Some D&Sers categorically object to depersonalization. For them, this type of play simply exceeds the bounds of safe play; for others, the passivity of the submissive-as-object is not arousing. Not surprisingly, depersonalization scenarios where the dynamic includes lively interaction between dominant and submissive seem to be the most popular.
Depersonalization seems to be particularly popular among dominants who enjoy exerting stringent psychological control over a partner.
My fantasies basically [revolve around] having women slaves, using women as pets or as objects.
—MAX
For the submissive, depersonalization is a means of total surrender. If submissives relish the feeling of abdicating control, the person who enjoys depersonalization fantasies takes this powerlessness further. He experiences the most radical transformation possible: He becomes less than human, even nonhuman.
My master likes to say he imagines me as a tiny person dangling on his key chain. He takes his finger and flicks me! And I spin back and forth. I love being conscious of being someone’s puppet, someone’s toy. There’s nothing like that in the world. It’s the most wonderful feeling.
—BAMBI BOTTOM
The metaphor of the puppet or toy perhaps best expresses an aspect typical of depersonalization fantasies. The submissive must behave only as the dominant wills and in this sense ceases to exist as an independent entity.
I like to fantasize about going out in public and being led on a leash and thinking about what other people seeing me would think about this person who’s less than a person, who’s owned by someone else.
—BAMBI BOTTOM
Nonetheless, even the animal or the object wields its own power—if only in the sense that it is a source of fascination to the dominant. And some submissives see their roles as antic, purely pleasurable, alternate personae.
[Even at an S&M club, I say], “No spanking the ponyman! The ASPCA gets all upset.” I tell them that. They can kick lightly, for effect or signaling, but I’m not into pain. I’m not into humiliation. That’s not my thing. I’m there to have a positive response from people. That’s why I call myself “the Macho Submissive” at the S&M clubs. I’m not going to be a wimp to please the women—it’s a masculine, powerful thing that they can enjoy if they wish. I’m not about to be abused. I wish to give them pleasure, not to give myself displeasure.
—DANNY THE WONDER PONY
Depersonalization can also be degradation in its most literal sense: The person is degraded, his status diminished to a level that would be both unthinkable and unacceptable were it real. The submissive revels in helplessness.
I don’t see degradation as a punishment or something that’s done to make people feel bad. It makes me feel wonderfully good. It’s part of the whole dynamic of being so absolutely in someone’s power that he can do anything with you, including make you [into] an object. I like feeling insignificant. I like feeling little, not big and powerful, and there’s nothing like being someone’s footstool that’ll do that to you.
—BAMBI BOTTOM
Depersonalization fantasies rarely involve direct erotic activity. They are based on head games; any activity that occurs is simply a means of reinforcing the scenario’s credibility.
[When I’m a footstool], I think of how I’m serving my master. I think of how I’m glad he has something very soft and cushiony to put his feet on. I think of how he’s not really paying any attention to me. It’s kind of like being put in the corner, another activity that I really enjoy. I love having my face pressed into a corner and my buttocks sticking out and having to stand in the corner like a bad little girl while my master does something else. It’s just wonderful to know that I’ve been put in storage as a piece of furniture—there for his use.
—BAMBI BOTTOM
Because depersonalization fantasies do not always require the submissive or dominant to be active at all (or even most) times, some couples extend the play over long periods of time (hours, or even days), taking breaks only to meet professional or social obligations. Their main thrill is psychological. Depersonalization is seldom foreplay, and sexual release rarely forms a part of these scenarios. Finally, depersonalization is usually only one of many fantasies acted out in a couple’s play: We do not know of anyone who consistently remains in these roles.
DOG AND PONY SHOWS— AND WORMS
When the witch Circe transformed Ulysses’s crew into swine, it was an act of cruel degradation. Since Western culture places man at the pinnacle of the animal kingdom, animalistic behavior is, figuratively speaking, beneath us. Yet some submissives covet the opportunity to get feral. Bestial fantasies seem to focus on one of three creatures: dog, pony, and worm (though undoubtedly other beasts lurk in other menageries). The dog’s slavish and submissive relationship to humans and its complete lack of privacy in the human domain may well explain the popularity of humiliating canine games.
I’m looking forward to doggy training—being treated for a whole day as a puppy and being made to crawl around on all fours and bark and beg like a dog and eat from a doggy dish.
—BAMBI BOTTOM
The bestial fantasy is a sublime paradox: It is behavior utterly without civilization, since no animal, however tame, can be civilized. Thus, the creature is completely liberated from the rules and restrictions that constrain human behaviors. At the same time, the animal is a slave to the will of its master. The domesticated animal has no privacy and is subject to its owner’s whims. Bestialization, therefore, represents simultaneous emancipation (from one’s humanity) and subjugation (to a human’s will), a curious blend of anarchy and submission.
One of our interviewees suggested that some individuals equate being an animal with being lovable.
As a professional, I once had a man in dog training. He was dressed, but when I pushed his face into the dog food, he had an orgasm in his pants. The moment I pushed his face into the dog food, [he had] a revelation. His father was a veterinarian and gave more love to animals than to him. He realized how much he wished his father had paid attention to him and how he wished to be a dog because he wanted his father’s attention. Everything just became clear to him, and he never came back.
