<\/p>\n
S\/M in the Media<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been keeping a file for some time into which I throw any media s\/m reference I come across.\u00a0 About four years ago, it occurred to me that s\/m was about to become a visible presence in mainstream American culture.\u00a0 I predicted it would take about five years, and I must say I think my prediction is right on schedule.<\/p>\n
The cultural process around s\/m is recapitulating much of the process of cultural change around homosexuality over the last thirty or so years.\u00a0 Before gays started coming out in huge numbers, everyone thought homosexuals were bizarre-looking, demented weirdoes that any upstanding citizen could identify (and avoid) from a block away — swishy men who walked and talked funny, heavyset women who were mean, arrogant, and had closely cropped hair.\u00a0 In any case, rare deviants among a basically homogeneous “normal” population.<\/p>\n
This is very much how the general population now thinks of people into s\/m — strange-looking demons who brandish whips and knives, dress in leather head to toe, look unbelievably nasty or unbearably demure, perhaps slobber a little.\u00a0 Certainly not anyone who could pass for Susie Creamcheese.<\/p>\n
The mantle of Designated Pervert is in the process of shifting from gays and lesbians to sadomasochists.\u00a0 This perversion shift happens from time to time, whenever the psychological impact of the previous DP\u2019s starts to wane.\u00a0 There are just too many public homosexuals these days for homosexuality to perform the Horrible Perversion function it did once upon a time, when gay and proud were for most people oxymorons.<\/p>\n
Not that homosexuality has been accepted by mainstream American culture, of course — just look at the idiocy being spouted at the Senate hearings on gays in the armed services.\u00a0 But Designated Perverts need to be sexual beings entirely Other, awful, and unspeakably vile to contemplate, and there are just too many all-Americans now who work with gays, have good friends who are lesbian, or cousins who are bisexual to maintain the stereotypes.\u00a0 The Designated Perverts need to be so loathsome, so mythological, that the good people devoted to thinking of themselves as normal can use their generated revulsions to scare their own fringy longings and desires back into the padlocked invisible sub-basements of their psyches.\u00a0 Enter s\/m.<\/p>\n
But even as mainstream culture turns to s\/m for its nausea and scapegoat, s\/m is coming out of hiding at every turn.\u00a0 What we\u2019re going to see — what we\u2019re already beginning to see — is a normalizing process around s\/m that may even preempt the Designated Pervert process.\u00a0 The good people of America are already beginning to see, and are going to have to get used to the fact, that there are sadomasochists everywhere, that they look and act more or less like everyone else, that they include the nice young man at the supermarket, the cab driver, the county social worker, the business executive, the nurse, the real estate broker, and (yes) even the teacher and child care worker.\u00a0 America is about to find out that millions and millions of people have been slapping and spanking and tying each other down (and much, much more) for years — they just haven\u2019t been telling anyone about it.\u00a0 Of course, once the door cracks a little open, we\u2019re going to see flowers blooming even more.<\/p>\n
The first time my ears pricked up about this was when I read a front-page article in the Chronicle<\/em> about the then-impending wedding of Lady Di to Prince Charles.\u00a0 A reporter asked Diana if she was going to promise to honor and obey Charles as part of their wedding vows.\u00a0 As reported in the Chronicle<\/em>, Diana winked at Charles, then answered, “Of course I\u2019ll promise to obey<\/em> him” as she gave him what was described as a “playful slap on the cheek.”\u00a0 Don\u2019t quote me word for word, but it was something to that effect.