FOREWORD (68 page)

“the physical contact is an act of love.” He has pleaded guilty, accepted punishment, paid for his pleasure in advance.

Now he can demand his orgasm with a clear conscience.

That masochism offers subtle rewards begins to be evident; but still – why is it
preferred
by the majority of sadomasochistic men? Sadism is best understood as a rage for revenge, the man’s passionate wish to assert the ego and will that were curbed in him as a boy. Are we to understand that the majority of the male race, like the majority of my contributors in this chapter, do not wish for autonomy after all?

In my understanding, the answer is no. The masochist’s fantasy illustrates an inversion of anger, but is born of the same rage against the parent as the sadist’s. The sadistic personality is bolder; but as earlier fantasies have shown, even he suffers an underlying fear of the power latent in his victim. The masochist is even more inhibited by dread of the symbolic figure.

What chain could hold back someone as omnipotent as the mother who lives on in the infantile part of his unconscious?

What rope or gun could force her to love him if she grew angry? To complete the picture, I think we must also take into account the masochist’s fear of his own rage. It is so volcanic by now – after all these years of repression – that it could lead to murder. He shuns the confrontation that would allow the destroying demon out of the bottle.

“Have a nice day,” people ritually say to each other after the most appalling business meetings. The furious guy who cuts into your lane has a bumper sticker asking you to “Be Nice.” Ours is an angry society that wears a smiling mask.

Nancy Friday

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Some people turn their aggression back on themselves; stomach ulcers, migraine, and other stress-related symptoms are the evidence. The masochist does the same, using other people to satisfy his need for pain. If he asks someone to play the sadist, if he pays a call girl to abuse or humiliate him –

isn’t she doing what he wants? Behind the façade, he is running the show. Like the sadist’s, the masochist’s dream is to express his rage, but in the way he chooses. He has found it safest to do it against himself.

Only on the surface does the idea sound bizarre. It is actually rooted in a special reading of a lesson all children are taught. If you return mother’s anger with defiance of your own, that only makes matters worse. But if you accept her punishment, it will be followed by love. “This hurts me more than it does you,” she’d say; and if our cries were in part for our own pain, they were also an effort to arouse that forgiving love of hers that could only stand so much: We knew her breaking point.

More often, she would leave the punishment to dad. “Wait till your father comes home,” she’d say. As the hours passed till the dreaded six o’clock, we could sense her anger was already turning into fear he would hurt us too much. “You’ve been punished enough,” she’d say, looking at our long face, and not tell him. If she did tell him, she’d intercede for us in almost the same breath. How many fathers have been put in the thankless role of disciplinarian, only to stand bewildered as the mother kisses away the tears of the child
she
set up for punishment?

By the time he is ready for girls, a young man has learned that women like you to show repentance. Let the girl see how miserable you are, that you hurt her feelings, went too far last Saturday night. Women love to forgive, love to say “there, there” – once they’ve seen enough unhappiness. At the bottom of the masochist’s soul is a smirk:
knowledge that his
suffering manipulates the aggressor’s anger into love.

By the time he is married, the man knows better than to try to argue with his wife when she declares he has hurt her Men In Love

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feelings, said this wounding thing, forgotten that important anniversary. He also knows what his punishment will be – no sex – and that it will go on and on, no matter what anger or logic he brings to his side of the argument. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’ll never do it again.” The balance has righted itself in his wife’s mind; the situation has been restored to her control.

She takes him to bed for the best sex they’ve had in weeks.

The old lesson is being retaught: If he is careful, if he listens to the woman’s rules, suppresses his anger, and accepts her discipline, he will be rewarded with sex and love.

It is the formula for masochism.

Nigel (above) is not the only man who told me his masochistic fantasies began after he married. The husband’s rage at being controlled needs a target. To vent it on his wife is only to start up the entire cycle again. It is safer to make himself the victim. Douglas (above) is a bit braver than Nigel. When he was little and dependent on women, he played the masochist. It was only after marriage, when familiarity with the female sex bred – if not contempt, at least an abatement of fear – that he “got to thinking about tying
her
up.” Isn’t that what he really wanted to do all along?