—AVA TAUREL
Bestial play comprises many of the same behaviors one might observe between real pet owners and their pets, but it does not involve any real animals. The submissive-as-dog also has numerous ways of expressing personality without leaving the fantasy role.
When I was watching TV and my dog kept running over, putting his face in his bowl, I got him some dog biscuits and got him to do some tricks for them. When my partner becomes my dog, he can bark, but he’ll probably be punished for it. When he’s a dog, I only use a dog quirt on him; I wouldn’t hit him with a whip or flogger. [During that time], he lives on the floor. He isn’t allowed on the furniture when he is being a dog.
—JOSEPH BEAN
Second to dogs, ponies are favorite fantasy roles. The D&S community’s best-known animal impersonator is Danny the Wonder Pony, a performer in the New York area. Danny is a bit unusual in that he’s seized the reins.
It took a long time to get the Wonder Pony mystique up. I give myself a lot of credit for having moved this into the regular world and [having] it accepted. No one had ever heard of it in the straight world before I did it. The only people that knew about it were the S&M people.
—DANNY THE WONDER PONY
A famous scandal revealed that the late Alfred Bloomingdale, the clothing mogul, hired women to perform as ponies and rode them, whipping their flanks. Ponygirls are a fixture of D&S pornography, although they seem to be slightly more of a British phenomenon than an American one. It is a rare ponygirl who can support the weight of a man, and this restricts most play to prancing and training. The ponyboy, however—and particularly Danny—can rise to weighty occasions. He reports that the ride is sensual for beast beneath and rider above.
There is something very sensual about a pony ride—not only watching it fro
m my point of view, but for the lady the physical sensation is erotic. So I’ve been told, anyway. The saddle seems to contact parts of their bodies. It also has a mental situation, where it’s a big, powerful thing between their legs that they have control over.
—DANNY THE WONDER PONY
For many who enjoy pretending to be animals, the accoutrements are intrinsically bound up in the fantasy.
The equestrian equipment—the stirrups and all that stuff—intertwine; it is a fetish. Those objects have a sensuality because they’ve been used by the woman. It’s the objects that give me erotic feelings about women—not the women. It turns me on that they’ve been used for pleasure so many times, that the stirrups are used to control; those objects themselves take on meaning.
—DANNY THE WONDER PONY
And, finally, worms. We did not interview anyone who pursues this fantasy, but it is recorded. The behavior usually involves groveling and often verbal abuse. This scene is perhaps the most extreme and least politically correct of all besthlization fantasies. We quote one of the more remarkable passages on the phenomenon, from a fictional dialogue between mistress and invertebrate,
You there, lowlife! Clean my shoes while you’re down there! You’re nothing but a worm, a worm beneath my heel I’ve never seen such a loathsome thing, such an unevolved growth.
—TERRENCE SELLERS2
Later in this passage, some confusion appears to arise between the man-as-worm and his organ, described as “sort of a worm on a worm.” Apparently, when a worm turns, its thoughts turn to extreme degradation.
THE INANIMATE WORLD: FURNITURE AND OBJECTS
We are all familiar with the cartoons in which presumably inanimate objects spring to life once the antiquarian has locked his shop door. In some D&S scenarios the reverse occurs: The very animate submissive may, at the dominant’s behest, become inanimate—an object or piece of furniture to be used or handled. This fantasy is not very common but is certainly known among D&Sers. To some extent, it has characteristics similar to other D&S activities, among them bondage and humiliation. Instead of being bound in place, however, the human object must hold still without the aid of restraints or supports. A variety of sensations may be introduced—such as tickling or rubbing—which may be exciting or humiliating. Throughout, the submissive has no choice but to remain the passive recipient.
Sometimes my master turns me into his footstool. I lay naked on the floor, and he sets his feet on my bottom. We spend an evening like that. He watches TV or listens to music, and I must lay very still. I love lying there, not being able to talk and having obscene things done to [me]. I like being his table, too! I don’t like it when he puts a glass of ice water on my back and then tickles or spanks me, because I can’t hold still, but I love serving him in that way.
—BAMBI BOTTOM
The object is relieved of humanity; in the process, it becomes both helpless and helpful to its owner. It may also have another appeal to deeply submissive individuals: Typically, during D&S, the dominant devotes considerable energy to stimulating the submissive. Human furniture, however, is “maintenance-free.”
When a dominant pays attention to you and beats you or humiliates you, it’s very wonderful. But it’s even more wonderful to know that I’m serving him in whatever way he wants and that he doesn’t have to actively put out energy [or] give things to me. That’s what submissives fear the most, I think: that the dominant isn’t getting anything out of it [and] actually serving the submissive by doing all these terrible delicious things to [her]. It’s just refreshing to know that my master’s sitting there being himself, having me do exactly what he wants and not having to put a lot of energy and effort into doing things for me.
