I recently heard a true story about an old woman, masochism and power. Let me tell you about it.
In 1870, at a time when women had very little rights to themselves under the law, a man called Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch published an extremely popular book called “Venus in Furs”
This book set the template for the masochist relationships people enact today. The ones we still see in popular media such as Fifty Shades Of Grey can trace their lineage back to it. The book contained “fetishes, whips, disguises, contracts, humiliation and punishments”
Kraft-Ebbing named masochism after Masoch. Something Masoch disliked. It’s a popular idea that a masochist wants to be truly dominated but in the sex Leopold engaged in he had all the power. It was his power to pretend to be ground into the dust. Even as he ground a woman into it
This is where we come to the old woman, when she was young.
Her name was Wanda. She was his wife. Under his direction, because it was his fantasy, she was made to draw up a contract for him to sign, saying he’d be her slave, that he must “kiss the foot that crushes you”.
He play-acted that he had given away his power but she had none. No economic and no social power. She didn’t consent to these games but she had to participate in them. Then, she had to endure all of society knowing about the sexual miseries she was experiencing and judging her, for them, when she was really his victim.
When she finally fled he got custody of their child which was not uncommon, then, for a man to be able to do; not in a world where he essentially owned his wife and his children both the same. She fell into poverty, and out of scandalous memory
Which brings me to the old woman: The wise woman. The Wanda who had endured. The woman in a dog-eared fur coat and a mournfully, faded hat who marched into a prominent publishing house in Paris and took, from her battered handbag, a large manuscript containing the true story of her life. She was thin, and poor, and brave.
And she told the real story.
The common core of both sadism and masochism is a will to cruelty. They are reflected in each other. Even as he demanded that she make him sexually submit, he was making her submit. Even as he demanded abuse, he was controlling her and abusing her
There is a lot of masochism in men who identify as women. It’s been there long before Hirschfeld ever took up his pen. We see this in the penchant for sissy porn and forced feminisation content as well as the general tenor of these discussions. It might lead you to believe these men primarily have a will to be dominated and, to an extent, they want to be but only within limits that dont take away any true power.
The fetishising of subjugation doesnt mean being actually subjugated and a person who is especially thrilled by subjugation may well inflict it on others.
It is telling that the most dominated thing some men can imagine becoming is a woman
I feel so much for Wanda. I can picture her writing that manuscript and scraping together enough to survive while she did. I can see her determination as she walked into that publishers. She was triumphant, too, as it went on to be published. Sadly, though, it has not yet set the whole record straight
She wanted to stop others going through what she had. Not just the abuse but the humiliation of divorce and the subsequent suffering that existed, particularly, in a time where a divorced woman was also liable to be blamed for ‘falling from grace’.
She wondered why feminists didnt challenge marriage more.
In what sounds like a plea for women’s humanity she asked
“Why does the feminist movement not intervene here? Why does it not advance to the root of the evil, so as to sweep away all of this old rotten institution of marriage-so contrary to our modern thoughts and feelings? Or if it cannot sweep it away, then ignore it? Then things will change. The woman and the man will not be bound by law but solely by their will, their love and their friendship. There’ll be no more laws that reduce a woman’s love to a duty and make her the property of the man”
Wanda was such a woman!
"“The fetishising of subjugation doesnt mean being actually subjugated…”
“It is telling that the most dominated thing some men can imagine becoming is a woman.”
Lorelei, this is genius.
It's telling, isn't it, that Wanda's memoir was published as "Confessions." Of course there is a long tradition of memoirs being so titled. But it frames her story in lurid terms, instead of the political lens it deserves.
Kate Bornstein's memoir "A Queer and Pleasant Danger" is also blunt about the connection between their trans identity and their masochistic desires, some of which are disturbingly self-harming. The book also doesn't shy away from equating their transgender identity with their experiences as a former Scientologist. It's an engaging read.