Psychopathia Sexualis

Directed by Bret Wood 

Starring:  Ted Manson,

Daniel May,

Jane Bass,

Daniel Pettrow,

Kristi Casey,

Lisa Paulsen,

Veronika Duerr,

Rachel Sorsa  

Release: 2006 

Length: 98 minutes 

 

Richard von Krafft-Ebing was a German psychiatrist who spent the first years of his career working in asylums. Eventually he became disillusioned with the institutional approach and switched his focus to education, becoming a professor of psychiatry at the Universities of Strasbourg, Graz and Vienna. 

Although he published numerous articles throughout his life, Krafft-Ebing is best known for the book, "Psychopathia Sexualis" (Psychopathy of Sex), which was first published in 1886 and eventually became an international best seller.  

“Psychopathia Sexualis” was actually Krafft-Ebing's second book.   His first, "A Textbook of Insanity", was published in 1879 and contained an elaborate system for categorizing mental diseases that earned him a reputation as a masterful classifier.   

Though Krafft-Ebing is best known for beginning the study of sexual behavior, his work in psychiatry, criminology, and forensic psychopathology also helped advance psychology as a clinical science. He was also a forensic psychologist who investigated the legal and genetic aspects of criminal behavior and was often consulted by the courts as an expert witness. 

“Psychopathia Sexualis” is widely regarded as the first modern pornographic book and is particularly notable because it was written intentionally as medical science. Krafft-Ebing went to great lengths to describe the technical terms in Latin and was successful in transforming what many would consider an interest in sexual deviance into scientific inquiry and compassion. The extensive catalog of sexual positions and non-procreative sexual activities identified names and descriptions for acts that were considered unspeakable, sinful and criminal. His work re-named these behaviors as “sexual perversions” and influenced recognition of Sexology as a new branch in the study of psychiatry. Krafft-Ebing also coined the terms "heterosexual", "fetishism", "exhibitionism, "sadism" and "masochism".

Krafft-Ebing coined the word "masochist" from the sexual desires of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, a well-known novelist of the time who was said to enjoy being humiliated by women.  In 1869, Sacher-Masoch wrote "Venus in Furs", a novel about a man with strong masochistic desires, including the desire to be whipped by a woman while her body is adorned in fur.  

Many of Krafft-Ebing’s ideas were shadowed for years after Freud shifted the view of homosexuality to be defined as a psychological problem. The Catholic Church was also disturbed by Krafft’s attempts to draw a connection between sanctity and martyrdom with masochism and many found his research morally offensive at the time. Despite the controversial nature of his work, Krafft-Ebing pioneered an approach to exploring and classifying sexuality that was accepting and sympathetic.  

So what does all of this have to do with a movie review? Writer and Film Director Bret Wood attempted to bring to life Krafft-Ebing's notorious and groundbreaking taxonomy of sexual variation. In his 2006 movie “Psychopathia Sexualis” Wood depicts sadomasochistic rituals, vampirism, same-sex attraction, lust murder and fetishism through a series of dramatizations.  Krafft-Ebing is played by Ted Manson and we see him interviewing patients, dissecting corpses and attempting to diagnose what he believes are mental and sexual disorders.

 

 

The book “Psychopathia Sexualis” had 238 case histories. This left Brent Wood with the unenviable task of choosing a dozen or so for his movie version of the book. He chooses to include the sort of sexually deviant material that made Krafft-Ebing's book well-read and notorious. There’s the case of the French sex killer Emile Fourquet (Patrick Parker). There's the tale of Jonathan (Daniel May), a proper young man of some means who develops a blood fixation and abuses the family maid until his mother (Jane Bass) has him committed.  

There is the case of a famous episode of necrophilia (a sexual fetish characterized by a sexual attraction to corpses) from Krafft-Ebing's book. It is recalled by puppeteer Caglios (Rob Nixon) in a command performance staged for a rich baron (Greg Thompson).  

There's the story of a young gay man (Daniel Pettrow) whom Krafft-Ebing tries to “cure” of his homosexual desires with hypnosis.

 

 

 

  

And there is the long narrative thread where the Governess Lydia (Lisa Paulsen), a long-repressed lesbian tutor whose desires are awakened by young student Annabel (Veronika Duerr).  Krafft-Ebing believed that "woman is passive . . . if properly educated, she has very little sexual yearning". Lydia would rather spend her life alone than give in to her urges, even when her new charge, Annabel Lindstrom, reciprocates enthusiastically.   

