"Whip Me! Beat Me! Hate Me!, Comrade"

In response to Michael’s Lind’s arguments about the cultural cluelessness of  American progressives (to be found by scrolling down two postings), some commenters objected to what he said about Lenny Bruce: “

I agree with the core of what Lind is saying. I also think Lenny Bruce is the wrong example. Bruce played a specific and important role of busting open the hypocrisy of public discourse in the late 50’s and early 60’s and is surely one of my heroes.

Today we face a different set of problems.

Perhaps Lind could have better used the example I stumbled upon last night about how some on the American left apparently treats much more than the normalization of profanity as somehow progressive.

The lefty, alternative news service AlterNet – which has republished dozens of my own pieces—included among this week’s offerings an eye-catching piece by Daisy Hernandez of the small  publication ColorLines which bills itself as “the nation’s leading magazine on race, culture and organizing” (i.e. a bible of multi-cultural orthodoxy).

Hernandez’ not-so-well-written article, if I’m reading it correctly, seems to be a celebration of race-based sado-masochist sex in which black people get off being whipped and called “nigger” while others get their rocks off impersonating Auschwitz guards.

A product of the 6O’s, I really don’t care what people do to turn themselves on, it’s all fine by me. But the clear implication of this article and its distribution by AlterNet seem to strongly suggest that there is something “progressive” about all this, something that lefties ought to embrace under their umbrella of ...um...diversity.

Again, I admit freely that perhaps I’m reading this wrong. Tell me if you think so. If you missed it above, here’s the link to the whole piece .

Follows is an excerpt that tells the story of Mollena Williams, a devotee of San Francisco’s “BDSM” community. For those of you not up on the latest PC-gibberish that stands for: "bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism."  Hernandez writes:

Contrary to popular notions, BDSM is not about abuse. It's consensual and trusting and people refer to it as "play" (as in "I want to play with you"). The point of BDSM is not sexual intercourse. In fact, when Williams recalls her first experience as a masochist seven years ago, she says she met her partner, a white man, at a bar and "fell in love at first sight." They made their way back to his hotel. "For the first time I felt someone could see who I really was." And that was someone who found it erotic to be a submissive to her partner.

In recent years, Williams has added another element to her repertoire as a masochist. She's begun to engage in what is called "race play" or "racial play" – that is getting aroused by intentionally using racial epithets like the word "nigger" or racist scenarios like a slave auction. Race play is being enjoyed in the privacy of bedrooms and publicly at BDSM parties, and it's far from just black and white. It also includes "playing out" Nazi interrogations of Jews or Latino-on-black racism, and the players can be of any racial background and paired up in a number of ways (including a black man calling his black girlfriend a "nigger bitch"). White master seeking black slave, however, seems the more popular of the combinations.

But Williams doesn't seem self-hating. If she is, then she's pretty darn happy talking about her writing and desire to find a good man. If race play is not about hate, then what is it about? What does it mean for a person of color to be aroused by words like "nigger" or "spic"? For the people that I talked to, it's made them neither freaks nor Uncle Toms.

Well isn’t that a relief? I would hate to find out any of these folks were demented enough to be weird or, God Forbid, conservative!

As I said above, I’ve got a pretty laissez-faire attitude toward an individual’s sexual desires and practices. But am I right in reading this piece as some sort of political tribute to these very strange people? I’d love to be wrong on this one.

Comments

[LYT]

Seems to me like a typical alt-weekly story about weird people doing weird stuff, why some people are offended by it, and how --aside from that major quirk-- these weird people are people too.

Nothing to get upset about, really. If the people written about in the article get a prime-time slot at the Democratic convention, then okay. But that ain't gonna happen.

[Stephen Cheng]

Long past time for lefties to paraphrase Voltaire's opinion on free expression.

[Mork]

Yeah, I'm with LYT - I couldn't see anything in this other than a description of what some (pretty unusual) folks get up to. I think you could read a piece like that in a mainstream newspaper and assume that it was there purely for sociological/entertainment/titillation purposes, rather than as an endorsement.

I don't know this publication - maybe the context implied a political dimension that I missed - but I didn't see it in the text. The only levels of analysis I saw were sociological and psychological.

I can't say that anything about the piece particularly appealed to me, or even interested me that much, but nor did I get a sense that the writer of the piece was suggesting that as a right-thinking person, I ought to applaud what these folks get up to.

