Zoe Margolis.
Zoe Margolis, who writes as Abby Lee, and is known as ‘Girl With a One Track Mind‘ has just been written up in the New Yorker. It’s not a full profile but it’s a first, and no mean one. Every publishing agent in America reads the New Yorker and in an industry which is controlled in New York, but depends on the mid-West, it’s the kind of publicity you need when trying to sell a book subtitled ‘Diary of a Sex Fiend’.
Interestingly the piece says nothing about her book or her writing, which means Zoe’s story is more interesting to the press than the book she’s written. Though it may sound offensive, it means she’s a proto-celebrity. Everyone who employs PR wants to reach a point where they’re more interesting that whatever they’re doing and they become a story themselves. When you can appear in the media just because you’re you promoting anything becomes vastly easier. I wonder if Zoe/Abby/The Girl’s going to capitalize on it?
Another New Yorker article which has just reached the web is a piece on Joel Surnow, the producer of ‘24‘, focused on the show’s use of torture and lack of realism.
It made me think immediately of the ever-present questions hanging over violent porn and BDSM. Sadists, who enjoy inflicting pain on willing submissives, are torturers working with the consent of their victims. In the New Yorker article, Joel Navarro, one of the F.B.I.’s top experts in questioning techniques, has this to say about torturers:
Only a psychopath can torture and be unaffected. You don’t want people like that in your organization. They are untrustworthy, and tend to have grotesque other problems.
So when does rough sex become psychopathic behavior?
According to Wikipedia (Wikipedia = truth by agreement) psychopaths are most commonly diagnosed using Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) in which:
Hare describes psychopaths as “intraspecies predators who use charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they cold-bloodedly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret.”
Can you be a sadist without being psychopathic? If not should we be more worried about the minds of sadists than the consent of submissives?
Saying that all BDSM is torture is like saying that all porn is Max Hardcore. The question as framed in this post can’t really be answered because it’s overbroad. Yes, we do have to worry about some practitioners and enthusiasts of BDSM or violent porn because they’re taking advantage of a social structure that supports unhealthy urges; no, we don’t have to worry about all of them, nor are all (or even the majority, from what I’ve seen) of the practices that fall under the BDSM umbrella indicative of torture or psychopathy. Example: if i tie my girlfriend asks me to tie her wrists to the bed and run a feather over her nude body until she comes violently from the partial oxygen dep, that’s not torture, but it would fall under most definitions of BDSM that I’m aware of.
The bright line, for me, is the differentiation between enacting a fantasy and committing an act. One girlfriend of mine used to like it when I would come up behind her in the park outside my apartment, put my hand on the back of her neck, growl something predatory, and “force” her into my apartment for sex. I’ve never had any particular rape urges that I’m aware of and have never forced myself on a woman, but we both enjoyed the occasional rape scene to spice things up. Does that make either of us damaged?
It seems to me that almost by definition, a psychopath would be unable to engage in consensual acts - using the definition above, the need to manipulate would make consent impossible, as the psychopath would only be enjoying themself by tricking their partner into doing something they wouldn’t otherwise be willing to do and/or want to do. Those, I think, are the people we need to worry about, not the people who enjoy the endorphin rush of controlled application of pain.
Rich - To play devils advocate - I could argue all you’ve described is BD, not SM. Bondage and Domination isn’t torture, it’s restraint. the ‘Park’ scenario you describe is a role-playing game that would presumably stop as soon as an objection was raised.
People who are sadists and masochists often boast about their lack of any need for safe-words, and games involve ‘punishments’ which have one party crying out in pain for extended periods. It’s far less psychological and far more physical. If you strap someone to a pommel horse and beat them, as they cry, until blood is drawn that’s inflicting pain far more akin to torture. Even with consent the ability to intentionally hurt somone and (here’s the important bit) enjoy doing it does seem to raise questions.
Could you argue that being able to gain pleasure from hurting someone, and from pleasuring them, in equal measure was a sign of some sort of wrong-headedness?
I love the smell of controversy in the morning….
You could argue it, just as you could argue that any class of people is obviously incapable of making their own decisions.
Sam, maybe I’m reading this wrong but you’ve made it fairly clear over your posts that you don’t get the sadistic side of BDSM and have occasionally implied that sadists are Dangerous Bad People.
Yes, we are.
That’s exactly what masochists like about us, when they’ll admit to it. (As a masochist and sadist, a dominant and a submissive, I know the feeling from both ends.) They want a sense of danger and excitement, a level of unpredictability, but one that doesn’t stray too far from their personal comfort zone. A little boundary crossing is fine and I have yet to meet a sadistic top that didn’t try to push past the limits once or twice but violate the boundaries and you don’t get invited back.
As far as the BD/SM split, Sam, the painful punishments you’re talking about are a combination of discipline and sadomasochism. It’s entirely possible, and pleasurable, to have good old fashioned masochistic beatdowns without framing them in the emotionally complex structure of discipline and punishment. The usual acronym breakdown is as follows: Bondage and Discipline/Domination and Submission/Sadism and Masochism, and these can be taken mixed or solo to taste. Personally I like my beatings straight up with a side of restraint, but your mileage may vary.