What about Femdom? The movie depicts the Femdom tale of an aristocratic gentleman who likes to be trampled by scantily clad prostitutes. I call this a Femdom scene based on what we know today about the male desire for female domination. However, Krafft-Ebing classified this as male masochism and believed it was an abnormal sexual desire. Interesting enough, Krafft-Ebing saw women as basically sexually passive, and recorded no female sadists or fetishists in his case studies. Behavior that would be classified as masochism in men was categorized as "sexual bondage" in women. 

 

So what are we to think about a highly regarded psychiatrist who believed that women did not enjoy sex? Time, education and the advancements in the field of psychiatry has proven Krafft-Ebing wrong in many of his diagnosis, including homosexuality and the male desire for female domination.  

To his credit, Krafft-Ebing was sincere in his pursuit to understand the correlation between the human mind and the human sex drive. Perversion can exist if the human mind is not sane. However, Krafft-Ebing had tunnel vision and he saw through the glass darkly. His research was flawed by categorizing genuine expressions of sexuality (such as Femdom) along side actual acts of perversion (such as necrophilia).  

Be that as it may, Bret Wood was intrigued by the fact that many people read Krafft-Ebing's book "Psychopathia Sexualis" not because they wanted to learn about mental illness. People of his day read his book because it was full of actual cases of sexual deviance. The Science community believed it to be a groundbreaking and important book but the general population read it for its shock value. Wood thought perhaps a 2006 audience would view it the same way.  

Despite this film's low budget, Wood's images are evocative. Wood seems fascinated by Krafft-Ebing's efforts to scientifically dissect and categorize the vagaries of carnal desire, but his larger point is elusive. There is some titillating imagery among the Victorian corsets and knickers in this erratic film. However, this is not an erotic film.  

There are scenes that are not for the squeamish, and I don’t mean that in a good S&M way. Stories of serial killers, psychopaths, male sadists who want to injure women and fringe fetishes (such as the man who pays a prostitute to stomp a chicken to death in front of him) are not a good mix with tales of forbidden yet erotic desires (Femdom, Lesbianism, etc). And that is the problem with both Krafft-Ebing's research and with Wood's film. Perhaps one or more of these stories would make an interesting movie in and of itself, but as a series of dramatizations, as seen through the eyes and analysis of Krafft-Ebing, the movie comes up short.  

For the readers of my blog, the best chapter in the film (Chapter 6 on the DVD) is the section on Masochism. Here you will witness a very brief scene of a woman whipping a man, emasculating him through what we today would call pony play, and trampling him by standing on his humbled body (the prostitute looking disinterested the entire time, playing to Krafft-Ebing's analysis that all women are passive and have no interest in such activities but are merely doing it for money).

 

This leads to the dramatization where three prostitutes at a brothel play out a fantasy scenario for a paying male client who desires to be dominated. The experienced prostitute admonishes the novice prostitute, “Follow my lead and don’t look at him, don’t say a word. And for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t laugh”. (Again playing to the theme that women could not possibly enjoy dominating and controlling a man.)  

Once the male client is lying on the floor, eyes closed, the two women circle him (wearing corsets, fishnet stockings and ankle high leather boots) then proceed to stand on him, one at time and then both together, until he rings a bell to signify his unspoken safe word.

 

Next enters the third prostitute, dressed like Marie Antoinette in a wig, white corset, white boots and wearing a mask. The other women leave the room while the Antoinette figure begins to whip the male client with a dozen long-stem roses until he uses his safe signal by ringing his bell.
 

You might find this scene to be erotic but I doubt it. The client is made out to be a weirdo (and I might add a wimp since he rings his bell before his session has the chance to get interesting). Perhaps this Krafft-Ebing case study was undeniably of a peculiar man but I wonder what would Krafft-Ebing think today were he to browse the internet, where thousands of women are making a living offering professional domination be it over the phone or in person. Would he view the innumerable male clients of these women as all being worthy of his book? Imagine that, an immeasurable number of men just like Leopold von Sacher-Masoch? 

And what would he say of all of us dominant women that achieve sexual arousal and wet pussies when we are sexually dominating the men in our lives? Would he still hold to the belief that women are passive and have little interest in sex? 