<\/p>\n My, my, I said to myself, not only are Charles and Diana into s\/m (how British<\/em> of them!), but there was a reporter who understood enough to catch the gesture and pass the word to the rest of us, discretely of course.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I caught on that s\/m was about to emerge into the light of day.\u00a0 Like a good observer, I decided to take notes.<\/p>\n Here are some random tidbits, starting with three comic strips:<\/p>\n 3\/9\/89, Doonesbury.\u00a0 Reporter Roland Hedley deadpans (in a series satirizing the Salman Rushdie death threats):<\/p>\n “Peter, not all the authors panned here today received death threats.\u00a0 Lesser sentences ranged from the removal of a hand to a slap on the wrist.\u00a0 Among the notables, Jeffrey Archer has been condemned to lose an ear, Erich Segal is sentenced to a beating, and Jackie Collins will receive 50 lashes of the whip.\u00a0 Responses have varied.\u00a0 Both Segal and Archer have reportedly hired bodyguards and gone into hiding.\u00a0 Ms. Collins, on the other hand, is said to be looking forward to her sentence.”<\/p>\n 2\/9\/90,\u00a0 Mister Boffo.\u00a0 A man is being zapped in an electric chair.\u00a0 He is screaming, “Yes, YES, YES!”<\/p>\n 8\/3\/90, The Fusco Brothers.\u00a0 Lance:\u00a0 “Oh, that<\/em> explains it…”<\/p>\n Lars:\u00a0 “Explains what, Lance?”<\/p>\n Lance:\u00a0 “You\u2019re just watching a cattle drive movie.”<\/p>\n Lars:\u00a0 “So?”<\/p>\n Lance:\u00a0 “Well, I heard mooing, and hooves, and whips, and \u2018Hyaahh!!\u2019, and Frankie Laine singing, and naturally I thought you had a date<\/em> in here…”<\/p>\n 11\/18\/90, Image Magazine<\/em> crossword puzzle.\u00a0 Clue:\u00a0 “S&M shoppe offering.”\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 “Whip Service.”<\/p>\n Late 1990.\u00a0 A story about people in Manhattan chaining their valuable shrubbery to keep from having their plants stolen carries the headline, “Of Floral Bondage.”<\/p>\n 3\/19\/91.\u00a0 An article in the Allentown<\/em> (PA) Morning Call<\/em> on “Tupperware Parties for Sex Products” speaks of pleasure parties in rural, conservative eastern Pennsylvania.\u00a0 Describing the various sex toys being demonstrated, “Love Cuffs” (“make it a binding relationship”) are listed right in there with the Honey Dust Powder, the Pleasure Balm, and the Glow Worm (glow in the dark condom).<\/p>\n 11\/21\/91.\u00a0 The cover story of the San Jose Mercury<\/em>\u2019s weekend Metro magazine, blares “Pictures of Bettie,” and then offers a reverential, illustrated life story of 1950\u2019s s\/m pinup girl Bettie Page, including one fetching photo of Bettie in spike heels and white lingerie, a stern look on her face and a raised whip in her hand.\u00a0 The article announces that Bettie Page has become “the quintessential \u201890s cult figure.”<\/p>\n 1\/23\/92.\u00a0 A Reuters story on France lifting its ban on Henry Miller\u2019s writing describes the Marquis de Sade as “the 18th century French aristocrat who taught the world that whips can cause pleasure as well as pain.”<\/p>\n 2\/2\/92, Chronicle<\/em> pink section crossword.\u00a0 Clue:\u00a0 “Mild flavor.”\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 “Vanilla.”<\/p>\n 3\/13\/92.\u00a0 Gianni Versace\u2019s fall\/winter fashion show is lauded by Bernadine Morris in The New York Times<\/em> as “a theatrical event filled with breathtakingly beautiful clothes.”\u00a0 A section of the show entitled “Miss S and M” presents “world famous models” Linda, Christie, Claudia, Naomi, Marpessa, Nadege, and Karen, who are all (to Ms. Morris\u2019s amazement) “unconcerned” to be wearing leather skirts, leather fringed dresses and blouses, and floor-length satin dresses accompanied by leather jackets.\u00a0 Under the models\u2019 jackets were what Morris describes as “bondage tops,” “bodices consisting solely of different arrangements of straps that just managed to cover the bosom.”\u00a0 While she quivers at the “disturbing undertone” of s\/m, she admits that “the drama was infectious.\u00a0 The retailers swarmed backstage to congratulate the designer; they said he gave an energizing lift to the Milan shows and to fashion in general.