Hopelessly Romantic Masochism & Finding Meaning in Pleasure

( brought to you by a pervert who shuns hedonism and reveres the novels of Tom Robbins )

Part I. Contradiction

After reading my mother’s copy of Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins, I fell in love with its eccentric characters, playfully pretentious verbosity and constant philosophizing. The book follows a CIA agent referred to only as ‘Switters’ as he sets out on various adventures. Switters is a walking contradiction; a CIA agent who hates the government, a vegetarian who loves meat; he is enamored with both a middle aged nun and his sexually curious teenage step-sister.

In the novel, the idea of what separates a “real” person and a “missing link” is discussed quite frequently.

“What is it … that separates human beings from so-called lower animals? Well, as I see it, it’s exactly one half-dozen significant things: Humor, Imagination, Eroticism - as opposed to the mindless, instinctive mating of glow-worms or raccoons - Spirituality, Rebelliousness, and Aesthetics, an appreciation of beauty for its own sake. Now, since those are the features that define a human being, it follows that the extent to which someone is lacking in those qualities is the extent to which he or she is less than human.”

Robbins claims that those who lack all of these defining qualities are “missing links”; somewhere between human and animal.

Later in the novel, Switters concludes that a couple more items ought to be added to this list: firstly, Curiosity. He believes that there are two kinds of people; “Those who are curious about the world, and those whose shallow attentions [are] pretty much limited to those things that pertained to their own personal well-being.” Essentially, what separates the wonder of artists and scientists from those intrigued by such fodder as celebrity drama but who are disinterested in art and culture.

Most importantly, Switters recognizes the value of contradiction to the individual. He states, “Maybe most people were fundamentally contradictory. The REAL people, at any rate. Maybe those among us ever steadfast and predictable, those whose yang did not intermittently slop over into their yin, maybe those were candidates for the subhuman category of “missing links.”

The love we contain is equally matched in hatred, our lust for violence matched by lust for gentleness. We equally wish for personal freedom and to belong to someone.

As I read I couldn’t help but connect this idea to my own life; one of disciplined devotion and intense sadomasochism. The idea that mating is inherently meaningless, but eroticism captures something deeper. The idea that our desire for understanding fails to account for the basic nature of humanity; one that defies logic, one that is wonderfully inexplicable. There is no real logic in any of the things which make us higher beings, in any meaningful pursuit of pleasure. At our best, maybe we are deeply romantic and contradictory beings who should be quite difficult to pin down.

Part II.  Exploring Masochistic Desire and Hopeless Romanticism

Credit: Maggie Dunlap / Monibelle

In love, I am embarrassingly sentimental and aggressively devoted. I have always revered the lifelong romance of my grandmother and grandfather. He was obsessed with her; she dressed up for him every day, and every night was date night. They fought and spat but were mad about one another; dancing and drinking and fucking until the day he passed. Fifty-five years together. That is what I want; a love of mutual obsession, a love of cooking for him in negligé until we’re old and gray, him holding me close as we walk down the city streets and kissing me in public. A sweetheart grip, love letter romance.

People often associate BDSM with frivolity in romance and the prioritization of hedonistic short-term pleasure over love. This is, at times, the case; it’s certainly present in the world of sex work, polyamory (to a degree) and the normalization of hookup culture. However, I think to deny the possibility of a romantic hedonism, a devoted perversion, is terribly un-interesting. It’s puritanical; virginity is not purity and innocence and goodness, and sexuality isn’t the devil; the balance of light and dark, traditionalism and rebellion, clever contradiction, is where lifelong sweetness and meaningful sexual connection lies. Irony is the inherent nature of existence.

“[Switters] was inclined to compare angels to bats. He could scarcely think of one without the other. It seemed perfectly obvious. They were two sides of the same coin, were they not? One winged anthropomorph the alter image of the other.” He notes how bats are associated with evil for their superficial qualities, while they are truly docile and gentle creatures; angels, on the other hand, were “wrathful avengers”, rather fearful entities. Switters believes light and darkness absorb one another continuously, without one ever putting the other out.”

Sadomasochism is truly just cuteness aggression. It is the release of chosen suffering, discomfort made pleasurable, shameful human desire made sweet. Violence can be an expression of uncontrollable desire and primal connection, finding love in the trust that comes with allowing yourself to be freed from pain.

In a man there is a great capacity for evil and selfishness. What drives me towards a man is what pulls me from him; this inherent aggression. What growling impulse leads a man to ravish is magnetic. It’s unfortunately the same impulse that can lead him to view a girl as nothing but machine for the processing of his desires. I want to pull it out and I want to quell it and I want to fuel it. There is no fixing him; only the man himself can work to balance it. To kill the insatiable dog yet still dip into the syrup of primal affection. To squeeze with white knuckled adoration. (Perhaps at times I’m too idealistic, I’m only dreaming!)