[leslie]

time to rent El Matador again--

[Josh Legere]

Lenny Bruce really wasn't that funny. He strikes me a creepy. Not just crude, but someone that would sleep with an underage girl and complain about how uptight everyone is. My guess is he would have done something outlandish like Roman Polanski. I know many Hollywood types that defend him as well.

I guess I am a bit skeptical of many of the 60's icons because most do not live up to the hype and seem to only be hyped because they died of a drug overdose. Jim Morrison comes to mind for one, he was awful despite what Oliver Stone things. The Beats are another scam.

George Carlin is crude and funny and will be around a long time.

The reality is that Mollena Williams article is the gift that Lenny gave to us. Some frank talk about sexuality is one thing, but it has gotten a bit overboard. When I turn on the TV I want to vomit. Nor do I really want to see BDSM become mainstream.

Pop culture figures are never really that significant in the grand scheme of things.

[too many steves]

"Once I hear a guy is a heroin addict, and they tell me he's a genius, I think, really? I'm not trying to be judgmental. But anybody whose last vision is of a tile pattern on a bathroom floor, I don't know what kind of genius they are."
- Dennis Miller talking about Lenny Bruce.

I love music by Hendrix and Joplin and Cobain. I love comedy by Belushi and Candy and, even, Bruce. But they were all, clearly, misguided, maybe even tortured, souls. I am saddened, in a selfish way, by the self-inflicted shortness of their lives.

So, without being overly judgemental, this whole BDSM thing strikes me as sad and pathetic - kind of like the lives of all these other folks mentioned above.

Great music, wonderful comedy, and totally fucked up - dead - human beings.

[FrydekMistek]

Mr. Legere,
for someone who bemoans hypocracy I find it a little ironic that you proclaim(judge), Lenny Bruce isn't really that funny, and Jim Morrison was awful despite what Oliver Stone thinks. Should I assune you meant these statements as subjective opinions, or am I a, "pseudo intellectual", if I think Lenny Bruce is a comic genius?
I'm also curious as to what makes the Beats a scam.
For the record: I know almost nothing about Lenny Bruce, the Beats, and I hate the doors. But that's just my opinion.
Frydek-Mistek

[Josh Legere]

They were my opinions. But in none of my opinions did I accuse anyone of being "intellectual inept" because they have different tastes than me. They, just have different tastes than me.

I am a huge fan of The Anthology of American Folk Music. This collection was released in the 50's and has been acknowledged as the most influential music collection ever released. Not many people own it and most people do not like it. But I would not accuse people of being "intellectually inept" for not being a fan of the collection.

It is one thing to be a fan of something; it is another to accuse a large population of people of being stupid because they do not share your tastes.

Is Lenny Bruce part of the IQ test? If you answer "yes" when asked if you are a fan of Lenny, do you instantly become a member of Mensa?

Since Lenny's time, America has embraced obscenity. Are we a smarter country for it? Are the youth in America smarter thanks to MTV sex filled videos?

[WJA]

Having lived in San Francisco for the last 12 years, I'm struck by how many here seem impelled to explain their sexuality in left-leaning political terms. It's not enough for a woman to say she enjoys pornography or S/M, for example--she's also got to "subvert the male gaze", or "empower female sexuality", or somesuch. (That line is also employed in moral support of stripping, prostitution, and other sex work. Also, note that I'm calling it "sex work", because in San Francisco, it's considered politically unrefined to, say, call someone who takes money for sex a "hooker".) It's as if it can't just be fucking, it's also got to be a blow against the white capitalist patriarchy. So yes, Marc, I think you're basically right.

[Robert Fiore]

I just got hit by a bolt of kitchen logic: The left is supposedly aligning itself with the degradation of American culture by lionizing Lenny Bruce, right? So what is it in this culture that is more tawdry, more degraded, more obsessed with the trivial, the grotesque and the meretricious than supermarket tabloid journalism and tabloid television? And who is the audience for that?

But it's not explicitly sexual and bleeps out the dirty words, so I suppose it's all right.

[Marc Cooper]

Well.. you know, Im gonna go with the analysis of WJA (up two comments). I read the piece I posted and it just seems to reek with a sense that the author has discovered some new stripe of the Left Rainbow. I cant shake that phrase she uses saying that these folks who impersonate Nazi torturers and Slave Masters (or Jews and Slaves) to get their ya-yas off are neither "weird" nor "Uncle Toms." The first descriptor is obviously apt. Hate to be a prude about it all, but these people are really fucking weird (so to speak). And what's her point that they are not Uncle Toms? Who the hell cares?Obviously the author does.. she's reminding her leftist audience that these fetishists (despite the fact that acting like a Nazi guard makes them comes) are also bona fide leftists. What utter silliness. In any case, there are plent of conservatives who are into S & M... I know one very well. It's just that the author didnt interview any for her piece.... it's all very very strange.

