Sexual Masochism XII

The thing is, in an ideal world you're happy with who you are when you identify with the values of your "tribe", and your natural abilities/potential are valued and encouraged by your community. If you are where you want to be, and you're welcome in that place, you're happy. But if you're on your own and you don't belong to anything or anyone, that's another matter, you're a lone wolf. The same goes when you belong to a tribe and your abilities go unappreciated and/or you can't relate to the tribe's values. In a situation like that, if you happen to fall into enemy hands something very dangerous can happen to your mind.

If you're well integrated into society, traumatic as it may be to be helpless and in pain at an enemy's mercy, chances are you won't be screwed up psychologically because your identity is tied up with being a member of your group. Your loyalty is taken, and getting beaten up by an enemy, if anything, will only confirm that your group is where you want to be, it's where you're safe. But if you're a loner you're that much more liable to develop a Stockholm Syndrome bond with your enemy. You'll just be thinking of your survival, not of staying psychologically in touch with a group you never felt any connection with in the first place (a group that may not even exist). Your survival will be all-important and it'll depend on coming to some sort of compromise with the enemy. You may not feel safe and at home with your enemy, but truth be said you don't feel safe and at home anywhere. You must please him, and if he spares you, you'll be hooked on that feeling of connectedness, the only you've ever experienced.

Usually the qualities we find attractive in other people tend to be fairly consensual all over the world, and they have everything to do with one's abilities to survive. On a physical level we are attracted to beauty, youth, health. Psychologically we like people who have useful skills, who can stand up for their best interest without placing in danger the common good -- qualities like empathy, sense of humour, intelligence, kindness. These are all things that make one that much more likely to survive, so you feel attracted to them, i.e., you figure staying on such a person's side will further your own chances of survival.

A masochist may or may not value any of these characteristics, but when it comes down to it, what he really believes is whoever is the biggest, meanest, strongest, most ruthless bully will win the day, so that's who he finds attractive. Whoever looks like he/she could beat up and submit to his/her will the entire bunch, that's the strongest, the fittest, and therefore the one he sticks to in order to survive. A traumatic event at the hands of an enemy turned him from a lone wolf to an omega wolf -- someone who is tolerated by the pack, as long as he submits to the abuse, humiliation and pain inflicted on him by other wolves. He looks for whoever strikes him as an alpha wolf, the bulliest one: and submitting to him makes him feel safe, but above all connected. He could wander off and try to make it on his own, the only other alternative he can conceive of. But he's more afraid of that feeling of solitude and disconnectedness than he is of death.

My buddy shrink offered the perfectly sensible and totally logic theory that, in that case, it's just a matter of finding a positive group where you can fit in in a positive way. Your tribe doesn't care for you? There's bound to be another one out there in tune with who you are; we all have an audience, we just need to find it. Come clean with yourself about what your real interests and abilities are, make a serious and systematic effort to realize your potential and to find a group of like-minded individuals. If you're an electrician but all along what you really wanted to do is sing, take singing lessons, join a choir. If there is none, create one! Etc. He's a positive person like that.

Perfectly sensible as all this may be, I don't see it working in real life on masochists. No doubt this is still a great advice everyone should be taking, regardless of whether they're masochists or not, and of course it's bound to dramatically improve anyone's quality of life. But take someone like author of S&M erotica Stephen Elliott. Most of his books are heavily autobiographical works of fiction, depicting sexual encounters that he actually had. He never mentions having been to a therapist, but he's a really extremely intelligent individual and I believe he did everything my buddy shrink would have advised him to do: he wanted to write, so he became a writer, a published one, who expresses what he really thinks and feels, meeting others without a mask, honestly as himself. He's been a teacher, transmitting his knowledge to others as a mentor.

He's dedicated a lot of time and effort to causes that he obviously cares about deeply, namely to politics and to the cause of juvenile delinquents, that society simply dumps in group homes, orphanages and jails, turning kids who need help into sociopaths. He has friends, he has lovers, he is you could say not only well integrated in society but even admired and considerably valued for his abilities.

