What are the best books about sexuality and eroticism...

You could maybe try reading L'érotisme by Bataille. I don't remember if he concerns himself with the morality of sexuality in a way that is relevant to your conundrum but he identifies the root of sexuality in the act of transgression and compares it to other forms of ritual exemptions to moral laws, e.g. war and sacrifice. I think Sade writes at length about how morality is just useless inhibition of sexual freedom but I find his works really boring and never had the patience to read more than a couple of pages at a time so I could be wrong about that.
If you'd like to read about the relation of love and death I'd recommend Le jardin des supplices by Octave Mirbeau. Out of the books mentions Venus in Furs has the most explicit discussion of the nature of love. If you just want to read weird stories you can check out Bataille's fiction, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Arthur Adamov, Guillaume Appolinaire, Anais Nin or maybe some Tanizaki...
I think Sade (La philosophie dans le boudoir, Juliette, Justine), Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs) and Mirbeau (Le jardin des supplices) have the most "didactic" approach when it comes to fiction, unfortunately I am quite ignorant when it comes to academic treatments of the matter.

>Venus in Furs
why are we giving OP femdom when he wants maledom explained?

I don't see how the genders could not be reversed in the discussions about the nature of love. I chose that book because it's not just pornography or erotic literature, but also features dialogues providing insight into different approaches to love.

I'm just saying his contact with her and his position towards her doesn't really seem to capture what OP describes.

Most of her side of the discussion is designed to not give anything away, because half the point of him being in love with her is that she could be anyone, and so she is a blank mannequin on which he can drape the furs. She's a sex object not subject, and all the subjection stuff isn't about her.

Justine would be closer because even though she is the subject, her actions are designed to reveal how she is exposed to male domination. She's a foil to maledom and so does actually illuminate some points of it.

I don't think at all that Wanda is just a blank mannequin. When they first talk about love Severin and Wanda have very different ideas. For Wanda love follows the pagan ideal, freely given and recieved, beginning without inhibition and ending without remorse. Severin's system on the other hand is much more strict and finds its roots in the contract both parties have to uphold. This is something that does not change throughout the novel, even in the end he sees no way of maintaining a relationship without a difference in power. Wanda also does not really change, even though she finds pleasure in torturing Severin, in the end she lives like Aspasia according to her ideal of love found in classical antiquity. Of course these to approaches manifest themselves differently in the domain of eroticism. Whereas for Wanda love is free of care or any bounds, the contractual love of Severin finds its expression in cruelty administered by the dominant party.

Wanda does not actively seek to dominate him though- the entire point of her cruelty is that she refuses to be his dominant. He forces her into the role but he's certainly the one driving the relationship, and she is not like OP possessed with an urge to dominate, but an urge to normalfag with other normies.

That is mostly true, but I was just trying to explain that the novel explores different approaches to love, one of which happens to inherently necessitate cruelty, through dialogue. With regards to Wanda I don't think not actively seeking out the dominant role, but following Severins urge and her curiosity until the catastrophe happens, makes her a blank mannequin, especially not when it has clearly been established that she has ideas of her own, which you also seem to recognize, even though I would not call them normalfag ideas considering the time period...

Kevin McDonald - Culture of Critique

She does just seem to want to live a normal life and goes off with her normalfag friends at every opportunity. Most of her "following Severins urge" is more her devising a way to get out of house and away from the stalker. She assumes, like a normal person, that he'll fuck off if she mistreats him. She says things that if a woman said to you at the time meant she thought you were offensive hentai scum, and she's really not that far from normal at all. About the furthest she gets from normal is that she has a suicidal stalker, and that's not really because of anything she does. Even Severin admits it's not about her for him, it's about the furs.

Severin is most definitely not just a stalker to her and she does feel intrigued by being just a little bit cruel, e.g. when she surprises him by biting his lip. On several occasions she declares her love for him and regrets that he has this unhealthy obsession which she does not share, as I wrote above. If you want to get rid of somebody declaring your immortal love for that person seems a little counterproductive.

She doesn't declare her immortal love as far as I recall. What I remember is her doing the standard normalfag "you've got so much to live for and we all love you" type thing. She's not any more "dominant" by that standard than most other girls of her age (the lip biting included) and girls of her age aren't exactly the feminist queer dominant action force. Reading it as a relationship where she shares that much complicity in the relationship makes the relationship fall apart- her cruelty, the large part of it, the pieces that make him want to die, that even Severin considers cruel from a woman he asked to be cruel to him, stems entirely from her rejection of his proposition to be dominant.
Without that, there's no bridge, no Africans, no story.