This does kind of strike me as comment-bait though.
Didn’t we have this same debate last year..?
Rich - your last paragraph is dead on. When a sadist crosses that line of enjoying nonconsent or coerced consent, they know it - and if they don’t back down and mark it as a boundary then yes, they cross that line right into psycho territory.
The fact that there’s a line at all tends to imply there’s a difference between the two. I’ve bumped up against that line hard and stepped back. I’ve encountered people that didn’t even feel the line when they raced across it. Yes - you can tell the difference between deviant pleasure and true fear. If the “victim” has a light in their eyes when they think no one’s watching, if they’re walking funny but with no regrets, if they blush and smile when they sit down on that sore ass, you’ll be able to tell them apart from their counterpart with the closed-off body language, the lack of eye contact, the gradual decay of their desire for even platonic touch.
The key, as always, is respect and healthy relationships. My man respects that I like him to smack my ass and respects that I complain when he doesn’t. I respect that my clients will feel let down if I don’t give them blue balls and fuck with their heads a little. That’s where it gets really dangerous of course. The worst pain isn’t physical.
Sabrina - You’re reading me wrong. I’m not interested in suburban morality. I’m just open to the possibility, and interested to know if there’s truth behind the idea, sadists might be mentally ill.
I know post modern sexuality teaches everything’s okay as long as no-ones complaining but the wholes in that approach are too big to reiterate. There are plenty of things you can do which betray a disturbed psyche and don’t generate complaint.
If that’s true, it doesn’t mean those things should be outlawed. It simply means we have a better understanding of what motivates them.
To give an example. I have no objection to people fucking dead animals but would argue strongly that wanting to do so is a sign of mental imbalance.
I’m open to the idea sadists (and masochists) think differently, and that those less usual thought processes might not begin and end at the bedroom door.
The question isn’t ‘is it pleasureable?’ or ‘is it right?’ it’s ‘is it healthy?’. Heroin might be the first two but the third…?
(N.B. You have no idea how kinky I am.)
I don’t think we’re talking controversy as much as rhetorical construction here. If you’re framing the debate such that the only behavior you’re looking at is people who enjoy nothing other than causing pain in others, regardless of whether their victim also gets something out of the exchange (and moreso if they expressly don’t get something out of it, given your psychopathy definition) then yes, we have to watch out for them. But a debate so narrowly framed seems to me to not be especially useful, if for no other reason than that it doesn’t engage the totality of why people engage in sadistic practice for pleasure - it’s the kink equivalent of asking a pro choicer why they hate babies, when loving or hating babies has patently nothing to do with the question of whether or not abortion should be legal.
You’re still dodging around the central argument I have against your sadism == psychopathy construction, which is that a psychopath, under the description you cite as evidence, would be incapable of engaging in consensual acts. If I want to play the same rhetorical games as you, all I have to do is define BDSM as “consensual” and the debate is over. (BDSM is consensual; psychopaths do not gain their partners’ consent; ergo BDSM is not psychopathy; ergo people who enjoy BDSM are not psychopaths)
Which is not to say that I defend everything I see online or the people that buy it, but I think that worrying that all SM practitioners are psychopaths is a bit like protecting your children from stranger rapists - focusing resources on the unfortunate but extreme cases effectively cuts off discussion on the totality of the question and leads to conclusions which operate on a distorted view of the spectrum.
As for the boasting - as a self-described marketing genius I’d expect you of all people to know better than to bring anecdotal evidence into a debate, because it’s great for selling and horrible for proving anything. Yeah, there’s a lot of boasting; how do I know that it isn’t the case that, for every one person who boasts about not needing limits, there’s ten people who *do* need limits, and the limits are pretty sane? I’m not denying that these people exist, I’m saying you don’t demonstrate that they’re a statistically significant dataset by saying only “people who X often Y”.
But all of this comes to the central prejudice of the question: “wrong-headedness” is about as subjective as you can get. Even without descending into the mire of cultural relativism, it’s easy enough to logic your way out of (see my proof above). If you want to post inflammatory questions to generate comments, you’ve done a great job - if you’re trying to have an actual debate I think you’re a bit short of the mark. But rather than shut the debate down on framing grounds, I’ll attempt to answer you syllogism for syllogism: The ability to take pleasure in causing pain and pleasure in equal portion is not a sign of wrong-headedness if the causing of pain and pleasure in equal portion is done with the intent of satisfying the object of the act. EG - if my girlfriend asks me to beat her ass until the skin is raw and then fuck her, because it’s what she enjoys, and I take pleasure in the act because I know I am doing what she enjoys, then I am not a psychopath. Dancing right up to the edge of it maybe, but not crossing the edge. Nor is that the only case in which it would not be psychopathy, but to answer the terms of the debate I only need to provide one.