Peter’s early fantasies (above) were about being kidnapped by older women so powerful they could force him into nasty games. His sadistic fantasies turn it around so that he forces women to play
his
fantasy games. In the end, though, he adds a plaintive note: He wouldn’t mind being the victim himself.

Women gave the boy the feeling that when he became sexual, he became isolated from them because they were pure, he was not. If only he could meet women who were nasty about sex, they would be like him, he would be like them. His lonely feeling that sexuality separates him from women would be healed.

This desire to be tightly meshed with a woman haunts Peter even when adultery is on his mind. If only he could have other women, with no threat that it would cause his wife to leave him, then it would be “great to get home to mama.” He wants what he wants – but he needs his wife’s permission Nancy Friday

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to want it. If only she would commit adultery, too, she would be revealed to be just like him. They would be united even in their dirty desires.

Men like Peter illustrate a common facet of the masculine conflict. They long for the swinging life, but want to hold on to “mama,” too. Their solution is often to go in for orgiastic scenes, having talked their wives into going along with them.

DR. LEWIS BROWN

For me masochism is a real turn-on, especially humiliation

–
as long as it stays a fantasy.
I have had a “dominant massage” and found it to be only painful. The only turn-on was in my fantasies about it. I have never had any homosexual experiences.

This fantasy really gets me on, either for masturbation, or, even more, when my wife and I playact it out.

Fact:
My wife has a friend named Frank, whom I have never met, but who is totally in love with her. He would probably do anything to get rid of me because he thinks my existence is the reason Sharon won’t go to bed with him (that’s probably true).

Fantasy:
Sharon and Frank become lovers, but after a while he becomes very angry at having to meet surreptitiously. At each of their very frequent meetings, he gets progressively more angry at me for making it difficult for him to have her as much as he wants. Finally he says to her that he has made up his mind to murder me. Sharon is upset – although she prefers him sexually, she still likes me; so she tells him no, that she has a better idea – and whispers it to him. He smiles, is delighted and agrees.

Sometime later Sharon and I are at home quietly reading when the doorbell rings. I answer it and Frank is at the door.

He is dark, stocky, has cruel eyes and is wearing an ironical grin. He says, “Hello, Lewis, I’m Frank.” I am first surprised, then rather amused. I confidently ask him to come in. As Men In Love

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soon as he is in he says, “Sharon and I are lovers and we want you to clear out now!” I laugh and look at Sharon who is watching us both very closely – she has a shy smile. I say to him, “No way, buddy – now get out!” He says, “Fuck you!” and starts throwing punches. The ensuing fight is very vicious. Although I am quite a bit smaller than he, I am much more agile and am giving him quite a beating. Just as I am enjoying it the most, I make an error and he lands a solid blow that staggers me. Now he is on top and beats me unmercifully.

Sharon is watching and is totally fascinated by the raw animal sensuality of the beating. As he beats me he starts to undress me – tearing the clothes off me – this really turns Sharon on as she sees her lover first physically destroy, and then totally humiliate her man. Finally, when it is obvious that there is no more fight in me, the beating stops. Frank looks me up and down and sneeringly says to Sharon, “How could you have ever let that impotent asshole have you?” He picks me up like a dead chicken, drags me off to the bedroom and throws me on the bed. He and Sharon then undress and make love with tremendous passion right next to me. Their passion is heightened, knowing I am there watching and hearing them and totally powerless to do anything – although their lovemaking is choking me with rage and passion.

After fucking her multiple times, he seems even more sexually vigorous than before starting. His penis is immense.

He notices that I am moving about a bit more, so he stops fucking her and he stands me up and punches me a few more times, until I go limp and helpless again. Then he turns me over, mounts me and fucks my asshole. Even though I’m thoroughly beaten, I still have to scream in agony – but both Frank and Sharon notice that while he is in me, I, in turn, develop my own huge erection.