Not gonna translate because I'm really lazy
>Dich habe ich geliebt, so innig, so leidenschaftlich, so tief wie ich nur lieben konnte
this is when the german painter leaves
>Ich liebe nur dich«, entgegnete sie, »aber ich werde mir von dem Fürsten den Hof machen lassen.
a bit earlier, just search for the russian noble
>Ich fürchte, ich werde es nicht können, aber ich will es versuchen, dir zulieb, denn ich liebe dich, Severin, wie ich noch keinen Mann geliebt habe.
shortly before she writes the letter summoning her as her slave for the first time, also showing that she does not share his obsession
However, she mentions that she might come to like it.
>ich bin ein leichtsinniges, junges Weib, es ist gefährlich für Sie, sich mir so ganz hinzugeben, Sie werden am Ende in der Tat mein Spielzeug; wer schützt Sie dann, daß ich Ihren Wahnsinn nicht mißbrauche?
On such occasions she always shows fear of revealing a true nature coinciding with Severin's fantasy, of course it never gets that far, because it is not her true nature.
I could probably find more examples, this is just the result of starting somewhere in the middle and then going backwards

when the painter leaves after being introduced
sorry if there was any misunderstanding, i just went with what was written right there

I take those more as a combination of normie lonely girl using a beta, and some of it is Severin's unreliability
The I only have eyes for you but lemme just go return some videotapes for the prince... to me isn't immortal love declaration, and I don't think an outsider like a reader is meant to take it that way. I think Severin is meant to take it as an expression of love, but I think the cruelty the reader is meant to see in it is that she's going to take that back once she's in a more advantageous position.

In a novel where she is writing to someone who isn't a deranged and obsessive masochist, where she's writing to anyone of her age, that's not going to be read as "she really loves him and totally isn't going to run off with someone else"

If you got >>Ich liebe nur dich«, entgegnete sie, »aber ich werde mir von dem Fürsten den Hof machen lassen.
in another story from the era, you know that bitch is marrying someone else who supposedly completely unforeseen sweeps her off her feet.

Those moments for me are meant to read as the cruelty complements of a Stacey to a lower class denizen. OMG you are like the kindest person I know for covering this project but you know I have to prepare for Chad's football game tomorrow with predrinking, right? Love u xx

I get it.

The bull is — like — power and masculinity with a bepis and intense colors, and the woman bull is — I mean — like — is femininity and submission and woah! there is a sun to better show this juxtaposition done in crayons and pastel. Truly a work of intellectual majesty. How much for this piece? 14 million! What a bargain for a genuine Picasso. My respects. Now all my friends will know of my mind being on the finer things of life.

it's the rape of europa, you tit

She's a rich young widow who can easily get Chados Thunderphallos to fuck her as we see in the end, she has no use for some needy beta. At least in the beginning she is definitely charmed by Severin's eccentric views on love.
If you try to claim Severin as an unreliable narrator please elaborate a bit on that.
I think the bit about the russian noble is meant to show her trying to incite Severin's jealousy and judging how serious he is when it comes to letting his fantasies breach into reality.
I don't know how it gets more explicit than the conversation I pulled the first quotation from.
>Wanda betrachtete mich mit einem seltsamen Vergnügen. »Bedenke es wohl«, sprach sie, »ich habe dich unendlich geliebt und[103] war despotisch gegen dich, um deine Phantasie zu erfüllen, jetzt zittert noch etwas von jenem süßen Gefühl als innige Teilnahme für dich in meiner Brust, wenn auch dies verschwunden ist, wer weiß, ob ich dich dann frei gebe, ob ich dann nicht wirklich grausam, unbarmherzig, ja roh gegen dich werde, ob es mir nicht eine diabolische Freude macht, während ich gleichgültig bin oder einen anderen liebe, den Mann, der mich abgöttisch anbetet, zu quälen, zu foltern, und an seiner Liebe für mich sterben zu sehen. Bedenke das wohl
This has everything I talked about: the declaration of love and the regret that this could not last because Wanda is not a degenerate like Severin
Keep in mind that the end of the novel makes it out to be a cautionary tale. In that sense I think the declarations of love are perfectly adequate to show that Severin actually might have had a chance if he had not succumbed to his submissive urges.
However, this is not what I find interesting about the novel. Apart from the eroticism which I find far more charming than whatever the Divine Marquis produced, the juxtaposition of the innocent and completely free love that Wanda seems to adher to and the strict ritualistic and sanctified - recall the discussion of the role of the martyr - system is fascinating in my view.

>the woman bull

...

Severin's worldview distorts the whole telling of the story. I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse, but it's kind of hard to see how it wouldn't. He has to believe she's really gonna give in when he gets tied up, and it would be a rather dull reader who doesn't anticipate some further failure. It's not like the stories going to end there and they get married and live together happily ever after.