And yet he's as masochistic as ever. I found this youtube, dated last February, where he reads a short story before an audience. In it he draws a shrewd and thought-provoking parallel between private, sexual, consensual torture (apparently made illegal in some states) and state-approved torture of prisoners. Oh, the hypocrisy, the irony, but that's not all. What does it say about private torture, when you find it disgusting when inflicted on prisoners? There's so much to explore in this concept. I admire his naughtiness and bravery for going there. Well, in spite of all his efforts and accomplishments in valuing himself more and being valued by others, in this short story Stephen describes a girlfriend giving him -- unexpectedly, unplannedly, non-consensually -- electrical shocks through his anus, which he enjoyed.

In another text he expresses fatigue at the seemingly no-end-in-sight parade of mental breakdowns he's experienced throughout his life, fully anticipating to have more in the future. He alludes to suicide, but that's not as allarming as it sounds. It's one thing being 37 and contemplating suicide for the first time; quite another when your first attempt was at the age of 13, and you just kept going. It becomes this background noise in your life that sometimes gets louder, but never really goes away. It's under your skin, a part, a boring part, of who you are. You might do it as a form of connecting with yourself, not necessarily out of horrible despair. That despair is a background noise too.

He wails about yet another in a neverending string of emotionally unavailable girlfriends, who are not just sexually sadistic but mean and stupid in every way, and how he wishes it were possible for him to have a relationship with someone who was emotionally kind and only sadistic in bed -- something apparently difficult when, right off the bat, you can only feel sexually attracted to merciless, ruthless, uncompromising, and fearsome bullies, on the expressed condition that they don't give a shit about you.

(On a side note, he mentions an article where "facilitating" is praised as a positive thing in relationships. OMG! :D It's the next Rolling Stones's hit song, Oh Baby Won't You Facilitate! The stupidity never ends. What human being is going to use that word in the context of a relationship? Can't therapists think of sexier terms than "facilitate" to encourage couples to get along nicer?)

He expresses disapointment with causes he's embraced in the past, and how he now pines for the simpler and less demanding days of watching basketball at the local pub, the feeling of brotherhood with friends or strangers over a game. I'm not surprised he can't believe in politicians anymore, I'm only sorry he can't go on believing in that illusion, any illusion that gives him a goal and focus. I'm sure my buddy shrink would find that's just the sort of thing that would do him good. He's too smart for that, though. Where's a permanent blindfold when you need one.

Someone like Gandhi, he found something he could engage in forever. He definitely cared about the destiny and freedom of India, and about the well-fare and dignity of its people. Time and again he proved he would go so far as to die for that cause. This was no passing illusion or infatuation with a nice idea, that most people would agree is worthy, but for which they certainly wouldn't bleed. The fact is, most people, no matter how well integrated, don't have that kind of level of commitment to anything or anybody. They may not be as jaded as your average disenfranchised, disillusioned, lonely masochist, but their loyalty was never put to the test. In a clinch, if they were captured by the enemy and forced to choose between their friends, family, church, ideals, what-have-you, and their own survival, they'd say "Sorry, as much as I care about all that, my life comes first". But Gandhi found something.

My guess is maybe the only thing that could "break the spell" of a masochist, so to speak, would be to find himself again in a situation where he's in danger at the hands of an enemy, only this time armed with a strong feeling of connectedness to a truly positive and caring friend(s). I.e., he needs to experience something at least as emotionally intense as the original traumatic event that caused him to go from being a lone to an omega wolf, only this time on the positive side of the spectrum, otherwise it won't "stick". If, like Gandhi, he has found a cause he cares about so deeply he would in fact be willing to die for it, he won't feel the urge to connect to his enemy anymore. He will want to hang on to his identity as someone who loves someone/something positive, and is loved and valued back. I think that's a lot more easily said than achievable, but I'm not an optimist so don't trust my negativity.