—BAMBI BOTTOM
Object fantasies cover a wide range. Footstools or ottomans are fairly popular, particularly among those who also have a foot fetish. Tables, hat-stands, and ashtrays are known. Novelist Jerzy Kosinski is reputed to have crawled under the sofa pillows at a fashionable party so that guests would sit on him, supposedly as a prank. Many D&Sers, however, feel that object fantasies are too psychologically extreme to be enacted safely.
INSTITUTIONAL CRUELTY: HOSPITALS, REFORMATORIES, PRISONS
Institutional fantasies imitate the interaction between an indifferent or malicious authority inflicting unfair or dehumanizing punishment on an incapacitated or captive victim. Unlike many D&S scenes where the dominant may express affection or reassure the submissive, in these scenarios cuddling or emotional displays would destroy the illusion of victimization. Submissives also wish to feel that the punishment has been decided not by the individual dominant but by some higher authority—a prison system or medical science, for example—and that they are powerless in the face of this tyrannical system.
This category actually comprises a broad range of roleplaying—so broad, in fact, that we do not attempt to be comprehensive here. Specific activities depend on imaginary circumstances; elements of bondage, intense stimulation, head trips, and humiliation are most common. Fantasies range from the playful (the submissive who pretends to be a juvenile delinquent) to the very cruel (the submissive who wishes to roleplay as a political prisoner). Some jail fantasies involve little more than wearing shackles; others involve stringent corporal punishment.
When enacted by partners, this form of depersonalization often embraces the concept (which applies to other D&S acts, as well) of consenting to nonconsensuality: The submissive may propose the fantasy and negotiate the activity, but part of the agreement may be that the authority figure will push the submissive’s limits. Because the authority is an agent of a larger system, the submissive has little hope of appeal. The scenario may also represent an opportunity for a high level of discomfort and dehumanization. For example, although some hospitalization scenarios are reminiscent of the type of investigative doctor-patient games that children play, many submissives (particularly men) fantasize about grimly elaborate scenarios that simulate a real hospital setting. The dominant may be uniformed as a nurse or a doctor (or a nun, for those whose tastes are catholic); this figure may bind the patient with hospital restraints, shave the submissive’s pubic region, administer enemas, introduce urinary catheters, or perform a host of other embarrassing or painful procedures.
Similarly, interrogation fantasies may range from moderate head games to extensive pain scenarios.
I once did an interrogation scene. [He] wanted to know what political prisoners felt when electricity was used on them. That’s what [he] wanted; that’s what was negotiated: I was to interrogate him until I got the truth—the names, the password, the location, things like that. We were actually playing an Arab-Israeli trip. He’d been to Israel four times, so he was part of a group that invaded Lebanon and got caught. I went up extremely slowly [with the electricity] until I got to a point that he found the most erotic.
—JEAN L.
Interrogation scenarios often continue until the submissive feels that his will has been bent.
Some D&Sers will wear appropriate uniforms or costumes to enhance the reality of the scene. Not only submissives are aroused by this type of play, but dominants often have more reservations about playing so close to the edge.
I have fantasies of interrogations in which I would have women tied up, and I would whip them and usually stick things in them. I [would] like to feel able to break the woman: It’s always with naughty women, women who are unavailable, snotty, bitchy. On the other hand, I’ll read about tortures, and it really turns me off when I see someone getting hurt.
—MAX
Most institutional scenarios are infrequently or tentatively enacted, and adherence to safety guidelines is critical in any type of invasive play. Such fantasies, however, proliferate in D&S pornography, where fictional characters regularly subject the human body to abuses which no sane D&Ser would ever attempt.
INTERVIEWS
DANNY THE WONDER PONY
I’m 100 percent hetero. I’m not homophobic. I have many homosex
ual friends whom [I] respect. They understand it’s not my thing. I don’t put it down, [but] it’s just not for me. I consider myself a little more aware of the sexuality of a woman, because I grew up in the age of the “new woman,” or the feminists. Dating in the feminist world, you get badgered with a lot of information. So I know more of where women are coming from, and it helped me [with] the act, to tell the truth.
I make my living by entertaining at different functions—clubs, parties, whatever—as Danny the Wonder Pony, who literally gives a pony ride to ladies who want one. I have a custom-made costume, and it consists of a saddle, reins, stirrups, all the equestrian equipment, [tailored to] fit me. I get down on all fours for a second, and the lady sits in the saddle. Her feet go in the self-adjusting stirrups, and then I stand up on two legs and dance. The lady looks and she feels like she’s riding a pony, although it’s going to the music. There are also parts of a pony ride that are a little more stimulating than others for the ladies. The Wonder Pony knows all. He knows all about what the women want.
Men are really into dogs, and women literally fall in love with their horses, especially if they’re teenagers, because it’s the first sexual awareness, sometimes. If you’ve ever noticed, teenage girls are always the most enthusiastic pony riders. There’s a reason for that; it literally feels good to them, just the way, maybe, a man feels good in a sports car because of the adrenaline. If you ever go to a ranch and watch people riding, you’ll see that eight or nine out of 10 are girls. [It] has to do with a Western saddle. The English saddle doesn’t have the same effect, because it just isn’t built the same way. It doesn’t have the horn; it doesn’t have the slope in the front.
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