That quote is a case in point: from Severin's point of view she is very cruel. From her point of view, since her repeated rejection, indifference and abandonment of him is the kind of cruelty he sought, it's impossible to tell if she is cruel. She can't even tell if she's cruel, though all her actions indicate she does prefer to live with Chad and love him. The situation is one that Severin created for her to fulfill: the only way she couldn't fulfill it would be if she said yes. If she hadn't rejected him. She would have had to find a way to normielove him like he was a normie and they were in a normie relationship calmly for him to be disgusted enough with her to reject her instead. He's set up the relationship so that by trying to explain she does not want to be in the same country as him, she earns a more eternal place in her heart.

What she's describing is like what people describe about the impact of long term stalkers and she explicitly states it comes from his set up of the fantasy and has been transplanted into her, even though all the stuff she's set up like loving someone else and living a normal life is only seen as a further rejection/expression of love by him.

>discussion of the martyr
again, OP is looking to be the smite the infidels kind, not a martyr. Severin certainly is trying his damnedest to martyr himself on the rejection of Wanda to prove his love for her, but I don't think what Wanda is saying there is she loves him so much as he's scarred her.

So profound I think I finally see the light...

>she earns a more eternal place in her heart.
he earns, not she

as a literary sexual experiment let's all jerk off together

>see this
>litterly feel nothing at all
What the fuck is wrong with me?

well lets see what you think of

THIS

Nope, still nothing.

you're probably low T

don't worry most of the people on Veeky Forums are
webmd.com/men/features/low-testosterone-explained-how-do-you-know-when-levels-are-too-low#1

what about this

You need to ween yourself back down to less hardcore porn bud, that shit happens because you have to keep escalating to more intense and taboo material to get the same amount of pleasure from it.

Please just go away.

These cheap skanks to not match the values to which your emotions and attractions are tied

...

Please explain how Wanda is bound to Severin in the beginning of the relationship if not by love. I think her position allows her to ditch anyone she deems not worthy of her attention.

Wanda is much more receptive to the intricacies that cruelty brings to the relationship than Severin. She shows much more foresight to where the relationship is headed and while Severin is still fixated on being her slave she correctly predicts the end of the novel.
>Und das, wenn Sie durch Eifersucht wahnsinnig gemacht, dem beglückten Nebenbuhler entgegentreten, in seinem Übermute so weit geht, Sie an denselben zu verschenken und seiner Roheit preiszugeben. Warum nicht? Gefällt Ihnen das Schlußtableau weniger?«
Ich sah Wanda erschreckt an.
»Sie übertreffen meine Träume.
Of course Severin's assessment of the situation differs a bit from his reaction when he is actually confronted with it

I'm not sure I understand your thesis about him setting everything up so that he triumphs in the end. Wanda living away from him is definitely not part of his fantasy. This would reduce his narrative to him just pretending to be retarded. I don't think the end is meant to express that Wanda completely fulfilled his fantasy. He explicitly states that he was cured from his submissive nature but does not give up his view on relationships being built on a power difference, that's what
I meant by the novel being presented as a cautionary tale.
>again, OP is looking to be the smite the infidels kind, not a martyr.
I still think some insight can be gained by approaching the topic of cruelty and the erotic from another angle
I have the feeling that I agree with half of what you're saying but somehow we don't really come to the same conclusions.

yeah I already suggested Low Test

The Story of The Eye.

what does she mean by this?

Eroticism by Bataille. :-)

>Please explain how Wanda is bound to Severin in the beginning of the relationship if not by love. I think her position allows her to ditch anyone she deems not worthy of her attention.
Yes, why on earth did the beta approach the normie and expect to be rejected. I really don't know what you're trying to argue for here. You already say that it is not natural to her, so her being naturally dominant is already out. This is what I mean about her being a mannequin: what Severin is looking for is the rejection and the martyrdom. It is what drives the book. She is not looking to reject him outright, and probably no other mannequin would either. He rigs the situation to get what he wants which is someone who can and will reject him so he can prove that that rejection was not enough to stop him loving. The dominant role in that is practically unnecessary.

You're trying to pretend there's dominant shit in there and there's really not. It's a good rec for femdom readers because they tend to be submissive males, so that it portrays that worldview of rejection makes it good for sub men, but for a dominant male, it's a story about a beta orbiter who friendzones himself. It's like telling someone to read Catcher in the Rye to understand what it's like to be an old sick teacher.

...

she thinks he's taking pictures

Ok, now I get where the misunderstanding comes from. You mean that Wanda is a blank mannequin to Severin, I would phrase it a little differently, she's a woman that he finds suitable to be the mistress of his fantasies, but I can more or less agree to that. I was trying to argue that Wanda herself is a reasonably developed character and not just a non-entity the reader can use as fetish bait.

I don't think the contractual relationship necessarily ends in rejection. Honestly, Severin is a literal cuck and I never understood that part, but I don't think every sub craves rejection. In my mind submission and rejection are not synonymous and I think even in the extreme case that you actually long for the feeling of not being good enough or whatever it is the relationship is not terminated at that point. I would only think it logical to prolong it so you can revel in that feeling for as long as possible.