I know I should not be too hard on Richard von Krafft-Ebing because he was living in a different time and in a different society. He was sincere in his research and he did groundbreaking work in the area of forensic psychology. He attempted to diagnose some very difficult and in some cases quite disturbing sexual acts. Freud was wrong in many of his theories as well but his work was still highly influential. The same can be said for Krafft-Ebing.

 

So what is my overall opinion of Bret Wood's attempt to make “Psychopathia Sexualis” into a film? I must confess that I found it to be a fascinating film to watch. I would not classify it as erotic or entertaining but it kept my attention for the nearly 100 minutes.  

It really comes down to your motivation for watching this film. If you want to be entertained or if you want to have your D&S senses aroused, you will be disappointed. However, if you are seeking an educational experience, to view fetishes through the mind of the famous Richard von Krafft-Ebing, you will probably find this film worthy of your time. For me, it's a split decision.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

 

Possessing all of his coins

I’ve been enjoying exploring hubby’s masochism this past year, what with the confinement room, kali’s teeth, the spiked mats, strappado, more chastity and denial and more humiliation. I love it when hubby is willing to endure discomfort in order for me to endure pleasure. After all, that’s really the goal with all of this, be it cuckolding, spankings, discipline or S&M. Hubby gains satisfaction and fulfillment as a submissive man by sacrificing his sexual pleasure so I can have more sexual pleasure. And in that way, we both gain more emotional and mental pleasure in the process.

One of my mentors once explained it to me this way. She said to picture sexual pleasure as a bag of gold coins. In the vanilla sex world, you exchange gold coins with each other and both sexual partners pretty much end up with the same amount after the exchange. Sometimes it might be more pleasurable for one partner than the other, but even if one partner ends up with more coins one time, the discrepancy will probably balance out the next time they engage in sex.

But with femdom, the goal is for the woman to get her submissive partner to surrender his coins over to her without her giving him any of her coins. Thus she ends up with more and more coins with the ultimate goal that she will possess all the coins.

I never understood this analogy until this past year. I always viewed femdom as no different than vanilla sex when it came to pleasure. My hubby had unusual sexual needs but I was doing a lot of this for him. If he needed to be spanked or whipped or cuckolded, and if in the process I also gained pleasure, than in my mind it was an equal exchange. Even when he came to me last year and asked me to treat him more ‘cruelly’, I still viewed that as something he needed and something I was willing to explore with him.

These past few months I’ve had a revelation about the coin analogy. It really started around our anniversary in early October when I chose to spend it by going on a mini-vacation with another man. I always was focused on my husband and I was always concerned if his needs were being met by what we were doing. But for the first time I had the revelation of what my hubby really wanted. He wanted me to be selfish for my pleasure, even at the sacrifice of his pleasure. That is what drives his masochism. That is what satisfies his submission. And once I began focusing more and more on my pleasure, my pleasure became better and better. I started to possess more coins and hubby is more at peace with his world when I possess his coins.

And it doesn’t have to be advanced stuff like riding the horse or strappado. Take last night. I needed a massage so I had hubby prepare the massage table. Usually he gives me a full body massage followed by him going down on me (this pleasure combination is still my favorite femdom activity). But I added something extra to the mix last night. I put him in his kali’s teeth device to prevent him from growing an erection as he was massaging and worshipping my body. A number of times he winced in pain as he was giving me the massage, as he forgot he was wearing the device and started to grow an erection. The spiked device squashed his sexual pleasure thus hubby surrendered more coins to me as I was being pleasured.

He orally pleasured me after my massage and I retired to bed sexually satisfied. I gave him permission to remove the kali’s teeth and install his CB6000. He went to bed denied with no sexual pleasure. However, we both were mentally and emotionally fulfilled. Hubby went to bed a very happy man. So I am not really a cruel wife. I may be sexually cruel towards him but in the process I am giving him what he wants and needs. Therefore the reality is I am a very loving wife.

I don’t feel I am anywhere close to possessing all of his coins, and I have yet to have the full revelation of what the really means or how we get there, but at least I now know the direction we are headed and our course has been firmly set as we continue on our femdom journey together.  

Gifts with spikes (hubby gets the point)

There is so much to write about, so little time. I had a very nice Christmas. I’ll not bore you with all the fun details from the vanilla world. However, let me tell you what’s new from the femdom world.

