By Jillian Keenan (New York: Harper
Collins, 2016)
"What
you blush to tell….is the most important part of the whole matter." Ars Amatoria
"If
love be rough with you, be rough with love." Romeo & Juliet
Full disclosure: I checked this book out of
the library because of its title. I
figured, it could be awful but, with that title, I had to give it a chance.
It got off to a bad start: I was annoyed by
the author's trigger
warning -- until I read her snarky send-up of the concept.
The book starts, implausibly, in Oman,
where the author is taking a gap year from Stanford to find herself, although,
at first, she thinks she is there to escape herself. Until she finds herself face-to-face with a
goat, as one does, and thinks: "If I were going to walk by myself, at
night, into the middle of the desert, wearing cartoon duck pajamas and an
abaya, just to scream the name of one of Shakespeare's least lovable male
characters, it might as well be on the same day that I tried to find spanking
porn in an Islamic public Internet café. Go big or go home, right?" (pp.
6-7)
Keenan is an insightful and observant
scholar of Shakespeare, with a unique take on his work. She captures the evergreen appeal of the Bard:
the sensuality in the rhythm of his words.
"Wordplay is sex play" (p. 77) is my mantra, which could
explain why I like Shakespeare. But this
book isn't really about Shakespeare; it's about coming to terms with having a
fetish.
The term "fetish" is often used loosely
to mean anything you like, even in a non-sexual way. For example, I like magazines and subscribe
to an obscene number of them, so I joke that I have a "magazine fetish". But a true fetish is something its victim
cannot get off without. It is not a part
of their sexuality; it displaces their sexuality, and Keenan worried it might
disrupt intimacy in other ways, too: "My fetish makes gender irrelevant. It makes conventional physical attractiveness
irrelevant. It makes even sex
irrelevant. Does it make love
irrelevant, too?" (p. 276) She does a stark and sobering job of explaining how a fetish is not a choice, it is
an obsession. There is nothing casual
about a fetish and it is extremely limiting.
Fetishes are generally a turn-off for those who do not share them. The Internet has enabled the author to find
fellow fetishists, and willing partners to indulge her kink, but absent the Internet
she could have been suicidally-depressed or celibate. It sounds funny that she needs to be spanked,
but it isn't humorous to her. I am
guilty of using the term "fetish" as loosely as anyone but I am grateful
not to have any true fetishes, nor would I wish one on anyone.
Keenan's fetish troubled her because of its
anti-feminist connotations and connections to domestic violence. The book chronicles her coming to terms, and
finding partners, including, eventually, a husband, who indulge her kink. Fetishes are not usually reciprocal; she had
no use for a partner who also liked being spanked. She needed to find people who liked to spank
and who were otherwise suitable partners.
It's hard enough to find someone compatible without the added
complication of a fetish. She could not
be happy with a great guy who was perfect in every way but took no pleasure in
applying her hairbrush to her behind, nor with a jerk who was great with a
paddle.
Keenan never fully psychoanalyses where her
fetish originates. She avoids pointing
the finger at her volatile, physically and emotionally abusive mother. ("I had understood ever
since I was nine….that I wasn't entitled to anything." p. 200) She poignantly opines that we learn how to love
from observing our parents – something she was unable to do. She seeks love in the normal way that is
simply part of human nature ("Love is dangerous, but I think that's how
love has to be sometimes. Love is a
miracle." p. 152), but she needs her kink catered to because it is "the
only thing that could free me from the confines of my neurotic, self-conscious,
insecure mind and release me into my body" (p. 77). If I could apply a little amateur
psychoanalysis to her, I'd note that people who are into BDSM often have
something in their past that has caused them to disconnect to survive. They have difficulty with feelings because
they have become so good at blocking them out for self-protection. Pain is the one thing that breaks
through. This is why people cut
themselves. (If you've seen the movie Secretary you know that the main
character is scarred from cutting herself.)
"Pain is not the opposite of pleasure. The opposite of pleasure is numbness."
(p. 102) BDSM is self-medication; it's a
coping strategy.
