Dear Lorraine,
Thankyou for your reply to my last. Yes - I will get around to sending a story or two as promised, but before the fiction a little recollection, a true story that many will no doubt identify with.
Recollection of this incident prompts a fascinating question. One that is overwhelmed with complications that have been part of my study for many years. Not quite a chicken and egg question but not far removed. The question is – 'did the patient catch the condition or was he born with it ?'
I refer to that occasional and most mysterious visitor – masochism, that totally inexplicable glow found sometimes in suffering, and I refer directly to suffering in an emotional sense. This, you would rightly declare, is the base of all masochistic experiences, but this is another avenue it would be difficult to access briefly. Suffice it to say that at the end of that route you will find that sadism and masochism are the same thing. In short - the school teacher, about to use the cane, quite correctly always said “This is going to hurt me as much as it will you.”
But for now Let me recall an incident in my life that immediately caused fascination and later a life time of study.
It occurred at school when I was eleven years old. I must have been a very romantic youngster because I was very much aware, not only of the opposite sex, but of their sexual attraction, and when a beautiful dark haired girl with long plaits arrived in the class I fell for her hook line and sinker.
Her name was Jennifer, she was English but had come from somewhere abroad, and I longed to get close. Although we never actually had a date together, because of our age I suppose, we got on wonderfully and we were teased all the time especially by the other girls, but I didn't care, I was head over heels in love with her.
I can't remember what position her father held but when it came time for her to return overseas with her parents there was uncertainty as to exactly where home would be. However on that last day she was with us she allayed my considerable fears by slipping a note into my hand. It read “Meet me after school. My mother will give you our new address. I love you. Jennifer.”
I was over the moon. Not only was I going to get her address but she'd actually said that she loved me. For the first time in my life I knew what it was like to be walking on a cloud and I couldn't wait for the bell to go. However there was one small snag, I had to report to the history teacher for extra home work. That only took a few minutes and with everyone having streamed out of the building I took a short cut.
Girls and boys had different entrances and to save time going all the way round the building I went the girls' way through their cloakrooms.
It was forbidden but it was a short cut, and I was caught.
There was this sudden shrill shout - “You. Stop there !”
To my horror it was one of the most hated women teachers in the school. She was horrid. That woman was a real sour puss. I can't remember her name but as a new boy I was terrified of her, and what made it worse - she was one of those who wore a rubber mackintosh.
I couldn't bear rubber, a phobia with its usual sexual association I had always suffered from, in fact from my earliest memories, and there she was striding down the corridor to me in her horrid shiny green rubber mac, angrily shouting “Where do you think you're going?” I was absolutely distraught because I knew what she'd do. Without a moment's hesitation she swung me round, shoved me in the back and marched me back up the corridor, shouting “It's detention for you!”
It was terrifying. I remember so well the echoey sound of her high heels on the tiles and the smell and the ripple of her mac behind me, and every time I tried to say something she just shouted “Be quiet!” She was furious.
It was traumatic. I so wanted to get to Jennifer but she was marching me off in the opposite direction and into detention.
Schools, quite ordinary schools, in the 1950's were not nice. They were run with all the discipline of a prison. There was no talking, not even in the corridors, you walked in single file, you couldn't run, and detention was the every day normality for the slightest offence. For today's young and unenlightened I will explain that detention meant being kept in after school for an hour and in many schools that meant being put in a small room and locked in. And so it was for me that day. By the time we reached the detention room I was sobbing my heart out but that bitch just threw open the door and pointed.
“Inside!” she shouted, and with one look at her standing before me, glaring at me in that ghastly noisily rippling mackintosh, my heart sank and I knew I would never see Jennifer again.
I turned and with another shove in the back she pushed me in and slammed the door and with the key being turned in the lock behind me I felt such despair. I was that woman's prisoner and she was seeing to it that I wouldn't get to Jennifer.
I'm just not sure but I think I had, before then, experienced the thrill of being in fear of an aggressive woman, and certainly I had by that age felt the twin sensations associated with the revulsion of a woman in rubber and the sexual thrill she inevitably caused. And very quickly this split into two halves as you might say, with some females looking as if they enjoyed their rubber macs in a cruel sense, and those of a more tender nature appearing to be suffering them, as if they were like me – being compelled to wear them.