Hubby got me a new pair of leather pants. I wanted something other than black since I already own a couple of pairs of black leather pants. So he got me a pair of Miss Sixty pants in brown. Very nice!

I wore them out one night and of course hubby wanted to worship me in them. Maybe later once they start to show a little wear but they are too nice to have his tongue and saliva all over them. So Thursday night I treated him by putting on my black leather pants.

 

 

I allowed him to worship my ass and I even did some face sitting while I was still wearing the pants, smothering him with leather. He always loves that.

 

Now on to the big news. First of all, I got hubby some nasty S&M gifts for Christmas, including a Kali’s Teeth Bracelet (KTB). I ordered the mild version with dull spikes but don’t let that mislead you. They still work when training a man not to become erect without your permission.

 

So far I’ve only used it once. I put it on James, locking it around the base of his cock and balls while he performed cunninglingus and analingus on me. He was most uncomfortable while I was being pleasured. I only left it on him for about 30 minutes but it worked beautifully as he did not grow an erection. When I took it off it left some nice marks on his flesh around the base of his cock but it did not break the skin. He grew an immediate erection once I took off the KTB. He was very excited as he admired the ‘teeth’ bites on his skin. I made him take a cold shower and then install his CB6000.

Another interesting item I bought James for Christmas was a set of X-mats. These are mats designed to keep pets off the furniture. They have plastic points all over them. I got this idea from my friend Ginger. She uses these mats as a punishment for her hubby. Naturally an animal is smart enough not to lie down on these mats because the plastic spikes hurt. But what if a dominant wife orders her hubby to sit on them or lie down on them? They become punishment mats.

 

I got a set of these mats for James and I couldn’t resist. I placed them on the couch and had him strip naked and lie on them for 10 minutes. I loved the little indentation marks they left all over this skin. The next day I had the wonderful idea of making a punishment chair using these mats. I have this old wooden chair that is tall and narrow. It is perfect for a bondage chair. The other night I placed one of the mats on the seat of the chair and another one against the back of the chair, than I ordered James to sit on the chair.

 

 

 

He eased his body down on the plastic spikes. I allowed him to keep his panties on. I then tied him to the chair with rope. The poor baby was really suffering after about 5 minutes. I made him stay there for 15. Now he knows that I have this punishment at my disposal and we will be using it again. But that’s not all. Keeping with the spike theme, I bought myself a corset top with spikes. I had a bra and thong set with spikes that James got me probably 10 years ago. When I saw this corset top, I had to have it. It was one of James’ Christmas gifts but he didn’t know about it until last night.

Last night I allowed James out of his CB device. I put on my spiked corset top and my spiked thong.

 

James grew an immediate erection when he saw me. I laid the X-mats down on the floor and I told James to lie down on them, totally naked. He knew what was coming next.
 

 

I climbed on top of him, laying my body down on his body. The metal spikes from my corset top and my thong were pressing into his flesh while the plastic spikes from the x-mats were pressing into his backside. I embraced him and kissed him, pushing my corset against his chest, wiggling my body back and forth and humping my thong against his cock. I could tell he was in a lot of pain but surprisingly, he remained erect. I think my hubby is becoming quite the masochist.

I got very turned on. After about 10 minutes, I got off of him and had him stand up. I examined all the marks on both sides of his body. Again, his skin was never punctured but the marks and indentations were very plentiful.

I slid the mats out of the way, removed the thong and I had hubby orally service me right there on the floor, both of us on the carpet, hubby between my legs. My orgasms were extremely intense.

Christmas shopping for S&M gifts for Hubby

I’ve been doing some on-line browsing for possible gifts for hubby and I am intrigued by the possibilities that are out there.  

2012 has been a kind of breakthrough year for us what with the construction of the confinement room and exploring hubby’s closet masochism. I want to build upon that in 2013 so I feel his Christmas gifts should be a reflection of that.

The first item of interest I came across was a Kali’s Teeth Chastity Device off the JT Stockroom site. Years ago we bought a chastity device from ClubFEM that had plastic spikes which made it uncomfortable when the male attempted to get an erection. James hated this device but I kind of liked forcing him to put it on and then inducing an erection out of him by a prolonged tease and denial session. As you can see from this link

http://www.stockroom.com/Kalis-Teeth-Chastity-Device---Advanced-P3260.aspx

the Kali’s Teeth is much more severe than the one we had. It is not for the faint of heart. Dare I get it? I am tempted. My, what fun I could have with such a device during a tease and denial session. Or better yet, putting the Kali’s Teeth on James, locking him in the confinement room and forcing him to listen over the intercom to me being pleasured by one of my lovers. Can you just image him starting to become aroused as he hears me in ecstasy but the spikes punish him for daring to grow an erection without my permission?

