Different Loving
Page 6
I went out with a woman for five years; we were madly in love. I met her at an S/M club. We had everything in common—the same music, same eating habits, same everything—except our sexuality. At first we would play a lot with each other, [but] she stopped playing and grew to resent the Scene. It’s amazing, because everything was together except our sexuality. I started suppressing my S/M fantasies. I found that it’s like a bubble in water: You suppress it, the bubble pops up; you push the bubble down, it stays down a little longer, [then] comes up about twice as fast. I suppressed for six months, and then I had to have S/M. Even today we’re still the best of friends. However, sexually, we’re just not compatible.
I’m an optimist. I’ve never been depressed or thought I’m the only one in the world. I’ve always been comfortable with what I’m into because it’s always been consensual and something I’ve enjoyed. I’ve never felt guilty. I don’t feel I can or even want to change. It’s like going to someone who’s gay and saying, “You’re going to be straight tomorrow.” It doesn’t happen.
I like fetish clothing. I love wearing it and want my lover or friends to wear it. I have a lot of clothing which probably could be construed as feminine—latex panties and things like that—but I’ve never thought of myself as a cross-dresser. Secondly, I like converting pain into pleasure. I really get into spanking [and] a lot of caning. I went to an English school: We used to get caned and spanked [there]. I used to hate that until I was about 14. Then we had female teachers who were in their 30s and they used to spank us. When I was spanked by them, it never really hurt and I suddenly started enjoying it. But I never saw a sexual connection, although from age 14 I started having spanking fantasies. As regards wearing tight clothing, that goes back to when I was seven or eight years old.
[My S/M fantasies really] grew once I started understanding them in a positive manner. I have certain fantasies which I really enjoy playing out, [such as] worshiping a goddess. I [also] like wrestling with a woman. My girlfriend’s really into that—that’s a lot of fun and very physical. You can do it in a very sensual and erotic way.
I like groups that have workshops. [One can] learn about the dangers of doing bondage, which a lot of people are unaware of. There are do’s and don’ts for everything. We have a few doctors in the Scene who are very good, and once in a while they’ll give a talk on the health and safety aspects.
I have been a member of Eulenspiegel since 1980 and on their board since 1982. The Eulenspiegel Society [TES] was founded in 1971 in New York by Pat Bond for masochists only. They met in his apartment. After a few months [they] decided to open it up to everyone in S/M. TES is a nonprofit group. It’s purely voluntary, and [its] main purpose is educational. Eulenspiegel comes from German mythology. When the group was formed, a woman attended who loved the name Till Eulenspiegel, based on a mythological German masochist. He used to run up and down a mountain carrying a pail of water. He hated running down the mountain, because then he thought of carrying the pail up; but he enjoyed carrying the pail up, because he then thought about carrying it down.
We have two meetings a week. The first is open to everybody. We have a talk [or] demo [which] lasts an hour. The second [hour], we have a circle where people listen or talk. Everyone introduces himself by name or pseudonym. You’re free to sit and listen. People talk about their interests or S/M-related topics and issues. People find it very therapeutic and informative. The second night of the week we have special-interest groups. We have a dominant-men–submissive-women’s group and a dominant-women submissive-men’s group. Occasionally we have a switchables groups. We have a transvestites group. Another important group is [our] novices group. New people are usually very shy. Often they want to know where you can find toys and how to use them. We may talk about how we got into the Scene, how we play. How to meet people who have similar interests is a very common question. We tell people it can be at a local movie house, a local art gallery—anywhere you meet the person of your dreams. You’re not always going to find someone at an S/M club.
We open the meeting with 10 minutes of announcements about membership or our quarterly newsletter. We tell people about major events in the future—like parties or fund-raisers or the Gay Pride Parade. Then the guest speaker talks. They end the lecture with a question-and-answer period. Then we put all the chairs in a big circle. The rules for the circle are that you [must] raise your hand, because cross-conversation [is] disruptive. Every week different people run the circle to keep it interesting. Afterwards, we usually go to a restaurant [with] a big room in the back and socialize and get to know people on a different level.
The Eulenspiegel Society has a mailing list of about 500 ex-members, so between past and present members our membership is close to 1000. We average between 30 to 70 people at a meeting. There are many more who’ve [visited but] who never [joined]. We also get between five and 10 human sexuality classes from the local universities every year. We’ve had a few students who’ve been hostile about S/M, but usually when they find out that we’re regular folk, they don’t have too much to say. The bottom line is [that] it’s consenting, caring adults. We’re not blatant at the meetings; we don’t play. It’s a forum to talk. However, we do play at parties.
We look at [our goals] as sexual liberation for all. We don’t discriminate against any segment of the population. We feel everyone should have the same protection. We’ve always been politically active with the gay leather community, and we’ve always helped and participated in local fund-raisers. We’re probably going to get more politically active. The leather community has to be strong and stick together if we’re going to withstand harassment. Personally I think we have to get involved if we’re going to survive. Otherwise people will walk all over our civil liberties. I would like to see more networking and shared resources within our community. There [are] a lot of lawyers, doctors, and professional people [in the Scene]. If we were all aware of each other, and our strengths, we could have a strong business bloc. I think there are a lot of very good political activists out there, especially in the National Leather Association [who] are doing outreach programs [to] the “straight” community to spread the word in a positive way.