I find traditional pet names nauseating and frivolous encounters of mutual masturbation revolting. I’ve always been most immediately attracted to intimidation and intensity. A handgun in the holster, a glare of intensity with sweat gleaming on forehead, a bitchy expression that says get the fuck out of my way. Let me be the forehead you press that handgun to; let me soften you into a dimpled smile; let me be the baby flesh with which to release your cuteness aggression. The most innately attractive part of sadism that can be bound by love is the inherent restraint it requires.

Often these darker fantasies and explorations are shown in media as paired with toxic relationships and true conflict, as if fantasy is impossible to comprehend. As women, are we not taught our entire lives to perform, sometimes miserably? Are we not conditioned to both withhold our desire and become an empty vessel for fantasy? To let the most perverse thoughts leak through and the teeth sink in and hands reach without fear is a most romantic form of intimacy. As a submissive woman; you decide - I will play this role because it fulfills me, and here’s exactly what I want from you. I require you to be unhinged, and when my blood is spilled you must braid my hair and kiss my feet.

What is more romantic than being able to express your most taboo desires as a form of romance?  “Every taboo is sacred” I believe, in love, becomes true. We only truly seek love because we wish to be vulnerable without second thought, to be known completely. Sadomasochism both goes against what we are taught about what love looks like, and defines it. It requires extreme trust, unleashing from fear and doubt. It is ugly but cannot exist rightfully without mutual adoration, a form of desire so extreme that it has to be most fully experienced when paired with devoted love. Through romantic devotion and gratitude, perversion becomes holy.

III. The Pitfalls of Hedonism

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Was eve’s temptation ingratitude or was it curiosity? Letting lust or gluttony make you ungrateful for the beauty of your life and willing to risk it all is certainly a straight path to hell. But curiosity is the seventh characteristic of a complete soul. Curiosity is the only path to meaningful pleasure and self-discovery.

Of Matisse, Robbins writes; “He owed much of his greatness as an artist and as a man to the fact that he was simultaneously epicurean and pious, hedonistic and devout, that he made little or no distinction between his love of wine, women and his love of God - an attitude that struck Switters as entirely sensible.”

I think one of my terrible contradictions is that I am a pervert with a staunch belief that lust is a sin. Self control is the greatest trait a man can exhibit; and yet I dream of both determined self control and foaming-at-the-mouth desire for violence.

The pitfalls of sadomasochism come from a lack of balance. Pure hedonism results in evil, a weakened society. In fourteenth century paintings, lustful men were painted as mockable fools. Nowadays a lack of romanticism and pathetically easy access to sexual gratification makes for selfish lovers and unromantic fetishists. Unfortunately people inflicted with black and white thinking tend to generalize. One with any sense ought not confuse curiosity and eroticism with hedonism and lust. In simpler terms, toxicity is a result of selfishness and a lack of romanticism. Something as intense as sadomasochism cannot exist properly without an equal amount of passion.

In all things, isn’t it best to strike a balance between acceptance of our animalistic nature and appreciation for the physical and psychological benefits of human restraint? To enjoy physical pleasures, but also to prioritize meaningful connection? Hedonism, as it applies to American society at large, is an ugly thing. It is very easy to feel “good” when you drown your sorrows in crumpled solo cups and meaningless sex. It can be misconstrued as “just having fun”, “being experiential”, and in small doses a little foolishness and hedonism is perhaps needed. However, true pleasure - the kind that wakes you with soft, graceful limbs, that makes your eyes fully open in a way so elusive nowadays - is found in something different. Standing at a mountain peak at the end of a long hike; slow sex with a woman you want to marry; eating the fruits of a carefully tended garden; swimming in the ocean like a child. True pleasure requires a sober lust for life, self-control, discipline, and a passion for learning - an inherent CURIOSITY. Curiosity bridges the animal in us to the human. We simply have to weigh the benefits and costs of the sensations we seek, and choose devotion over instant gratification.

The fine thin that delineates heaven and hell is where meaning lies. Pain experienced through love, bloodied feet at the tenth mile, dancing alone in a foreign club.

To quote Tom Robbins once again, “The best part of an affair is going up the stairs.” Desire itself often feels better than gratification. I think it is possible to ravish with lasting delight; one simply has to know when to refrain. Those who are desperate to see their dream body appear before them give up exercise as soon as it fails to quickly satisfy them. Those who learn to relish in the pain first and the physical progress second find themselves most pleased and with lifelong satisfaction. There is nothing more erotic than the pious and disciplined if he has freed himself of shame.

Debauchery is simple and easy; depravity as a means of chasing a thrill and feeling something is about as juvenile as you can get. Women (tend to) outgrow it faster than men do. To be both perverted and devout is a delicate art for a man to master; one intrinsically pleasurable and able to foster true connection.

I suppose I find divinity in this contradiction; control of and power over one’s animalistic nature. To seek sensation is often the opposite of seeking meaning; but when that gap is bridged, life can be felt most fully.