[GMRoper]

A fetishist is someone who has displaced the process of sexual arousal or gratification to a fetish; shoes for example, BDSM.

Regardless of how it happens, the fact is that the fetishist has difficulty in "normal" (what ever the heck that is) arousal patterns and has adopted the fetish as a way to achieve (sexual) arousal.

I agree with Marc and WJA basically. Yeppers, these folks are indeed weird. At an extreme end of normal perhaps, but personally speaking (as opposed to professionally speaking) weird!

Now, How about them Red Sox! (sorry, just couldn't help myself there) ;-)

[Brian Siano]

WJA's comments mirror mine, actually. My own attitude towards sexual extremism is, basically, it's fine with me, but it's not something that's part of my life.

The closest I get to making this a _political_ issue is this. I grew up as a severely unpopular kid, and hearing about the richness of other people's sex lives is like hearing about yachting regattas from rich kids. That's something the lucky people get to do.

What bothers me about discussing sex in political terms is that the people who do it slip into a reactionary stance so easily. For example, back in the 1980s, the local anarchist bookshop had a poster depicting Ronald Reagan being buttfucked by Jesse Helms with some witty voice-balloon above. There's a lot wrong with that-- lack of wit, for example-- but every time I'd see it, I'd wonder, "Okay, so what is _wrong_ with buttfucking?"

[steve]

As long as there's no agression in BDSM or RDSM I'm not against it.

[GMRoper]

Steve, Sado-masochism is by it's nature aggressive. Bondage/discipline somewhat less so, though for "discipline" to be effective, the threat of "punishment" (usually by a humiliation type threat) must be there.

Masochism: 1. The deriving of sexual gratification, or the tendency to derive sexual gratification, from being physically or emotionally abused.
2. The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from being humiliated or mistreated, either by another or by oneself.
3. A willingness or tendency to subject oneself to unpleasant or trying experiences.

Sadism: 1.The deriving of sexual gratification or the tendency to derive sexual gratification from inflicting pain or emotional abuse on others.
2. The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from cruelty.
3. Extreme cruelty.

From what I've seen, a goodly portion of the abuses at Abugrahb were sado-masochistic in nature.

[Josh Legere]

That was the best Steve line ever!

[Josh Legere]

That was the best Steve line ever!

[steve]

I'm not sure about that Josh, I thought my line about peaceful non-agressive fishing was even more creative. no? GM, ya with me on that?

[GMRoper]

Steve, Steve, Steve. So many comments, so many choices. What's a poor conservative to do?

[steve]

GM, your irony cap needs new batteries. Donate a pair to Josh too...

[GMRoper]

Steve, like any good CONSERVE-ative, my Irony Cap is solar powered. I abjure batteries in favor of renewable energy sources. ;-)

[Robert Fiore]

Hey, look on the bright side; if they were conservatives they'd be getting buggered by someone in a Bill Clinton mask.

[Mollena Williams]

Well. Well. Well.

This is what happens when friends Google you. You find little nodules of discussion about yourself that you never knew existed.

Eye-opening commentary, to say the least. I simply am tickled at the propensity for dismissive rhetoric that so many people have when passing judgment on people's motivations and reasons for speaking out.

I was interviewed for an article, and it somehow found its way to a little enclave of political masturbation.

Look.

It is just sex. You might not like it, but that is what it is. You might get off on small kitten porn: I don’t give a rootin-patootin. But among people who have, as a substantial segment of their psyche, their sexuality, this sort of thing is a Very Big Deal.

So, fine. You think we are weirdoes. I assure you, if you had the pleasure of a lunch hour with me, you’d find me neither abrasive nor extremist. Your assumptions are based on little but your own spin on one article.

It isn’t a “new stripe of the left rainbow”. It is just kinky people doing what makes us happy.

And, to those who pule and moan about Sado-Masochism becoming mainstream: believe me, the perverts don’t want to be any mainstream at all.

Good grief. When did kinky sex become a rail upon which you self-absorbed pseudo-0intellectual middle-class wankers could ride all over everyone?? Lighten up.

IT. IS. JUST. KINKY. SEX.

[pass marijuana drug test]

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