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Posts tagged sadism
Sex and Sadism
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Sex and Sadism front cover
by Val Vane
Published in 1967 by Stewart Gordon Publications
I looked forward to reading Sex and Sadism. The blurb on the cover promises “An intimate look into the lives of people actively obsessed with the need to inflect or to receive pain in the spirit of pleasure.” This book is also listed in the Leather Archives and Museum’s Leather History Timeline. With both those things going for it, I envisioned a sweet candy treat for my twisted literary tastes. Unfortunately, I got a sourball.
This book has any number of problems. I’m sure I could list them all but frankly gave up carefully reading this mess after 100 or so pages. Written in a faux scholarly tone, it compares it to moralistic treatises of the early 1900s. For example the book’s opening words, “Contemplating the squalid story of Human Evolution, one is inevitably forced to the conclusion…” The prose in the mess never gets better, just longer.
More annoying than the tone and prose is the author’s habit of relaying stories without providing sources or enough detail to verify the veracity of his assertions. I’d provide lots of examples, but since Val Vane doesn’t think it important why should I?
The book fails to deliver its promised “intimate look” into the lives of sadists and masochists. Instead, we get a roundabout history review of chattel slavery and crime and punishment through the ages. The only real hint of sadomasochism is a series of letters hastily tacked onto the end of the book. Again, the author fails to give us any evidence of the letters’ origins. I recognized several from John Willie’s Bizarre magazine. (I’d research that and give you specific issues, but again Val doesn’t care so why should I?) I suspect the rest of the letters are similarly cribbed from other period publications.
Why these letters are included or why this book was written is unclear. My best guess is that this book was originally written as a “legitimate” history of torture similar to A History of Torture throughout the Ages by George Ryley Scott, but was so poorly written no mainstream publisher would accept it. Unlike Sex and Sadism, George Ryley Scott’s book is a brilliant treatise. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Scott not only understands history and cites sources, he shows he also understands the nature of sexual sadism.
Sex and Sadism proves neither arousing nor informative. Worse still, it commits the worst transgression I can think of: it’s boring.
The Orgasm Addicts
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The Orgasm Addicts front cover
by Nelson Johns
Published in 1968 by Classic Publications
I purchased this book knowing absolutely nothing about it other than its title. Judging from that, I assumed that I would be in for a predictable ride into the horrors of nymphomania and/or sex addiction. Not otherwise very exciting, but for some reason I bought the book anyway.
When I actually had the book in my hot little hands, I noticed the cover blurb promising “The confession of young married people whose sexual pleasures could be achieved only by brutality and pain, SADISM and MASOCHISM!” That promise warmed my twisted little heart, and I was glad to have avoided a ho hum nympho expose.
“The Orgasm Addicts” is the life story of a married couple, Nelson and Lana. Though the book only lists one author, the narrative was written as a dialogue. Frustratingly, it’s often difficult to tell when narrator from the other. However, the tone is conversational and the prose reads easily.
Nelson reveals himself a masochist and Lana a sadist. As Nelson recounts his childhood, we learn that Nelson could never quite live up to his father’s expectations of what it is to be a man. As Nelson grows apart from his father, he grows closer to his mother. In fact after Nelson’s father dies, they grow so close that only Oedipus (and perhaps Freud) would approve. Though Nelson grows into a successful real estate agent as an adult, his life story represents an near flawless archetype of a submissive male’s life story as it was (and still is) perceived in the popular consciousness.
Nelson’s wife Lana’s childhood also represents the archetypical background of a sadistic (man-hating) woman Lana too grew up in a “broken” home. Her father died when she was little and her uneducated mother had to work hard to feed Lana’s five siblings. Lana’s introduction to sex came from the landlord via a rape. Soon enough she discovers the power of her sexuality and uses it torment boys at every opportunity.
Neither Nelson nor Lana is able to find anyone they want to marry until they meet. When they do finally meet and date, their shared passion causes them to be hopelessly enamored of each other. The rest of the book is dedicated to the ebb and flow of their marital relations.
After they marry, they turn their back on their kinky sex interests. Their passion wanes and their sex life becomes predictable when it’s existent at all. They eventually rediscover and embrace their respective kinks and grow close again. Expanding their horizons of sexual discovery, they begin to meet other similarly perverted people through correspondence clubs. These encounters cause them to both accept and reject the notion that they’re all alone in the perversion.
And that’s that. Only it’s not. Despite the confusing and distracting prose previously mentioned, this is still a good book. While virtually every bit of this tome is clearly fiction designed to scandalize and arouse the reader, there are passages interspersed throughout that suggest a personal familiarity with a sadomasochistic relationship. Especially heartening for me was the passage where Lana discusses the deep respect they hold for each other in terms both endearing and romantic. Later in this same passage is a plea for sexual acceptance that may be the most eloquent I’ve ever read.