Image by Andrew Eccles via Dunstan Orchard.
This month’s cover (and cover story) of Psychology Today is about “Twisted(?)” taboos — and before I show you the textual perversity circa 1996 between their covers, allow me to point you to Midori‘s fabulous commentary on the outfit and cover model’s styling. Besides the fact that the whip looks like they got it at a Spirit Halloween store — as Midori points out in What’s wrong with this cover? (thanks, Viviane!), the corset is actually upside down and backwards. Do read the rest, including her list of credits for the shoot and tireless wit. We really need a Go Fug Yourself for porn, mainstream and otherwise, eh? Count me in.
Psychology Today‘s tagline is “We’re here to help”. I think they should at least add a disclaimer about safely lacing Leg Avenue stripper boots or recommended self-care strategic maintenance routine check-ins like, “do I look Exotic Erotic enough for this narcissistic personality disorder?” Anyway, here’s the cover story which I think tries to define being sexually “normal” in a fetish-positive way (as to say that “normal” sex isn’t really normal for humans) but the piece gets so mired in its own sexual stereotypes as to be incomprehensible (and kinda really unhelpful) — Typically Twisted, snipped for your own personal Sominex substitute for the evening:
A man trolls through web sites, searching for someone to fulfill his momentary fantasy. Waves of anticipation—he may find what he wants!—alternate with a nagging fear that he will be exposed as a sick freak. What would his friends and family think of him if they knew? A woman looks at her child, meanwhile, and feels crushed with disappointment. Her heart just doesn’t swell for him the way it does for his sister. She anxiously tries to hide her preference, all the while berating herself for being a terrible mother.
Feelings or habits that are out of the ordinary are great fodder for art and entertainment, but they can cause anguish to those who can’t understand—and don’t appreciate—their own outre tendencies. Of course some people are proud to be twisted, and even cultivate strangeness: Half-blue-eyed, all-pasty-white Goth rocker Marilyn Manson surely doesn’t spend much time moping around, wishing he were just like everybody else. But why do many others obsess over not being normal?
Paying attention to norms is how we stay in step with social expectations, says Dustin Wood, an assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, who is interested in how personalities develop. “Normality is the barometer people use to figure out if they’re acting the way they should be.”
In probing the common standards of normality, Wood has made a surprising discovery: Being normal is actually extraordinary. It’s an unusual combination of specific traits that all have to do with being extra likable. (…read more. Here’s the part about fetishes. Creepily, the article ends talking about parent-child love attachment relationships, which really bugged me out.)
I read the article, and while I found some of it interesting, I did feel that the author insinuated that the practice of BDSM is emotionally and mentally harmful or perverse in a way… and that kind of pissed me off.
The writing in that excerpt was hideous! I expected much better from a national magazine. However, what disturbed me most, was the combining of a story dealing with porn, fetishes, and parent-child attachment? WTF?? Did they run out of words before their word count and decided to throw yet another topic in? Ugh
The scenario they described with the excitement at maybe finding your fantasy, coupled with shame and thinking you’re doing something morally wrong rang true with me. I felt like that for a long time until I found a couple of sex positive websites, most importantly this one. Reading that reminded me how happy and thankful I am that there are places like this on the net.
It’s funny, it’s not often I feel more mature than someone when it comes to sexual matters, but when I was reading the fetishes part of their article with its generally confused stance, it was like looking down a mountain trail and watching someone stumble over rocks you conquered far below.
I also thought their attempts to categorise different kinds of introvert. Being similar to the woman they describe first, I tried myself to think where I fitted in a linear introvert-extrovert continuum. Reading about sexuality came to the rescue again, though– I think it’s as futile an effort as coming up with a set of rigidly identified genders (which I doubt can be done after reading something.. maybe something here).
Curious article. I think one of their main problems was trying to cover too many things at once–the sections are all about “abnormal” feelings, but putting lack of ambition next to fetishes just doesn’t read well.
These fetishes aren’t very ‘outre’…
I know grammar nazis are the bane of the internet, but I have to say, the sentence structure and poor use of punctuation in that excerpt made it almost unreadable.
Wilheln Reich posits SELF REGULATION. He says that “self regulation” is the normal, natural state of human beings. What he means is that rational, socially functional drives are primary.
This is in direct opposition to Freud’s theory that humans are naturally antisocial and self-oriented. Freud would say that we NEED “neurosis” to create social harmony.
Reich points out (and I believe he is correct) that it is precisely these neuroses that cause the perversity, sadistic aggression and masochistic tendancies, all of which mostly function unconsciously.
This was a HUGE issue in philosophy. What is “the good?” Well, Nietsche says the “meaning of life” is THAT WHICH IS EXPERIENCEWORTHY FOR ITS OWN SAKE. Kierkegaard seems to agree.
Thing is, this state of mind of “experienceworthiness” is not a function of neurosis, to the contrary. Actually, Kierkegaard describes Reich’s concept of “libido economy,” only in theological terms! Read Reich’s books, THE FUNCTION OF THE ORGASM, etc.
It’s NOT the expression of sadistic rage or self immolation that is experienceworthy. These only function to temporarily relieve tension, but not to discharge the tension completely, only to manage it.
Self regulation is where it’s at. As Blake says, BROTHELS ARE BUILT WITH BRICKS OF RELIGION, PRISON WITH BRICKS OF LAW.
(All this is not to condemn “fetishism” as creative play, of course.)