\u00a0 The use of leather… was commended.”<\/p>\n 11\/92.\u00a0 Cosmopolitan<\/em> magazine runs a long article on s\/m under the title, “The Scary Lure of Sado-Masochism.” \u00a0 “Chains, handcuffs, shackles, ropes — pleasurable paraphernalia?\u00a0 Yes, say the masters and slaves who believe the straight world of \u2018vanilla sex\u2019 is the one that\u2019s really plagued with hang-ups!”\u00a0 The article goes on to give a thorough, if slightly omigosh, discussion of s\/m, including “The ABCs of S and M,” “The Affection-Aggression Link,” and “Respecting Your Limits.”\u00a0 The reader learns that s\/m is definitely something to be knowledgeable, enlightened, and open-minded about at both office and cocktail party.<\/p>\n 12\/21\/92.\u00a0 A syndicated Associated Press story by Dana Kennedy announces “S&M Enters the Mainstream — Its influence is being seen in movies, fashion, music, magazines and even on daytime soap operas.”<\/p>\n 1\/24\/93.\u00a0 The Santa Cruz Sentinel<\/em> runs a two-page spread of three feature stories under such headlines as “Fashionable S&M Replaces Pain With Sexual Fantasy” and “The Ties That Bind:\u00a0 Sadomasochism moves out of the dungeons and into suburban bedrooms.”\u00a0 One article has Santa Cruz sociologist Wendy Chapkis declaring that “SM has shown that negotiation can be incredibly intimate and vulnerable… fantasies can be really hot.”\u00a0 Jenne Blade of Stormy Leather exults that San Francisco has “one of the largest SM and leather fetish communities in the country… many, many houses of domination… the premier professional dominatrixes.”<\/p>\n 3\/15\/93.\u00a0 A brief note in Leah Garchik\u2019s “Personals” column of the Chronicle<\/em> tells how Socks, the White House cat, is being kept on a leash when wandering the White House grounds under the headline, “Feline in Bondage.<\/p>\n 4\/25\/93.\u00a0 Image<\/em> Magazine crossword.\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 “Cat.”\u00a0 Clue:\u00a0 “Stick with a kick.”<\/p>\n Spring, 1993.\u00a0 The Bobs, an eclectic but never sexually outrageous a capella<\/em> singing group, have a new song, “Take Me In,” a tongue-in-cheek\u00a0 ditty about a guy who falls in love with the CHP officer who pulls him over for a ticket.\u00a0 “Tie my hands together,” he dreams wistfully after their encounter, “handcuff [me] in the back of your car.”<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n Meanwhile In England…<\/b><\/p>\n Tuppy Owens reports from England that a new law there makes even s\/m among consenting private individuals illegal.\u00a0 According to this law, recently passed by Parliament and now being appealed before the House of Lords, any sexual act causing “grievous bodily harm,” no matter how consensually arrived at, is subject to a penalty of two to three years in jail.\u00a0 “Grievous bodily harm” is not defined.\u00a0 A campaign is being organized to protest the law.<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n Sex Toys You Can\u2019t Take on an Airplane<\/b><\/p>\n Going to board my flight back from the Western Regional Conference of SSSS (The Society for the Scientific Study of Sex) in Seattle, I was surprised to hear my sex-toy bag set off the security metal detector.\u00a0 It usually does just fine as long as I leave my Robocop home, or remember to stash it with my checked luggage.<\/p>\n The stern, older, black woman watching the screen backs up the belt until my bag is under the x-ray, then points at the screen to show her young, blonde assistant what to look for.\u00a0 I\u2019m in a good mood, not too close to flight time, and find myself smiling to a friend who\u2019s taking the same flight and looking forward to a little good theatrical fun.<\/p>\n “Is it all right if I look in this bag?” the attendant asks.<\/p>\n “Sure, if you really want to,” I say.<\/p>\n I watch her face as she digs through the cuffs, the latex straps, the blindfold, the ziplock bag with condoms, rubber gloves and lube, the ziplock bag with cock rings, the ziplock bag with miscellaneous tit clamps, butt plug, and so forth, Mark Chester\u2019s wonderful spandex full-body bondage bag (if you don\u2019t have one, you should), the wonderful soft leather scratch gloves with the sharp little points scattered all over the palm and fingers.