If I don’t want to go that severe, there is this device called Mike’s Spikes,

http://www.stockroom.com/Mikes-Spikes-R-P4679.aspx,

I love that the depth of the spikes are adjustable. I would probably get both the blunt spikes and the extra sharp spikes. I suppose I could start out his training/punishment with the blunt ones and work him up to the extra sharp ones.

Another device that intrigues me is The Nut Crusher

http://www.stockroom.com/The-Nut-Crusher-P4649.aspx

I’ll have to research the safety of this device but I love the idea of placing hubby in bondage and then as they say “watching him squirm” as I tighten the device.

Other items I like on this site are the locking ball gag with dildo attachment ring, the prisoner belt and the leather arm binders (the belt and binders would be perfect for placing hubby in bondage within the confinement room).

Then over on the demask website,

http://www.demask.com/dynamic/sitemap.asp?Language=en,

there are some bondage hoods and very nasty gags that are enticing. I also love the studded strap-on harness. And my, what I couldn't do with some of the bizarre equipment they sell. The enema equipment alone makes the mind run wild with ideas.

So many possibilities but a limited budget so I can’t get everything I want. I would also like to get a new leather outfit. I would love to get a leather dress. We’ll see.

I got James a straightjacket on our anniversary so I guess I can pass on the prisoner belt and the arm binders for now. What do you think? If I can only get one item for hubby, what should it be, the Kali’s Teeth? Mike’s Spikes? Or how about the Nut Crusher? Or what about an item they sell on the DeMask site? Suggestions are welcomed but I need to decide soon.

Cold, Maternal and Cruel

Hubby has been a man obsessed as he goes about building his confinement room. He worked on it every evening this week and I granted him permission to take a vacation day on Friday. He spent all of Friday and most of today working on his little prison. So far he has put up the walls and he has covered the walls, floor and ceiling with rubber matting. It looks pretty wild in there. He has also secured various bolts and hooks into the walls, the floor and the ceiling should I want to tie him up or place him in advanced bondage. He still needs to create a door that I can lock and he has to install the intercom system.

I’ve been contemplating this sudden burst of creative energy within my hubby. He is truly like a man possessed. I love that he is this passionate but I am still trying to get my head around this latest development. I was going through my Femdom book collection and I came across a book Elise Sutton recommended I read way back when I was doing phone calls for her. It is titled “Coldness and Cruelty” by Gilles Deleuze and it is about masochism. I don’t believe I ever read it, although I remember seeing it referenced in Elise’s book “Searching for Wanda”.

I’m about half way through “Coldness and Cruelty” and the more I read, the more I am noticing definite masochistic traits within my husband, and not just recently but behaviors he’s shown for as long as I’ve known him.

“Coldness and Cruelty” is a study of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. In fact Sacher-Masoch’s novel “Venus in Furs” is included in the edition of “Coldness and Cruelty” I purchased all those years ago.

Deleuze talks about the three women of Masoch. I kind of see myself a little like the first woman, the free spirit who believes in the equality of the sexes but who also believes that the female principal will ultimately win out. The free-spirit and independent woman is owned by no man and she gains dominance over the men in her life because “man trembles as soon as woman becomes his equal”.

At the other extreme is the third woman, the sadistic woman. She enjoys hurting and torturing men but she only does so at the prodding and encouragement of the masochistic male. She is very cruel. That is definitely not me.

The woman in the middle between these other two women is the ideal female of the masochist. She is a good woman, with a tender heart but also with cruel instincts. She is gentle and care-free but she is also stern. She engulfs the other two women and is a lot like nature herself. She is cold, maternal and cruel.

Now that could be me. I am part the first woman with many traits of the second woman with just a pinch of the third woman. What I refuse to be is the embodiment of my husband’s fantasies. However, if I can understand his fantasies and use them to my benefit, than I have no problem being cold, maternal and cruel.

Reading Deleuze’s book also has given me some insight into my husband’s zeal for the confinement room.

