From: antonsen-AT-alf.nbi.dk
Subject: Re: Revolting  
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 11:46:04 +0200


Hi William,
Thanks for your reply/questions/comments: I wish I could write just as clearly!

First a minor point, just to clarify the role played by our various 
culrural-historical backgrounds (not just you and me, but all of us). As you 
probably know, many things which are "underground" in the US is "above" ground 
in Scandinavia, SM is one of them, as is homosexuality. In fact we have an 
annual "Fetisch-party", homosexuals can get married (or registered as partners, 
which legally is the same thing) and SM is quite well-known and widely 
practised, at least in its milder form of bondage.

SM (as most other aspects of sexuality) is a kind of game, entered into freely 
by the participants, with the aim of gaining pleasure for all of them (the 
masochist aswell as the sadist). Therefore whatever takes place during such an 
act it is certainly NOT "wrong", even though whipping and locking up other 
people in other contexts definitely IS. The key point here is the mutual 
consent. This is the one rule which is NOT broken: only the "rules" imposed by a 
society scared of the body are dropped.

Only in the most alienated of humans is pleasure restricted to the genitals, for 
more healthy persons the entire body is erotic, and anything the body can do can 
become erotic, stimulating. "Everything human is good" as the Danish surrealist 
poet Gustaf Munch Petersen who died in the Spanish Civil War wrote, and Blake 
just as easily could have written.

It is this restriction of sexuality to the genitals (and to the missionary 
position.... is it, by the way, correct that in some states in the US, oral sex 
is a crime?), this fear of the body, which underlies all religions and all 
authoritarian systems. The fundamental human desire is one for "unity" in some 
sense (the creation of libidinoes ties with reality), the original 
"polymorpheous pervert" of Freud, and thus there are no limits to human 
eroticism. I'm afraid I didn't write this very clearly, but I hope you get the 
drift.

Basically I do not "believe" in the existence of perversions: they are only acts 
which the governing "morality" cannot accept, because they violates its 
underlying assumptions (its christian-capitalist-patriachal etc. foundation). In 
a TRUE morality, i.e. one based on reality, on our desires and not on some 
metaphysical fiction, they would all be accepted.

As far as pornography is concerned: I'm not really against it. What gave you 
that idea? What I dislike is turning sexuality into a commodity, i.e. trying to 
absorb into the existing pathetic society instead of using it as a means to 
transform the world.

For Sade: I like "the divine marquis", but a world created by him would be very 
boring, because of his (for my taste at least) too pedantic nature! A world in 
which desire is liberated, on the other hand, aaah that would be true paradise!!

To me: actually living another position, action, is the only truely valid 
position, so you have no disagreement there on my part either. 

Frank