I’ve always felt this from the bottom of my heart, and it’s a very simple thing: Everyone is different. If you can learn to live and love and accept each other’s differences, the world would be a better place.
CARTER STEVENS
My mother, God rest her soul, was a phenomenal woman whose basic attitude toward sex is that when sex is good, it’s great, and when it’s lousy, it’s not too bad. She and my father brought me up without the guilt so often associated with sex, so I have been able to enjoy my sex life. I do [have] a lot of recreational sex, but I realize and appreciate the difference between that and a warm, loving relationship. I’ve been married twice; at one point in my life I was living with five women at a time; at other points in my life I’ve had single, monogamous relationships. I’ve run the gamut. The relationships are what stick out in my mind more than the scenes.
I’m very much a hedonist. Any kind of D&S scenes that I get into are strictly a form of fantasy foreplay. The point of the entire scene is still sex [not] as a substitute for sex. I have many nonfetish-oriented relationships which I enjoy entirely. I’m strictly dominant, but I’ve had long-lasting relationships with dominant women [in which we] hung our whips on the door outside the bedroom.
D&S is a part of my life, but I can walk away from it tomorrow … at least for a week. It’s the old saw: Nobody wants to eat steak every night of the week. I tend to be attracted to women who are independent outside of the bedroom, so sometimes that can cause a lot of sparks; but I’ve had relationships that [were] totally slave-master 100 percent in every detail.
When I was young, there was only one thing on my mind: getting laid. I can’t [say] exactly when my D&S interest began. It would have to be after I got into the sex business. [As] a professional photographer and cinematographer specializing in t
he adult field, I started getting hired to shoot this stuff. It interested me, and [if] something interests me, I will experiment with it. I found that I enjoyed it. I’m much more into B&D or D&S rather than S&M. It is part of my personality—the same part that makes me want to be a film director. I like to control emotions. When I make a film, I am, by definition, controlling an entire audience’s emotions, and I carry that same feeling into the bedroom. Controlling a woman’s emotions gives me the same kind of thrill, and pushes the same buttons in my psyche. I’m [also] very pushy, and tend to be opinionated, loud, and forceful outside of the bedroom, so it tends to carry over.
I enjoy bondage, leather, spanking, straight sex. I can get into a lot of different things, depending on the partner I’m with. I’m not into pain, but I have gone into heavy scenes with partners who, because they were so turned on by it, brought me past the point I would normally stop.
The real nature of S&M was driven home to me about 15 years ago. I was doing a movie called House of Sin. There was an S&M scene [with] a mistress and her slave, who were, in real life, living together. She had him on the floor, with his hands tied behind him. She had a dog chain wrapped around his cock and balls and was lifting him off the floor by his cock and balls and smacking him across the nuts, hard enough so that every guy in the room had his legs crossed. Two things stuck in my mind: First, that while this was happening, this guy had an incredible erection, and two, as soon as I yelled, “Cut!” he immediately started to bitch and moan about the fact that he was lying on a hardwood floor and didn’t have a pillow behind his head. At that moment I realized that what she was doing to his genitals was not painful; the little bit of pressure on the back of his head, that’s what his brain was interpreting as pain. But the hard pressure of her hand coming in contact with his nuts was erotically stimulating. I realized that in S&M, if it’s painful, you’re doing it wrong.
The body feels stimulation; the mind interprets [it]. The way that the mind interprets it determines whether it’s pleasure or pain. Who knows what determines that—probably a combination of what determines everything in this life: heredity, education, and environment. Someone much brighter than me once said that there is only one erogenous zone in the human body, and that’s the space between the ears. If your brain interprets [something] as erotic, you will not feel it as pain. What makes someone aroused by the smell of three-day-old sweat socks? Damned if I know. But I know it happens, and more power to them. They’re not harming anybody. If that’s what gets them through the night, God bless them.
There is a misconception about the people involved in the Scene—what we term “Ted Bundy-itis.” When you discuss S&M, the first thing people think about is a Ted Bundy type preying on unsuspecting women and getting sexual kicks by maiming and killing. It’s as far away from the Scene as it is from mainstream society.
The people in this Scene are, by and large, older, more intelligent, and probably better off economically than the average person. Maybe they need more mental stimulation to be erotically aroused. Maybe as you get older, you need more to keep your interest. I’ve been involved in the Scene in Europe, and I find that the people who are seriously involved can buy and sell me three times over, whereas, I guess, the poor garage mechanic is willing to hump whatever he can grab on a Friday night. I don’t know if that’s an elitist attitude; it’s certainly self-serving, since I’m into the Scene. But it’s a personal observation. That’s one of the reasons I started The S&M News. It is a newspaper aimed strictly at adults. We’re trying to cover every aspect of the fetish scene. [It’s] strictly informational, not erotic. I am gratified to say that the response has been nothing short of phenomenal.