When he’s finished with me, he throws me off his cock and looks at me lying on the bed bleeding from my ass. He laughs roughly at my helplessness and says, “Don’t get tired yet, Lewis, the fun is just beginning.”

Nancy Friday

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He then flips me over onto my back and he and Sharon begin to tie me up, such that they pass a rope behind each knee and pull my knees up over my head, knees apart, and tie the ropes down so that I am spread-eagled, but with my knees drawn up. My wrists are then tied down so my arms are spread straight out. Finally, a rope is passed across my waist, so I can’t move or squirm.

Frank grins like a little boy and admits to me that he had wanted to kill me, but Sharon had a better idea. What they are going to do is castrate me and amputate my scrotum! He explains that due to the humiliation I would never report them, and being a eunuch, I couldn’t compete for Sharon’s attention. As a final ironical blow, they would keep my scrotum and testicles in a bottle and blackmail me by threatening to disclose my condition – unless I paid them all of my income.

I start to swear – say they can’t get away with it, but Frank only laughs. I look to Sharon but she just smiles and says:

“Why don’t you just be quiet, Lewis?”

Frank gets sterile towels and instruments (we are both physicians) and starts washing my scrotum and penis with alcohol. For some reason, my courage seems to have returned, and I tell him his plan is fantastic; that he’ll never get away with it; that I shall report him and they’ll toss him in prison.

Now he is silent as I continue to berate him ... he just keeps washing and preparing me. He puts gloves on, but no mask. He then seats himself in front of my balls and instructs Sharon to hold my penis up so it won’t get in his way.

For the first time the full impact of what is really about to happen comes crashing down on me – and I totally panic I plead; I cry; I scream; I threaten; I try to squirm and thrash, but am tied too securely.

Frank just smiles and, holding a scalpel and forceps, says:

“I’m going to castrate you without any anaesthesia, Lewis, because I want you to feel everything – especially that moment when you lose your last ball.” Throughout the Men In Love

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operation I continue to scream, cry and beg pitifully, but to no avail.

The surgery begins with Frank grasping the left side of the base of my scrotum with a toothed forceps – I feel white pain! He then slices in with his scalpel – I’m nauseated. He directs Sharon to hold my penis up just a bit more. She is watching the surgery with intent fascination. When the incision is large enough, he reaches in and pulls out my left testicle. He loops two sutures across its stalk and cuts between them, freeing the ball. He shows it to me – I babble incoherently. Sharon, however, notices that I am becoming erect. Frank drops my ball in a bottle of formaldehyde – with a loud plunk! Smiling, he next slices the front and continues around to the right side of the base of my scrotum, letting it fall back in front of my asshole. Working slowly, he throws two sutures over the stalk of my right testicle. Then he holds it up and, placing the scalpel where I can see, he says, “Okay, Lewis, this is it!” and with me watching he completes my emasculation. That ball also gets dropped in a jar as well as the scrotum.

The moment of emasculation is very powerful and very primitive. The inevitable and ultimate result of the struggle of two savage males competing for one female. The finale is total, as one savage completely defeats the other and takes his strength – his maleness – the ultimate in domination – the ultimate in defeat and humiliation.

The entire operation is bloodless, but when he cuts me loose, he has me hold a large pack over the scrotal area, presumably to stop bleeding. With me so occupied with my loss and postoperative care, he and Sharon proceed to fuck next to me again, and both notice that their fucking gives me a monstrously large erection.

As the fantasy closes, Frank is inside of Sharon and she is amazed at the size of my erection. Frank, beaming with self-satisfaction, says: “Yes, but it’s his last!” Nancy Friday

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RONALD

My fantasy consists mainly of being completely dominated by the opposite sex, to kneel before a lovely tall, long blond-haired woman (about six-three, wearing a black bikini). She has stripped me completely nude, and tied my hands behind my back, and with clippers and razor shaved my head totally bald, and plucked my pubic hair with tweezers, until I look like a newborn child. Then, she leads me down the street on collar and leash (with my hands still tied, of course), with the sidewalk lined with hundreds of girls. The blonde is barefoot.