“Waiting and suspense are essential characteristics of the masochistic experience. Hence the ritual scenes of hanging and other forms of physical suspension in Masoch’s novels. Masochism is a state of waiting; he masochist experiences waiting in its purest form. The masochist waits for pleasure as something that is bound to be late, and expects pain as the condition that will finally ensure the advent of pleasure. He therefore wants to postpone pleasure in expectation of the pain which will make gratification possible. Disavowal, suspension, waiting, fetishism, and fantasy together make up the specific constellation of masochism.”

This makes perfect sense. The confinement room will combine all of these elements. He will be suspended in there. It will be his place of waiting. He will be waiting on me to decide when and if he shall gain freedom, both physically and sexually. There is fetishism in the room with the rubber walls and floor. And the entire thing will be fantasy as only God knows what will be running through his mind when he is bound inside his little prison.

I doubt if my hubby fully understands what is driving him but this must be a place he feels he must go. My goal is to take him there and in the process gain more control over him and our relationship. I am hoping that we will bond in a new and special way.

Ritual submission unto death

I finished reading “Searching for Wanda” last night. I enjoyed the second half of the book every bit as much as the first half. In chapter 13, Elise focuses on the masochist’s search for the female torturer. Interviewing both men and women who have been there, Elise takes us behind the walls of the now defunct Other World Kingdom in the Czech Republic, a place where women dominated, brutalized and tortured paying male clients. The entire place was a fantasy camp for Femdom couples and lifestylers who wanted to leave the real world for a few days and enter into a kingdom of absolute female supremacy where women ruled and men were slaves.

James and I talked about going to the OWK. A couple in our ClubFEM group, Alex and Steve, had been there and we talked about organizing a group trip. It never materialized and now the place has closed. Alex said the place was rather deserted and low key when they were there, but they still had a good time. In “Wanda”, Elise shows the reader what a stay at the OWK was like, from both the slaves’ perspective and the Mistresses perspective. I would have loved to have attended one of their large celebrations where they had slave games, slave auctions, slave hunts and many other creative activities. Oh well, you snooze, you lose. We should have gone to the OWK when we had the chance.

The other chapter in “Wanda” that I wanted to comment on was chapter 14. This chapter is a look at masochists who fantasize about making the ultimate sacrifice for their Mistress. Sounds very morbid and mentally unhinged, and it is, but when you read some of these men’s fantasies, you can at least understand the erotic elements behind the fantasies. Here are some examples from the book;

Robert is a successful dentist who constantly battles intense masochistic desires;

“I have fantasies that scare away many Pro-Dommes. I’ve had them hang the phone up once I told them what turns me on sexually. My fantasies generally concern me being brought close to demise. One such scene is a slow hanging where whilst heavily restrained my noose would be attached to a suspension unit. I would then be slowly lifted bit by bit off my knees as a group of women sit around getting off on my predicament. I can just picture a cruel beauty with the suspension control in her hand as her long red painted finger nail seductively brushes over the button, looking at me excitedly knowing that she could end my life on a whim.

I once saw a great smother scene in the movie ‘Million Eyes of Su-Muru’ that captured that cruel look on women’s faces as a man is smothered to death. That is what I want to experience, naturally I don’t want to die, but I want to go to the edge and have a woman in control of whether I survive.” 

The scene Robert described comes from the 1967 spy movie “The Million Eyes of Su-Muru”. In one of the early scenes, we see Erno (Ursula Rank) entering a room full of beautiful women. The women are seated comfortably, sipping champagne, smoking cigarettes, and they are obviously enthralled by something as they stare intently downward toward the middle of the room. As Ursula Rank gets her own glimpse, we see an oriental man with his mouth taped shut, struggling as an attractive brunette (played by Denise Davreaux with an amused and devious look on her face) has her legs wrapped around the man’s neck, squeezing her thighs tightly around the sides of the struggling man’s face. The brunette looks toward Erno and asks; “Mercy?”

Erno shakes her head “No” and with that, the brunette snaps the man’s neck with her thighs, instantly killing him. This scene has become a favorite among submissive men who have seen this film as it represents a masochist’s ultimate fantasy, to be toyed with and tormented by a dominant female while other dominant women look on with amusement. The fact that it ends in death makes it the ultimate sacrifice for the cause.

