How’d that happen? On my end, it’s been a matter of sick days with teenagers, snow, ice, school dismissals and delays, all robbing me of writing time. But it’s sunny and cold today, everyone’s left the building, and I’m left to my own devices at last. And so here I am, blogging, I hope, for your amusement and to your delight.
It is not, however, a delight to learn that Evan’s closing shop for a time over at Daze Reader. Evan and I actually have roots that go back before our blogging days and, despite my past teasing about his Britney Spears fascination, I’ve always considered Evan a generous peer, and I congratulate Daze Reader for being the capitalistic counterpart to Pursed Lips’ near-radical advocacy. I’d gladly sit down with Evan over a cup of caffeine and the upcoming Britney topless spread, and I hope he comes back to Daze blogging soon.
A couple weeks or so ago, I noticed an odd, now defunct writer/father headline on Bookslut’s blog and my intuition flashed “Steve Elliott?” I guess it was a Blink moment because it was indeed a Steve Elliott set of circumstances and it reminded me that I’ve been hanging onto a couple of links from his site to comment on. If you remember, I’m a fan of his Happy Baby novel, a book that has autobiographical ties. And if you haven’t notice, Stephen and I have something in common: sadomasochism. (Hell, talk about masochism, I just paid good bucks to get Dennis Cooper’s newest opus because it’s filled with queer leather extremes.)
I missed the review that Stephen recently commented on, but I can easily imagine that the reviewer couldn’t get passed the S/M to see the crux of the novel. Stephen’s response capture why I like Happy Baby. Stephen writes about it from a vantage point that I will likely never attempt to tackle. My life experience is just too different from his. Oh, I can write now and again in great transgressive abandon with a pinch of darkness thrown in, but because much of my life experience was stable and positive — and because I threw off the women’s shackles of pre-Kinsey sex fears in favor of Joy-of-Sex freedom — Stephen’s fictionalization of sadomasochism is almost completely foreign to me. And that’s why I admire it. Stephen brings a different voice to the table and I can appreciate its origins and manifestations.
All too often, we get caught up in having our own views validated that we ignore other possibilities. I try to get beyond that — sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t — but when I think of Happy Baby, I also think of a young man I long ago played with. He confided to me that his S/M fantasies originated from the cruelties he suffered at the hands of his aunts and that he wanted his fantasies fulfilled along those lines. In scene, that worked fine, but outside of scene? He couldn’t easily transition to the other elements that relationships demand and he often sabotaged those other elements to keep the relationship closer to the sphere of intensity he sought under the whip. Sooner enough, I told him I wouldn’t continue that way — I was too old and experienced to put up with such bullshit — and that he should either only play casually and not seek larger relationships or he should take up a different hobby of some physical intensity. Last I heard, he bought a surf board and a wet suit
and was banging himself up on rocks during post-Hurricane rip tides. I took that to mean he listened.
I suppose that’s the closest I’ve come to the dark elements of S/M. Sure, I do heavy stuff with my loved one, but we’re both seeking pleasure fulfillment and no matter extreme it might look to the outside world, we view it as just another hot time in our shared erotic experiences. And yet again, even that admission provides me with the contrasting backdrop to say that’s why I like Elliott’s novel.
‘Nuff said.