I also never pretended that Wanda naturally fulfilled the dominant role, but I think one could argue that she initially finds some pleasure in it, even though it is mostly derived from Severin's enthusiasm and adoration. Of course in the end she deliberately oversteps the bounds, not to gratify herself as an extremely sadistic person would, but to rid Severin of his fantasies. At least that's how he spins it. It's been to long that I've read the novel to be absolutely certain on how to interpret that point. I have to admit that this particular thought didn't interest me when I read it.

I also don't see how the thoughts of a sub should be tied to his gender. Do you think women can't have the desire to suffer for somebody? Do you think it all boils down to rape and forceful impregnation being biologically encouraged?

>I don't think the contractual relationship necessarily ends in rejection
The literal cuck part you would understand if you would think more about the martyr thing. It's central to the book that Severin, in his own way, seeks destruction. He's like the guys who complain about never having a date but also never even say hello to girls let alone ask them on a date. He wants to be rejected and to have someone be a Stacey to him. He doesn't view her well developed normal fag character as a reason for her to stay with him: that's what makes her irresistable, because she's never going to be into it. The lack of future for the relationship is what gives him a future of twenty years loving her.

I think the initial things (like calling him Gregor) are the kinds of naughty play acting you find in a lot of women about that era. You get things like putting ink in someone's tea or being rude to Mr Darcy without it being considered taking pleasure in being dominant, and a lot of those are more expressly pleasure in being at least socially, if not sexually, dominant. Wanda's kind of low grade for that era's tells of dominance. That's what makes Severin have to work so hard to be a martyr.

I think for women who are going to sacrifice themselves in that fashion, you write a different book. That kind of male loyalty despite rejection isn't a very common theme, which is why Venus in Furs stands out as male submission. There are hundreds of ghost stories of women in white waiting for men who will never return. It makes sense as a male submission story because rejection by a female in that context means different things to rejection by a male, in the same way that calling him Gregor in that context is different to calling him Severin.

Likewise, where girls are being dominant in that era, they tend to whip men more than peg them.

>Do you think women can't have the desire to suffer for somebody?
Where are you getting that from? Just because one book is about male submission doesn't mean there aren't books about female submission.
The Story of O for instance has elements of maledom and femdom, but mostly deals with female submission regardless of the gender of the dominant. Venus in Furs isn't the be all and end all.

can you two fags stop writing love letters to each other? I'm trying to jerk off hear and your paragraph replies mean I have to do a lot of scrolling

are you turned on by being hit with editions of nouvelle heloise?

I don't think being a martyr entails the end of the relationship in the manner it is presented in the end of the book. The contractual ties are not lifted when the martyr encounters suffering.

Calling him Gregor is definitely a step further than whatever naughty playacting you have in mind since it marks the beginning of the actual femdom relationship which is ritualized through the contract.

I have not read Story of O (yet), could you explain how in your mind the male submission story differs from its female counterpart?

just for you bby

Calling someone Gregor at the time was a way to insult someone. Women could get away with it, but for men it might mean a duel. Likewise, in America around the same time you'll find men stabbing each other over calling someone "puppy" but you find women who have called men puppy to get the off their petticoat.

Female fantasies are way more violent than male ones and way more baroque. You can pick up most YA for that. Very few men write beastiality or snuff or extreme cruelty, and women take that shit more in their stride. It's pretty dark, and female written female submission is like Sade had a bad dream. (Though they tend to shit less) (Maybe that's a French thing though) (Though from what I recall of Story of O, it's less shit than Sade and more torture/piercings)

I think the contract and the relationship in general is a rouse which allows Severin to pursue what he wants. It's really not driven by anyone else.

The female version of that is far more wicked and less submissive: it's Mrs Havisham raising the next generation. Inverting the gender role reaction there means doing something closer to what an active and dominant would do, and imposes revenge on men. That's unexpected of a woman, even if she did get jilted. It's unexpected of a man to do what Severin does too. It's what makes them transgressive roles, because without the normal reaction of their gender role, their transgression can't happen.

As a male thing, it's reasonably original, but compared to the millions of stories of women sticking by dickheads and those that abandon them, for women it doesn't really make the same statement about power.
A woman who waits for a widower to come back after abusing her to abuse her further is too much in common with female roles to necessarily read as submissive. She could just be an average woman at the time.