I have often thought of that incident, and wondered what life might have been like if it hadn't happened. It certainly showed just how deep and complex our emotions can be.
I have lived a very full life and have found great happiness in my love affairs, but just occasionally I have also tasted the tragic side of romance, and another interesting question is this – As that awful woman was marching me off to the detention room did I actually enjoy it ?
I think perhaps I did! It was a great shock, and as I have said I was very romantic. I have often looked back on it: and always with a heart beating a little stronger.
Another big question of course is – why, for so many people, is there a connection between rubber and sado-masochism ? That is something that no-one to my knowledge has successfully addressed. But as for the questions relating to the romantic element of masochism you have to realise that for millions of years we have lived with the fear of losing someone we love, and this trauma has found its way so deeply into our hearts that it has become even a part of our sexual feelings. This may well be the result of evolution preparing us for distress, but that again is too deep for these pages. For now I can only offer one quotation – 'parting is such sweet sorrow'.
Look back over the centuries of universal literature, and for centuries the common formula it produced in romantic novels – boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy regains girl.
And then, for instance, look at the classic product of Hollywood that thrilled millions around the world. The 'western' and the often told tale - The cavalry has wiped out an indian village. The hero, an army scout, argues with the commanding officer that he was a fool to do it, the indians will only strike back, and they do. Redskins from some other camp raid a remote homestead, kill off the old rancher and his wife and take the daughter, fiancé of the hero, back to their camp for the squaws to 'play' with. When the hero finds the homestead burnt down and his girl friend missing he knows 'oh god no' why they've taken her. Fortunately he can tell by the feather of an arrow left at the scene what tribe they were and where their camp is, and so he leaps onto his horse and gallops off to try and save her....
Cut to the indian camp – The nasty greasy fat old squaws are bringing her out from a wigwam amid much rejoicing, and she nearly faints as she sees what she's being taken to, a tall wooden post surrounded by bundles of brushwood. Like so many heroines of the wild west she's going to be burnt alive......
Back to the hero. - He's galloping along as fast as he can go, ducking under low branches, leaping ravines and flogging his horse to death in the process...... meanwhile back at the indian camp - they're tying her to the stake, pulling her arms right back behind it, and generally lashing her to it. The drums are beating, and she looks to the sky and with tears in her eyes she sweetly whimpers a little prayer......
Cut back to the hero. - He's still galloping as hard as he can go, galloping along trying to go faster and faster, but suddenly the horse trips and falls, the hero goes flying and hits the ground. He's not moving. He's unconscious.......
Back in the indian camp - they're lighting the fire. The drums are beating and with gleeful yells the squaws are dancing around her now, and with the flames surging up all around her the poor girl prepares herself for her terrible end..... Will the hero recover in time or will the girl die ? ....That is the question, the essence of all good serials and indeed tragedies.
We all like a thrilling romance. Pearl White made a good living out of being filmed for the early cinema lying tied to the railway lines and all the budding heroes from the ninepennys to the one and nines held their breath as the locomotive came round the bend. She always got away, but as she was the serial queen you had to wait a whole week to find out, but why do we all like a really sad story too, even those that are true to modern life with a dearly loved wife or girl friend dying of some present day cause ? Ask people coming out of a cinema blowing their noses and wiping away their tears and ask 'Did you enjoy it' and the answer will always be ' Yes, it was lovely.'
RM.
Dear RM
Thank you!
You don't think it's like those wireless doorbells? We've just got one and it's fine except it goes off every now and again when somebody else uses one down the street. We need to keep changing the channel until we find one that works just for us. (Maybe everyone else is doing the same so we will end up in perpetual motion.)
What I mean is, switching on the sex circuits in the brain relies on complicated machinery which sometimes get in a knot and has surprising results, like the sticklebacks getting excited by a passing Royal Mail van just because it's as red as a rival stickleback.
The mystery is why it gets it so boringly standard most of the time - switching us on at the sight of footballers or Sean Connery.
Looking forward to your stories!
Best
Lorraine
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