\u00a0 Her face stays 100% deadpan, impressing me with her professionalism.<\/p>\n Other departing passengers flow by, pick up their uncensored bags, note the various toys she has out on the counter or don\u2019t.\u00a0 There was a time when I would have been unbearably embarrassed to have my personal sex toys laid out for anyone in the Seattle airport to see, but it\u2019s been a wonderful weekend and I\u2019m feeling unusually good about myself, so I\u2019m not embarrassed at all, just wondering what it\u2019s like to be an airport security guard pawing through some stranger\u2019s bag of sexual equipment.\u00a0 I mean, she doesn\u2019t even have gloves on; how does she know whether I\u2019ve washed the latex dildo or not?<\/p>\n Finally she finds what she\u2019s looking for — what I knew she would get to sooner or later — my springy little whip with the 6″ metal handle, the one that no one knows what to call.\u00a0 (Several people have said, “Well, it\u2019s not a quirt….”)<\/p>\n The security guard lays my notaquirt on the carpeted little counter rather triumphantly.\u00a0 (The eyebrows on some of the passing passengers do start to rise.)\u00a0 My friend shifts her weight from one foot to the other.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell whether she\u2019s enjoying this or feeling uncomfortable.\u00a0 I have my camera with me, but it\u2019s not until later that I realize I should have taken a minute to get a picture of the whole scene.<\/p>\n “You can\u2019t take this on the airplane,” the security guard says definitively.<\/p>\n “Why not?” I ask.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s a weapon,” she informs me.<\/p>\n I roll my eyes for dramatic effect.\u00a0 “That\u2019s not a weapon<\/em>,” I object plaintively, “it\u2019s a toy.”<\/p>\n She looks me in the eye, neither humored nor annoyed — like I say, professional.\u00a0 “Whatever it is, you can\u2019t take it on the plane.”<\/p>\n For a moment I\u2019m tempted to go one step further, but I realize that it\u2019s starting to get a little close to departure time.\u00a0 The reality principle intercedes.\u00a0 I don\u2019t say, “What are you afraid of?\u00a0 That I\u2019ll rush into the cockpit and tell the pilot to take the plane to Havana or else I\u2019ll whip his butt?\u00a0 I don\u2019t say, “Are you afraid that I\u2019ll attack one of the flight attendants and whip her (him) into such a state of excitement that s\/he\u2019ll beg to help me hijack the plane?”<\/p>\n I do say, “All right, what can I do with it then?”<\/p>\n I\u2019m told that I can take the whip back to the ticket counter and ask them to check it through as a separate piece of baggage.\u00a0 “Sometimes they\u2019ll do that, sometimes they won\u2019t,” she warns.\u00a0 I pick up the bag, then the whip.\u00a0 For the first time, her face softens.\u00a0 She really doesn\u2019t hold it against me that I travel with a whip.\u00a0 “Tell them that security said you couldn\u2019t take it on the plane.\u00a0 That should help.”\u00a0 I thank her for the advice.<\/p>\n Holding the whip in my hand so familiarly among hundreds of people in the middle of the Seattle airport produces extreme cognitive dissonance.\u00a0 (Some of the other passengers\u2019 eyebrows definitely do go up when they look at me.)\u00a0 I\u2019m turned on in a Pavlovian sort of way, I\u2019m in public, and I\u2019m beginning to be worried about what to do if they won\u2019t check the whip.\u00a0 I remember the story of when Betty Dodson\u2019s Robocop (a 8″-long solid brass dildo) similarly set off an airport metal detector.\u00a0 They called that a weapon too and confiscated it on the spot.<\/p>\n I begin to wonder if I\u2019m going to miss the flight.\u00a0 I put aside all the conflicting feelings and get efficient.\u00a0 My friend says she\u2019ll go to the gate, save me a seat on the plane if I\u2019m late.