My personal beliefs are basically [that] whatever people want to do without causing permanent harm to another is [okay]. Personally, I do not like any kind of a scene that causes injury. I would never draw blood. I believe that the skin of the body is there to protect what’s in your body from outside forces, be it germs, or whatever. Scatological play, to me, once again, is on the edge of being unhealthy. [It] turns me off. I have gone as far as I want to go. I would not go any further. I do not get off sexually [from] inflicting pain.
My [college] degree is in photographic science. After graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology, I went to work for a large motion picture processing laboratory, and ran that for a while, then worked for an English corporation building an emulsion coating plant in the United States. I’m a former class-A photographer with the film union and shot original footage for the film Taxi Driver. That’s basically how I got into this business.
I have three different companies. One is Carter Stevens Presents, where I produce and direct adult videos. I specialize in fetish-oriented material because the market for “straight” adult material is glutted. Most of my stuff is released by Chain of Command here in the States, and under Amsterdam in Europe. I also shoot and provide production services for many other fetish companies. About a year ago I started The S&M News. Our press run at the moment is about 10,000. I [also] have a partner in Europe, and the two of us sell American product to Europe and try to sell European product to America, although that’s not as easy. Americans have this thing about foreign films: They don’t like them. [Also], the adult material in Europe is much more adult. The stuff that they’re making, especially in the fetish field, is too hard for current American standards.
[Generally], you have people who want to turn out a decent product, you have people who are turning product just for the bucks, you have people who are exploiting a market, and there are people who are trying to cater to a market. Everybody’s taste is different, too. There are people who don’t want the real stuff. They want pretty girls who look like they tied themselves up and could just as easily untie themselves. There’s another market that wants to know that this girl is truly well bound and helpless. And by the same token, there are people who get turned on if [the actress] looks like she is not enjoying it, and there are other people who will get turned on if she looks like she’s enjoying it tremendously. But it’s Sturgeon’s Law: 99 percent of everything is crap.
The first, probably the most important [problem] in this day and age is legal constraints. It’s not that the laws have changed; it’s the way personal freedoms are interpreted. [For example], I could never film a golden shower in one of my videos today. It is not more illegal, but it is economically unfeasible. The average prosecutor wants to go after pornography. Say it’s getting close to an election: The prosecutor will pick an easy target. Pornography is one of the easiest targets. But to the average audience, straight, good old-fashioned humping is no longer as taboo as it used to be. He knows that if he goes after run-of-the-mill porno, he is going to have a harder time getting a conviction. Golden showers, fist fucking, enemas, things that the average person is going to interpret as perverse: Since I’m very allergic to jail cells, I leave [these things] out of my films because [then] I am less likely to get picked off the shelf in Podunk, Iowa, and face a court battle which would make it economically unfeasible for me to do business.
I do not have any sex in my fetish films. I do a lot of shooting in Europe [and] I make two versions because the Europeans are strange: They like sex in their sex films. So I shoot two versions of everything that I do in Europe. Hard core [is] for release in Europe only. Every time I go to Europe, I’m less excited about coming back here. There have been increased prosecutions all over the country. [But] I’m here and I’m in the fight. I don’t like to be, but my only other choice is getting out of the business I’ve been in for 22 years. I’m [definitely] not a champion of pornography. I don’t think we’re doing any great social work. These are fuck films. They’re entertainment, not brain surgery. On the other hand, I don’t think we’re doing any harm. We make these for adults with adults, and what adults want to do in their own damn home is their own damn business, as long as nobody is harmed. I am a champion of personal freedom. The right to have fun is not in the Constitution [and] not pr
otected. So I vote Liberal and pray for the Supreme Court justices to see the light.
Three
THE ABCS OF D&S
The things that seem beautiful, inspiring, and life-affirming to me seem ugly, hateful, and ludicrous to most other people. This may be the most painful part of being a sadomasochist: this experience of radical difference, separation at the root of perception. Our culture insists on sexual uniformity and does not acknowledge any neutral differences—only crimes, sins, diseases, and mistakes.
—PAT CALIFIA1
This chapter is a primer of the principal issues and concepts that are familiar to members of the D&S communities. The D&S subculture has a highly sophisticated ethos to guide erotic play, which comprises ethical codes, safety rules, and communication tools. The intention of this mostly unwritten ars erotica is to help ensure that a maximum number of people experience D&S as a positive and loving expression of sexuality. Also, as the subculture has expanded, it has developed its own philosophies and jargon.
We feature four interviews:
• Victoria is 29 years old and a high-school English teacher. She lives with Leonard.
• Leonard is 50 years old and the owner of a private business.
• Biff is 37 years old and married. An armed-forces veteran, he now works as a paramedic.
• Genevieve Reynolds is 29 years old and works as a computer professional. She lives in California.
WHAT’S IN A WORD?
Redefining sadomasochism has become an important task for many D&Sers. The English language does not make the distinction between the criminal sadist who enjoys causing desperate agony in a victim and the sexual sadist who seeks romantic fulfillment with an eager and consenting partner. Thus, some D&Sers wish to change the negative connotations of sadomasochist and use the word as a proudly political statement. Others prefer to use the slightly less controversial terms dominance and submission (D&S) or bondage and discipline (B&D).