially bad and morally indefensible to discourage S&Ms from seeking help, in effect making them feel they are traitors to the cause if they want a cure, when they should just be focusing on "embracing" their "life-style".

Masochism is an ocean of loneliness and isolation. Masochists were abandoned and neglected as children. No one ever bothered to pay any attention to them, to discover where their natural talents lied, or to nurture and encourage them to blossom. When they did get any attention it was always negative. They were told whatever they wanted to make of themselves or get out of life was either impossible or wrong. They were told "Who you are is unacceptable; if you want to survive, if you want love and acceptance, try very hard to be anything other than yourself, as everything about your true nature is bad/wrong/impossible". So they commit to living a false life, in earnest terror of being themselves, never letting the mask slip, afraid of anything that feeds their souls. Love can't reach them and warm them, because you can't be loved for who you are when you can't allow your true self to emerge to the surface. It's a terrible walk in a desolate desert.

Masochists are stuck with forever searching for the love of a surrogate mom or dad, someone who'll take care of them at last; someone who promises to make them the center of their universe, who will boss them like a mom or dad, who will tell them what to do and when to do it, who will totally control and dominate them. All they ever got from mom and dad was negative attention, so masochists crave it like love: they want to be humiliated, insulted, belittled.

There is a way to rise above this, and that is indeed to find a surrogate mom or dad, but a positive one, someone who provides the masochist with positive love, and encouragement, and faith in his/her natural abilities. It's not easy, because more than anything masochists fear believing in themselves. They fear reaching out for happiness will bring only their annihilation. But a cure is achievable, and once their potential has been realized in the real world and they have blossomed, it changes everything. The need for negative attention at the hands of an abusive mom or dad, or indeed any kind of mom or dad, disappears; they're all grown-up. They can have a normal relationship, with love and dignity, on an equal standing with another human being.

Robert Riggs, The Brown Bomber, 1938

My suggestion to S&M rights activists would be that a much wiser approach than "Everything kinky is like homosexuality, and as such should get the same level of acceptance" would be to compare it to boxing.

What you have with that sport is a brutal activity that takes place between consenting adults, who engage in it freely, obeying a set of rules, and who are free to stop at any time. Sound familiar? Anyone can practice it in private or in public, at home or at the gym, they can do it professionally and sell tickets, it's not a crime. I'm sure a lot of conjectures could be made about what unhealthy motivations drive men and women to gain satisfaction from beating, or watching others get beaten to a pulp, but no one is particularly stressed by what those motives may be, certainly not to the point of harassment. Boxers don't risk going to jail or having their civil rights taken away from them. No one assumes a fighter is unreliable, or dangerous to himself, his co-workers of his family. No one deems him/her less capable of peacefully and productively fitting into society, no one puts in question a boxer's moral integrity or general mental stability, regardless of the disturbingly aggressive nature of his/her sport of preference.

And yet, if boxers were to say they fight because they enjoy it sexually, society and the courts of law would attack the practice. Boxers would know persecution and harassment on the same level as S&Ms, and that's the case activists should be trying to make. Mental and physical violence for the love of sports and the game, all well and good; for sexual gratification, unacceptable. See what I mean? If ever there was a clear and straightforward case of totalitarian puritanism and sexual repression this is it, as my analogy unequivocally proves.


Robbie Williams - No Regrets.

Thanks to carolhewson for uploading this video.