\u00a0 I fold the tails of the whip along the handle so I can carry it to the ticket counter without ruffling any feathers along the way.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a long line at the ticket counter but I go up to the front and interrupt, explaining that my plane is about to leave and that I have something I\u2019d like to check, something that security won\u2019t let me take on the plane.<\/p>\n “What is it?” the ticket agent asks.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s a whip,” I say matter-of-factly, holding it up to show her.<\/p>\n She looks at the whip, looks at me, looks back at the whip.<\/p>\n “I won\u2019t ask,” she says, as if to herself.<\/p>\n “I\u2019ll tell you anything you want to know,” I say with exaggerated solicitude.<\/p>\n “That\u2019s all right,” she declines.<\/p>\n A college-age woman is at the counter, filling out a form.\u00a0 She has a warm (perhaps knowing) grin on her face, though she\u2019s pretending not to be paying attention to what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 I catch her eye and we exchange a comfortable (perhaps knowing) smile while the ticket agent goes to get a plastic bag for my whip.\u00a0 Now that I know I won\u2019t lose the whip and won\u2019t miss the flight, I\u2019m back to having fun.<\/p>\n I lay the whip down affectionately.\u00a0 It becomes a lovely black and silver still-life against the very white lacquered counter.\u00a0 Several people waiting on line check it out, more curious than upset.\u00a0 Theatre has evolved into political education.\u00a0 A properly-dressed, politely-voiced, rather quiet-looking man is checking his whip.\u00a0 Call it normalization.\u00a0 The young woman finishes filling out her form.\u00a0 She examines the whip alertly, neutrally.\u00a0 I get the feeling this is not the first whip she\u2019s ever seen.<\/p>\n I look at all the people and feel like the whole airport — passengers, ticket agents, security guards — are giving me the benefit of the doubt on this one because I\u2019m refusing to have it other way.\u00a0 My lack of embarrassment, my lack of apology, defines the moment and tells everyone else how to respond to it.\u00a0 I feel exceptionally powerful.\u00a0 It is the liberation of one more level of coming out, of refusing to be made wrong.<\/p>\n When the agent comes back, she holds the bag open for me.\u00a0 Maybe she doesn\u2019t want to touch the whip, maybe she doesn\u2019t want to risk damaging it.\u00a0 My sense is that she\u2019s letting me put the whip in myself because she has a sense that this is something special.\u00a0 Political education evolves into ritual.\u00a0 I tuck the whip in with slightly exaggerated care, as if to say, yes, this is something I would indeed like to have treated with respect, thank you very much.\u00a0 When I put my name and address on the baggage tag she gives me, the information becomes a ritual affirmation:\u00a0 This whip does indeed belong to David Steinberg, who lives at this address.\u00a0 The agent attaches the tag, pulls the bag closed, ties the string with several knots, as if to reassure me that it is secure and will not come open.\u00a0 She places the bag lightly on the conveyor belt.\u00a0 I watch its weightlessness get carried away, out of sight.<\/p>\n “When you\u2019re picking up your luggage, don\u2019t forget that this one is a plastic bag,” she says as I start to leave.<\/p>\n I look at her and we both smile.\u00a0 “Don\u2019t worry,” I say, “I won\u2019t forget.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n May 28, 1993<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a0\u00a9 1993 David Steinberg<\/p>\n <\/p>\n S\/M in the Media<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been keeping a file for some time into which I throw any media s\/m reference I come across. About four years ago, it occurred to me that s\/m was about to become a visible presence in mainstream American culture. I predicted it would take about five years, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comes-naturally","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}