I used to write an advice column in the
persona of a dominatrix. It was just a
lark but I received genuine pleas for advice from people like Keenan, who
wanted to hurt themselves or who wanted other people to hurt them. I made myself despised in the BDSM world
because, whilst these people wanted to know how to find someone who would tie
them up & carve knife art into their backs, I advised them to seek therapy
to deal with the underlying issues. The
mentality in the BDSM world is that you can't control what turns you on; it's
formed in early childhood and it's fixed and immutable by adulthood, and therapy
doesn't always work so it's as healthy a coping mechanism as any. I don't agree that it's always healthy. I'm open to being proven wrong, and I don't
see anything unhealthy about indulging in the lighter end of the BDSM spectrum
with your partner if it appeals to both of you (I've applied my hand to someone's ass on a few occasions – it makes a
satisfying sound when you do it right), but I don't think self-medicating with
hardcore BDSM is any healthier than using drugs or alcohol for the same
purpose.
This book is about the author's journey to
acceptance of her fetish, and how Shakespeare helped. She starts off with the obvious point that we
can't view Shakespeare's plays through the lens of modern sensibilities. Demetrius telling Helena she is foolish to
risk her honour by meeting him alone is a rape threat; Oberon giving Titania
the potion to make her fall for Bottom ("of course that's his name"
p. 23) is tantamount to using a date rape drug.
(Just imagine applying this same exercise to opera – Tristan and Isolde
would fill a book on its own.)
Keenan sees a solution to the problem of
consent in Shakespeare: What if the characters are kinky? What if Helena isn't pathetic and
self-debasing, but a sexual masochist? What
if, given their lack of power, Shakespeare's women are topping from the bottom –
e.g., What if Kate's shrewishness is a deliberate protection from her father
marrying her off against her will? "Characters,"
she notes, "are like clouds: we all see different animals hidden in
them." (p. 21)
Using Shakespeare as a medium to work
through her issues was a brilliant move.
She stumbled on it after a few false starts: "When beginning to
explore a divergent sexual identity, do not
turn to French cinema." (p. 38) Good
advice. But why no Much Ado amongst the featured plays? You could hardly pick a more appropriate one
for expounding on honour, shaming, and issues of dominance/submission between
the sexes. Beatrice, to no-one's surprise,
is my favourite Shakespearean character and the delicious wordplay of her
sparring with Benedick is perfect for this.
As I said, I am grateful not to suffer the
limitations of any fetish (no, ice cream doesn't count). The closest I came to observing one was back
when City Boy and I attended play parties.
We were monogamous, so we went for the voyeurism and exhibitionism, not
to interact with anyone. But I dressed as a dom and one night a young Australian man asked if he
could lick my boots. I consented, and
quickly regretted it. He knelt at my
feet and licked with a cringe-inducing self-debasement, paying special
attention to the soles. Considering this
was NYC, and I'd taken the subway there, I found this nauseating. He did this for a long time, clearly getting
off on it, whilst I remained transfixed in fascinated horror. City Boy, missing my obvious disgust, accused
me of enjoying it but I would have had no qualms about admitting it if I had. Owning up to enjoying a dominant role is generally
easier than admitting to submissive tendencies; except in extreme form, it
doesn't carry the same baggage, as Keenan discovered. I don't have a submissive bone in my body but,
had I any submissive tendencies, I'd face the same feminist barriers to
admitting them as the author and I doubt I'd have her courage to go public.
There are few things less appealing than
other people's fetishes but, if "Sex with Shakespeare" is any guide,
that does not necessarily apply to books about fetishes. I recommend this one to Shakespearean
scholars and to anyone exploring their sexuality. Even if you don't have a specific fetish like
Keenan, it takes a great deal of vulnerability, of courage to risk rejection
and ridicule, to share what turns you on.
You can't achieve true intimacy without vulnerability so some people
simply live without it. The author stood
up to her fears -- or, should I say, bent over – it stung a bit and raised a
few welts of self-doubt, but she wound up rosy-cheeked and happy in the end.
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