(huh huh, huh…he said “gism”)
Rich - I’m not claiming sadism = psychopathy. I’m just asking if it might and if not, why not. I’m also asking if the masochists perspective is relevant.
I am trying to stimulate debate and It’s sad that any questioning of post-modern sexuality is seen as repressive. I’m just being bold enough to ask the questions.
As with most of my questions about BDSM, the issue is consent. The idea that consent is simply a matter of saying ‘okay’ seems totally inadequate if no thought is given to the mental state of the people involved.
The ‘militant’ pro BDSM view - in which anything people agree to is not only okay (which I agree with if other people aren’t being harmed) but healthy (which I disagree with) calls into question the entire concept of mental illness.
Many people find the idea the brain’s a organ difficult to reconcile with spirituality and/or magical thinking. As a materialist I don’t.
Ergo - if the brain can malfunction, its condition has to be considered when making choices that would otherwise seem illogical.
Comparing similar choices made under different circumstances and wondering if there might be a connection seems entirely logical to me. However distasteful the circumstances in question.
The ability to beat someone badly and gain pleasure from it isn’t universal and it’s simplistic to accuse people who aren’t comfortable with consensual violence as repressed. Perhaps they’re limited in their ability to function as rounded humans, perhaps those more comfortable with consensual violence are more violent and less social generally.
Sanity outside the bounds of sex-positive political correctness has to require starting without the assumptions BDSM enthsaasts (or any other interest group) might want to impose.
If consensual sexual violence is entirely different to any other form of violent behavior I’d love to know - on a physiological level - why that’s so.
(It’s possible. Surgeons cut people open all the time, but they have a clear belief of providing benefit and comfort long-term, and aren’t causing undue pain. Surgeons pre-anesthetic caused horrible pain but still believed they were doing good. Could the sexual violence be tempered by a sincere belief it’s mutually fulfilling?)
As always - I’m not scared to voice an opinion and my questions aren’t ways of veiling them. They’re questions. Thanks for trying to provide answers.
My frustration here isn’t that you’re questioning a sexual ethos, but the sweeping generalizations that you’re using to do it - or is it simply that, as a materialist, you don’t buy the argument that the intent of the act makes a difference? I see a vast, yawning gulf between deriving pleasure from the fact that you are causing your partner pleasure, even if it’s via an unconventional method that you would not employ under more general circumstances, and taking pleasure in the act itself, with the object of the act being anonymously interchangeable. (which is true for either the sadist or the masochist, really)
I also take issue, in general, with notions of determining when a brain is malfunctioning, because we only have a very broad, top-level view of what “functioning” means. We’ve worked out the general stimulus/response cycles that cause brainwaves to behave predictably, but to say that we know, based on that, whether or not a brain is functioning correctly is a bit of a leap. Homosexuality was considered a mental deficiency until very recently (ie within my lifetime - and i’m not especially young, but against the totality of the history of human braincare as a science, it’s not much). Really when we make such a determination, we’re not materially saying “your brain does not behave correctly,” we’re saying “your brain does not conform to our expectations of what defines a healthy society.” The diagnosis is not without value, but it’s entirely subjective and changes as society changes.
So in other words - yes, the capacity of some people to enjoy certain acts is likely a good indicator of an imbalance in that person. But it’s not, at least in my view, sufficient on its own to indicate malfunction if it’s the *only* indicator. Context, not content, is king.
One other thing: the militant pro-BDSM view, like most militant views, is too extreme to be useful. The rational viewpoint (”safe, sane, and consentual”) absolutely takes mental illness into account - by definition, if you are not mentally competent, it’s considered impossible for you to consent to anything, ergo breaking one of the three watchwords BDSM practitioners live by.
Rich - Thanks for the feedback. I think you hit an important point. I guess I am at heart questioning if the intent of the actions is relevant in judging their worth. BDSM takes an ‘Ends justifies the means’ view - I’m not sure that’s justifiable.
Then again I think Jack Bauer’s a criminal who should be brought to heel.
Safe, sane, consensual isn’t clear in reality. Consent can be given but sanity and safety are hard to judge. Especially when the people doing the judging have a vested interest in the outcome.
Mental health is better understood than you suggest. Homosexuality’s a red herring as we’re still not entirely sure of its cause or purpose. The idea that nothing can be judged as right or wrong is pure post-modernism. It’s an appealing idea as it means no one has to face the possibility they might be fundamentally wrong. I don’t buy it.
Sane behavior is not entirely subjective, it’s easy to give examples of behavior which, unless prompted by other factors, is insane. Infanticide is one example.
Context is important - but content is more so. The ability to view the same actions as heroic and evil depending on viewpoint is at the heart of much madness in the world around us, as well as being the historic justification for all war.
Would a sadist be happy to torture a prisoner they knew was a masochist and would enjoy the pain? If not why not? If yes - how are they different from any other torturer?
As is often the case. The comments are better than the piece. Thank you.