Some politically co-optive men have even claimed that their masochistic identification is "woman-identification" and that it is meant as evidence of sympathy with feminism -- which shows how abysmal is their understanding of women and feminism. But that any men should wish to experience what they think women experience -- this is old news, as old as Pentheus' curiosity (and is rooted, I think, in envy.) Men who see themselves as relatedly masochistic, "femme," feminine, etc. obviously are insulting the female (in person and in principle.) If they grovel to a male master they are mimicking (for fun) an experience all women in patriarchy are in some way or another forced to endure in reality. If they cower before a female 'dominatrix,' they are superficially reversing, and thereafter trivializing, real women's real oppression. The one act literally makes fun of the pain of our reality by ignoring our powerlessness; the other act mocks the reality of our pain by denying our powerlessness. Both are vicious, expectable, and for the purposes of our investigation, irrelevant. [i]
[i] Morgan, Robin. "The Politics Of Sado-Masochistic Fantasies." Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis. Edited by Robin Ruth Linden, et al. (San Francisco: Frog in the Well, 1982), 117.
*huggles the irrelevant femmes* I still love you...
And honestly:
"You mock my pain!"
"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something."
Honestly that's SM in a nutshell to me, right there. LIFE HURTS. Might as well have fun with that rather than sit around blubbering about it. Orgasms > pissing and moaning.