I still think that introducing another name for Severin is not merely a playful insult, especially considering this event's place in the novel. It marks Severin's transition from being a lover for a couple of months like Wanda envisioned to the slave status he invented for himself in his erotic scheme.
Concerning this, I am still not convinced that his ultimate goal is to be rejected, just as one would ordinarily not long for rejection by God, but rather keep his faith in order to be able to perform the ritual. The martyr is not rejected by God, he suffers and is rewarded for his suffering. However, I can't remember Severin's actions well enough to determine his stance on the issue, I would have to investigate a bit.
The fact that I'm harping on the contract stems from my, as I just had to acknowledge, very uncritical reading of Deleuze's little essay and its relation to the example of the martyr. As I said above, neither the martyr nor God are released from their mystical relation which finds its equivalent in the lover's contract and rejection in the way you seem to understand it, i.e. the complete rupture of the union, is not part of this.
You're probably right that women's affinity for submission would raise the degree of cruelty for it to be considered a fetish, but I can't fathom that a woman writer would show more imagination than Sade or Robbe-Grillet. Is it just a matter of magnitude that divides male submission from female submission or is there a conceptual difference?

It doesn't even look like a Picasso, you nitwit.
Andre Masson, Cretan Bull and Pasiphae

I couldnt imagine wanting to really dominate someone I love during sex because afterwards I think I would find it difficult to retain any respect I had for her.
Am I gay?

>I have grown to feel that sexuality is almost 100% a terrible thing.

It is.

Sexuality is a Sociocultural norm. Nobody feels anything except whatever their relation to this particular avenue of conformity is.

Kidnapped,Violated to the bitter end

I'm saying for Wanda, it's the kind of playfulness that would not necessarily suggest later events.

>I am still not convinced that his ultimate goal is to be rejected
I think it is. It's the thing that hurts him most. He keeps trying get Wanda to reject him more and more. It's not normal, but for some people who are self destructive, that's what's finally going to satisfy them. What makes him satisfied enough with Wanda to stop showing up is that she finally makes the rejection big enough. It's like managing to force the hand of God. She must really mean this rejection, she's not just phoning it in for a contractual obligation. It's the difference between feeling maybe you disappointed God and having God angered enough to be lightning bolting your ass. Actually, Job's submission is a good read on this: Job is only tormented because he is the most loving of God. You have to be special to get that kind of treatment.

By viewing Severin as normal, it misses the point. He needs to be rejected more than she would others. She might call others Gregor. There's nobody else she'll leave the servants to tie up though.

>more imagination than Sade
Story of O was written to prove that women could write like Sade between the author and a male author. There's still a conspiracy theory that the male author and not the winner of the bet wrote it because people don't like the idea women are nasty. Any bodice ripper will have at least one "defloration should be a bit like rape if not entirely rape" and it's not uncommon for the best domination in town durng the era to come from a female run brothel. (theresa berkley springs to mind). Most of the "I saw Goodie Smith having sex with the devil in the form of a horse, a dog, and a man, and a frog" stories are from women too, even when they're supposed to be morally against that type of thing. Women got some fucked up darkness in them and they're not reading books about vampires because they want to have tea and platonic relationships with fatal predators.

Practically she died

>don't worry
Actually, it's a cause for worry if you'd ask me. I want to be more attracted to females because they often show interest in me, and I just don't give a fuck at all.
So, how does one fix lowtest without the use of medical treatment?

>I know how everyone else feels
you've probably never seen a vagina

If the misnaming occured at any other place I would agree with you, but the fact that it coincides with the introduction with the contract urges me to place more emphasis on it.
>Job is only tormented because he is the most loving of God
I completely understand and agree that this point is important to understand the femdom relationship. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Job ultimately doesn't renounce his faith in God and neither does God exclude him from his grace, right? What I mean is the following: rejection in the sense that you use it would not be equivalent to being smitten by whatever divine punishment and omnipotent being can think of, but more like being exempt from God's grace and having to feel that sting for eternity. It would mean the complete rejection of the covenant. However deeply the martyr suffers, he is always aware of God's presence and does not doubt the fact that he's granted God's grace. In the end of Venus in Furs Wanda is completely removed from Severin's life and he has no means of ever recovering her favor. I think this is fundamentally different from the suffering a martyr experiences.

There is something else that makes me reluctant to accept your interpretation. I think Deleuze identifies three woman archetypes in the writings of Sacher-Masoch. One would be the pagan exemplified by Wanda, then there's Severin's ideal and the trifecta is completed by an unnecessarily cruel tyrant. This would be the role Wanda assumes in the last scene of Venus in Furs, whatever her motives are. Apparently there are more examples in other novels that more accurately and more unapologetically fit this archetype. Unfortunately I have only read Venus in Furs and cannot comment on how this third archetype is developed in Sacher-Masoch's other writings.

I guess I'll read Story of O tomorrow, I'm curious how it compares to both the Sadean as well as Sacher-Masoch's ideal eroticism.

