Deviant Desire

I once dated a man who seemed perfectly normal until the day he asked me to dress up for sex. By “dress up” I don’t mean in lingerie. He asked me if I’d dress up as a cop. My experiences in costume had been restricted to school plays and Halloween, so I was confused. “Do you have a uniform?” I asked. “No,” he replied, reaching behind his headboard for a shiny pair of handcuffs. “Just these.” I high-tailed it, raced home and called my friends to tell them what a freak this guy turned out to be.

But was he? After reading Daniel Berg­ner’s unsettling but riveting new book, “The Other Side of Desire,” I’m no longer sure where normal ends and abnormal begins. Take the people Bergner, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, introduces us to: a devoted husband with a foot fetish, a fashion maven who’s a sadist, a man who becomes sexually attracted to his young stepdaughter (Woody Allen, anyone?) and an advertising executive who lusts after amputees.

Are all of them deviant? None of them? Or is deviance a matter of time and place, the way that a century ago, fellatio and cunnilingus were regarded as perversions in some psychoanalytic circles? I’ll ruin the ending for you right now: these questions are unanswerable, but that’s precisely what makes the asking so engrossing.

-- Lori Gottlieb for The New York Times

Unless you are married and trying to make babies, all that rutty stuff is deviant, perverse, and sick, maybe even criminal (in Texas).

For tradition's sake, I felt like seeing how that old truth looks in print today. Beyond old fashion, isn't it?

Just keep it consensual, guys!

Though, that still makes life hard for those who relish a bit of the non-consensual ultra-violence. And, of course, it's just hard being fugly, espcially in an Internetized world where wild and rampant sex and nasty BDSM-play just seems to be oozing everywhere, around every corner and behind every closed door, that is, everywhere except in your very vicinity.

But I'd settle for freedom of speech and expression, and would be somewhat more content if the powers that be would simply stop banning pornography, no matter how nasty, violent, and unfeminist - that the bête noire may at least enjoy that vicarious rush and cathartic release.

Deviant Desire

I once dated a man who seemed perfectly normal until the day he asked me to dress up for sex. By “dress up” I don’t mean in lingerie. He asked me if I’d dress up as a cop. My experiences in costume had been restricted to school plays and Halloween, so I was confused. “Do you have a uniform?” I asked. “No,” he replied, reaching behind his headboard for a shiny pair of handcuffs. “Just these.” I high-tailed it, raced home and called my friends to tell them what a freak this guy turned out to be.

But was he? After reading Daniel Berg­ner’s unsettling but riveting new book, “The Other Side of Desire,” I’m no longer sure where normal ends and abnormal begins. Take the people Bergner, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, introduces us to: a devoted husband with a foot fetish, a fashion maven who’s a sadist, a man who becomes sexually attracted to his young stepdaughter (Woody Allen, anyone?) and an advertising executive who lusts after amputees.

Are all of them deviant? None of them? Or is deviance a matter of time and place, the way that a century ago, fellatio and cunnilingus were regarded as perversions in some psychoanalytic circles? I’ll ruin the ending for you right now: these questions are unanswerable, but that’s precisely what makes the asking so engrossing.

-- Lori Gottlieb for The New York Times

Unless you are married and trying to make babies, all that rutty stuff is deviant, perverse, and sick, maybe even criminal (in Texas).

For tradition's sake, I felt like seeing how that old truth looks in print today. Beyond old fashion, isn't it?

Just keep it consensual, guys!

Though, that still makes life hard for those who relish a bit of the non-consensual ultra-violence. And, of course, it's just hard being fugly, espcially in an Internetized world where wild and rampant sex and nasty BDSM-play just seems to be oozing everywhere, around every corner and behind every closed door, that is, everywhere except in your very vicinity.

But I'd settle for freedom of speech and expression, and would be somewhat more content if the powers that be would simply stop banning pornography, no matter how nasty, violent, and unfeminist - that the bête noire may at least enjoy that vicarious rush and cathartic release.