I once reviewed “The Millions Eyes of Su-Muru” for Predominant and I remember the scene that Robert described. The thought I had as I was reading “Wanda” is that Robert was viewing the film from the same vantage point as the sadistic women. He was a spectator and thus he had more in common with the female sadists (being sexually aroused at what he was watching) than he did with the male who was being snuffed out. Just a personal observation. Here are some other fantasies along the same lines shared by masochists in “Wanda”;

“A fantasy of mine is to be mummified and restricted to breathing through a very long narrow tube which is fairly difficult to draw breath through. The far away end of this tube would be part of a vibrating toy of some kind with the airway being blocked as the toy is used by a femme fatale, relaxing on a nearby armchair, maintaining eye contact with me, dominating me with her stare and her evil smile as she pleasures herself.

And still another fantasy of mine is to be restrained face up in water, a bath or pool and for my captor to be close to climax and for the last minute she would grind on my face forcing me under water where I would remain feeling her earthly shudders as I nearly slipped away. The risk/pleasure ratio is highly erotic in this one. I think the allure of this is the perpetrator's depersonalizing disregard for the man’s safety in the face of obtaining their pleasure. It gets me every time.”

Elise then gets into the psychology behind these kinds of fantasies as she talks about the correlation between masochism and what Freud called ‘the death urge hypothesis’.

So I must ask the question. Do any of the readers of my blog have similar fantasies? And it’s not exclusive to submissive men. Do any dominant women ever fantasize about having that kind of power over a slave? I am making the obvious assumption that it is fantasy only and any role-play along these lines would be consensual with all safety precautions taken.

Anywho, “Searching for Wanda” is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it. I should mention that it is also available as a download e-book. Now it’s on to my next book which has nothing to do with the lifestyle. It is all about the legendary rock group Led Zeppelin.

Searching for Wanda

I’ve taken some vacation days to fill the gap between the holidays, which means I don’t have to go back to work until January 3. In addition to baking cookies (yes, I love to bake cookies around the holidays) and wrapping presents, I plan on catching up on my reading. I have lots of books I’ve wanted to read but haven’t had the time. Two nights ago I stated reading Elise Sutton’s book “Searching for Wanda”.

I know it’s hard to believe that I haven’t read it yet (forgive me Elise if you should happen to come across this post). She sent me a copy when it was first published last winter. I read the preface and introduction but sat it aside, intending to get back to it before now. But as they say, “Life happens”.

As I mentioned in one of the first posts when I started this blog, I was interviewed for both of Elise Sutton’s first two books, “Female Domination” and “The FemDom Experience”. However, I had nothing whatsoever to do with “Searching for Wanda”. That’s not surprising seeing that I am not a sadist and James is not a masochist in the clinical use of the word. I guess that’s why I wasn’t in a hurry to read it. Elise’s first two books were more about what I’m interested in, namely female domination within a loving marriage. A book that explores male masochism was not high on my must read list. But now I am ready to tackle it and I’ve read the first ten chapters the last two nights.

I must say, it’s a very compelling read. If you haven’t read it yet, I definitely recommend it (and I’m not just saying that because Elise wrote it). If I didn’t like the book, I would not be writing about it in my blog. I would have just ignored it.

Masochism is often misunderstood and that is apparent when you read “Wanda”. Elise quotes psychiatrists and psychologists from Freud to Kinsley to modern day psychologists and there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on the subject. I must say that reading this book has been a real education and an eye-opener when it comes to masochism. It is definitely a complex study but Elise has brought it down to a level where someone like me can understand. After reading this book, I might not be as quick to dismiss James from being labeled a masochist. He does exhibit some traits of a masochist from time to time. My hubby is not a fan of receiving pain (although he enjoys a good spanking and/or whipping if it’s in a sexual context) but masochism has more to do with the mind than the body. A man that experiences sexual arousal when he is being humiliated by his wife (like my hubby) is at the very least what Elise classifies as a mental masochist.

Elise takes a look at numerous masochists in this book but the main character of study is the man from whose name the word ‘masochist’ was devised, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Elise examines his life from childhood to death. I read Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus in Furs” probably ten years ago and I’ve reviewed the 1993 Dutch film version for “Predominant”, but I knew next to nothing about the author.

Elise’s study of Sacher-Masoch’s lifelong search for the cruel woman of his desires is a most fascinating tale. So far, he is the focal point of the book but the second half will deal with other masochists, both past and present. I’ll let you know more about my overall opinion of the book when I’m finished reading it.