>If the misnaming occured at any other place I would agree with you, but the fact that it coincides with the introduction with the contract urges me to place more emphasis on it.
I see it as a first rejection. It's kind of like the opening of any BDSM narrative- normally they either start with a brutal rape or a very subtle so small as to be imperceptible transgression. The idea of Red Riding Hood only getting eaten by the wolf because she wandered off the path comes in here. She's willing to call him Gregor, which could signify she's willing to pretend he's a servant (sexually or not), or, what irks him and drives the rest of his abasements, it could signify she willing to pretend either of those things for anyone. After all, she does have servants, and she holds herself classy enough to have servants that are lowly enough to be called Gregor, so while she's willing to do it, it doesn't necessarily imply he's a special subject, and certainly not an especially subjugated one.

>Deleuze
I'd argue against what you presented here simply because Wanda isn't really pagan compared to some of the rest of the works in the series. I'd find any analysis that took her over, say, the female leader of the cult in the Mother of God, as an example of the female pagan in SacherMasoch with a grain of salt. Wanda's not really like those, though Severin's rapture about her is almost like a pagan goddess worship (like those who sacrifice themselves to sirens, mermaids etc)

I don't particularly like Story of O, and it is more Sadean than like SacherMasoch. Wedekind is an interesting one to look into for sexuality with a greater balance between the two and a more modern outlook.

>that areN'T lowly enough
Gregor is like a standard Polish servant name. It's almost an abasement for _her_ to call him that because her servants are probably more expensive than a Gregor.

Since you guys mentioned Deleuze... He once quoted a theory about how Kafka's Gregor Samsa is a tribute to Masoch (Samsa being a partial anagram of "Sa"cher-"Mas"soch) and Gregor being the character's name.

Also, anyone interested in masochism should read the Body without Organs in A Thousand Plateaus. I'm not sure how much you'll get out of it without knowing D&G, but it's nonetheless brilliant. Deleuze's earlier texts on Masoch are too psychoanalytical and he moved away from that with Guattari.

>It's kind of like the opening of any BDSM narrative
I agree, I've said several times that it marks the beginning of the BDSM relationship as opposed to Wanda's ideal love, which of course Severin and Wanda never had becaus of his predilection for a different love.
I guess you could argue that it marks a first rejection if you assume that Severin never kindled the slightest interest in his view of love in Wanda. If I interpret your posts correctly you adhere to this hypothesis and I tend to object to it. Considering that Wanda thinks that Severin is worthy of being one of her lovers and reacts amused when he tells her of his fantasies I don't think that it can be said that she would draw up a contract for anyone who asks. They would have at least the same qualifications as Severin and the fear of being replaced by somebody whose qualities match ours or exceed them is universal for all humankind. At any rate I don't remember any servants being mentioned until those women are introduced, so in a sense he is also special when it comes to his role. Of course the name Wanda chooses is vulgar and coarse but I can't imagine Severin being too displeased by that.
I called Wanda a pagan because that is the word she uses herself. In this context pagan love refers to a fleeting but guiltless love associated with bucolic roman pastures or ancient greek unions of gods and mortals. I could look up how exactly Deleuze classifies those three archetypes (I don't remember it that precisely), but I'm finding myself increasingly tired, not because our correspondence bores me, but because thinking critically is really hard for my feeble STEM brain.
I find your thesis that Severin craves complete rejection rather interesting, but I can't bring myself to accept it right now because I don't remember the text well enough to make a conclusive judgment. Moreover, accepting your thesis would reduce my own desire to empty nonsense, so it is impossible for me. I reject it on emotionaly grounds. If you have any textual evidence that could convince me, please let me know. I also don't think you have sufficiently addressed my interpretation of the martyr/Job problem.

You seem reasonably learned, would you mind giving me some recommendations?

Freud/Reich/Jung

Schopenhauer

Andrea Dworkin's "Intercourse."

>refuse to parrot absurd biobabble
>y-y-you never s-seen a vagina

>I guess you could argue that it marks a first rejection if you assume that Severin never kindled the slightest interest in his view of love in Wanda. If I interpret your posts correctly you adhere to this hypothesis and I tend to object to it.
I'm not arguing exactly that. I'm saying that she's ambiguous, and that ambiguity that Severin initially interprets as probably more willingness than rudeness later doesn't satisfy him, so he needs less and less ambiguous rejections.

If she'd said, sorry I'm fucking the prince, he would have been satisfied there and then. And probably dead. But because he's driving it slowly towards total and irreplaceable rejection, it's worth more. Lots of people could leave you for the prince. They're special to each other because it's a very specific and brutal rejection of him and only him that she'll never do to anyone else. She might reject other men, but what makes him a martyr is that it won't be like he forced her to.

I don't think it's something to necessarily reject out of hand. There's a lot of relationships that work like this, and while not all of them actively enjoy it, precluding all of them from getting off on it doesn't represent the spectrum accurately either.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f20Oz9Yr_So

Is there any kind of thing you're looking for? Wedekind has a short story translation out which has Minehaha in it, and a recommendation from Marianne Faithfull (descendant of Sacher-Masoch). It does a lot of the bucolic pagan too, more so than Wanda. (Wanda as an example of this really trolls me, and I'd recommend getting SacherMasoch's other works to see that's shoehorning)

I think you're being too literal with rejection and the martyr problem. Martyrs are dedicated to a cause, and not necessarily in the for the love and favour of God sense. Since his goal is rejection, as Job's goal is the glorification of god regardless of circumstance, being rejected by Wanda doesn't cause the same problem as if Job then had God come down and say "I'm rejecting you because you made me look like I had a shill in front of the devil".
Martyrs exist for all kinds of different causes, so tying it down to "but they can't be rejected by what they worship" ignores that a lot of them are and then come to be later loved by new developments in the cause or stay hated, but still destroy themselves for the cause. Sometimes, people even make up martyrs to start a cause because a cause worth being destroyed by is what some people are looking for. It's much broader an experience than just the "I'm doing this so God will accept me" idea you seem to have.

Kafka actually went down a really weird route in terms of Freudian interpretation. He was very very into Otto Gross, who was kicked out of Freud's circle so early as to be practically forgotten. Veeky Forums should really be more into that rabbit hole than most of the rest of psychoanalysis.
>tfw you will never get jung to bust you out of psychiatric hospital and pay your coke bill
>tfw you will never explain to freud if the suicidal girl wants to fuck before she kills herself, who are we to not fuck her like her life depends on it
>tfw kafka will never try to get you published only to run into crippling organizational problems
>tfwywnb as based as otto gross

K Y S

>I'm saying that she's ambiguous
I agree.
>he would have been satisfied there and then
This is where we disagree. But we've talked about that point at length.
>what makes him a martyr is that it won't be like he forced her to
I don't understand that bit. Isn't your point that Severin is actually the driving force creating Wanda as his ideal and then being cut off from her forever?
On Wanda being the pagan type:
>Le premier type est la femme paienne, la Grecque, l'hétaire ou l'Aphrodite, génératrice de désordre. [...]. Dans La Vénus, Wanda l'héroine commence par se prendre pour la Grecque et finit par se croire sadique.
>Mir ist die heitere Sinnlichkeit der Hellenen Freude ohne Schmerz – ein Ideal, das ich in meinem Leben zu verwirklichen strebe. Denn an jene Liebe, welche das Christentum, welche die Modernen, die Ritter vom Geiste predigen, glaube ich nicht. Ja, sehen Sie mich nur an, ich bin weit schlimmer als eine Ketzerin, ich bin eine Heidin.
>Glaubst du, es habe sich lange die Göttin der Liebe besonnen,
>Als im Idäischen Hain einst ihr Anchises gefiel?‹
>Diese Verse aus Goethes römischer Elegie haben mich stets sehr entzückt.
>In der Natur liegt nur jene Liebe der herrischen Zeit, ›da Götter und Göttinnen liebten‹. Damals
>folgte Begierde dem Blick, >folgte Genuß der Begier
As I said before, I have not read any other works of Sacher-Masoch, so I can't comment on how justified this classification is. It seems reasonable to me, but maybe greater knowledge makes it seem more dubious.
>Martyrs are dedicated to a cause
In my view, this cause is absolute faith in God. But this doesn't mean that they do it to be accepted, from my point of view being absolutely certain of recieving God's grace is a prerequisite for martyrdom. This is why the idea of craving rejection, which would be equated to the loss of God's grace in my example, seems so absurd to me. I think the process of losing God's grace would be closer to the fall of Satan and result in rebellion, not the feeling of being chosen to suffer. You've said yourself that only the worthy suffer.
>but they can't be rejected by what they worship
I'm not saying that they can't, I'm saying that they aren't. Can you provide a counterexample?
I'm talking about martyrs in the mystic religious sense, not martyrs of some political movement.
>Is there any kind of thing you're looking for?
Honestly, I'd like to know what you find interesting. I can read English, German, French and Japanese.

the rejection problem is that it's much like Nietzsche's self-despisers: they all think they're the best self-despiser.

I'm saying, rejection, especially the kind that ends the relationship in a way she'd never end it with someone else, is his equivalent of seeing the smiling face of God hand out all your new favours at the end of Job. The kind of rejection he caused her to perform is so extreme it's nowhere near the ambiguous grace of "She called me Gregor" or "She left me for a prince". Anyone can do that for you. But if you're special, you can get them to leave the fucking country over you. Even though they're in a different country, they're there because of you. Even though they're with their new beau, they probably chose him as a further rejection. He can prove he was really despised, and he has a witness/accomplice/victimizer who will back him up he might have been better off drowning.

For me, it's strange to use martyr in a pagan/psychological sense and maintain some specific Christian meaning.

I read a lot of different shit, so it's kind of broad to choose from. Though since you bring up Japanese, I suppose the idea of transforming yourself into a ghost out of jealousy from Tale of the Genji I would count as a kind of martyrdom. I really think you have this Christian definition, which, even when you take the rejection problem out of it with the God's grace after the devil's tests being like Wanda's rejection proposition, isn't particularly mystic. That's why I'm saying it's like sirens and mermaids, and they don't necessarily have to be there or more than a mannequin for you to love and die for them in the narrative. You just need to dedicate yourself to them, not have them make the same contribution back.

Also, I find it hard to fathom that God did actually approve all extant martyrs if you do want to argue that as a hardline definition. It's been a while since anyone's heard from him, to be fair.

I think I finally understand your view of the rejection problem. I just have one rather banal objection to it. If this is how Severin truly sees himself, why doesn't he describe the final scene as his triumph? Your theory needs Severin to maintain his reaction to the thought experiment (I even quoted that bit) in the face of reality. But the opposite happens: suffering the brutalities of the Greek his fantasy shatters. How do you reconcile that with the need for rejection, be it conscious or subconscious?

I never meant to link paganism to anything related to Severin's conception of love or my view of a BDSM relationship.

What is missing in the encounter with a siren is the ritualistic act or its equivalent, the contract. You might get to suffer but there is no sense of purpose. I should probably have said that the interpretation of the martyr metaphor is my own. Now that i skimmed the text I find no hint that Sacher-Masoch also included the element of grace. All I find here is the act of finding pleasure in suffering.
Including grace in the metaphor seems necessary to me in order to separate the ideal dominant woman from the other two archetypes: One has to be able to separate the final scene from the other ordeals during which Severin definitely enjoys his suffering. Of course Severin still fulfills his role as a slave and he is met with physical suffering. So the defining difference cannot lie with him but has to be on the part of Wanda. By introducing the Greek she technically has not done anything wrong since she moves within the boundaries of the contract, but that's just the case because Severin was too deluded when it comes to his own wishes. In fact, Wanda has removed herself irrevocably from Severin. Who would adore a God who punishes without purpose or reward? Consider now Tanizaki's Naomi. Naomi is openly promiscuous, but even though "George" doesn't seem to mind, I feel the need to distinguish this kind of relationship from the one Severin enjoys. Once again, you said it, only the worthy should suffer in the ideal case.

>rejection problem
I don't think it's a conscious thing. If it were, people would probably have a lot less (or perhaps a lot more) abusive relationships. A maledom version of that exists in Gordon by Louise Walbrook/Edith Templeton. I should clarify by satisfaction, I mean a resolution of the relationship.

So when I say if she told him she fucked a prince, he would have been satisfied, I don't mean it would have satisfied his need for special rejection, but just his need for rejection. He probably wouldn't reminisce about her for years, and she wouldn't be a Venus to him and she wouldn't be wondering if she were cruel, because it's a reasonably normal rejection. It can't be elevated or satisfied like the total rejection he gets. She becomes Venus because she satisfies the total personification of rejection, and so he spends his life with her as the archetype. For me, signing the contract doesn't make her that. She could be just another initiate and not the high priestess.

In Gordon, it's proposed that once he's done everything he wants to do with the submissive author/narrator, that the eponymous dom has nothing much left to live for, all his desires being sated. The author has her own problems with reliability but she's familiar enough with both Freud and Schopenhauer to be using the idea of a satisfied relationship in a similar way: one in which the desire has been realized and therefore gone away.

It also covers the idea of being worthy from a submissive stand point. The narrator is far more patrician than the dominant, but what makes her worthy in terms of the relationship is that she's simply willing to put up with the occasional rape or voyeurism. What makes the dominant not need another one of her is that she's accepting enough that she'll put up with all his shit; it's basically the opposite of the satisfaction that Severin seeks from Wanda, which is someone who is able to reject him viciously enough that nobody would put up with that shit.

It's a very explicitly Freudian book, outside the DDLG aspect, so you'd probably enjoy its reframing at the end.

>mfw even if I would ever get to have sex I would probably be so bad at it that I would never try to have it again

>She becomes Venus because she satisfies the total personification of rejection
Do you mean that she becomes his ideal after demonstrating cruelty that exceeds his capacities by handing him over to the Greek? You can only argue that this is the case if you accept his desire for total rejection which I find to stand in contrast to his reaction to the catastrophe of the final scene.
Your example seems quite instructive, maybe I'll read Gordon next, I'm sure it can deepen my understanding of your thoughts and mine as well.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. It's been fun, so thank you and have a good night.

>to the Greek?
Pretty much. Night, enjoy.

I do wish my man can fuck like a bull tho

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