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Sadomasoc In Everyday Life

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Lynn Chancer puts her finger on dynamics that operate in all of our lives, usually at an unconscious level. She carefully analyzes the elements that constitute a sadomasochistic relationship, then sorts through our cultural arrangements. She finds sadomasochism is embedded in the fabric of our way of life; specifcally in the world of work and gender relationships. Surprisingly, at least to me, she points out that the sexual sadomasochism of the S&M sort is more civilzed than is the sadomasochism of everday life. The difference is that the S&M scene contains the dynamics, and also provides limits to those dynamics, as it is consensual, and personal limits are respected. As such, it is more like a parody of everday life. In everday life, where sadomasochism is unrecognized, its inherent destructiveness is also unrecognized. The limits which would make it social are missing. Those missing, necessary, limits have to do with our ongoing dependency on one another, with our vulnerability, with our very humanity. It is the absence of limits that makes the authority of the manager, the bureaucrat, the policeman, etc., into an oppressor and persecutor rather than a benefit to humankind. If sadomasochism is a perversion then, inescapably, we are a perverse society.

Consider the dynamics of sadomaochism: 1.There must exist binding inequality. (The haves and the have-nots for example. One without the other couldn't recognize itself.) 2.There is no mutuality. One dictates the other obeys. 3.The dialectic of the relationship creates flux. Internally the neverending search for fulfillment moves the relationship to exhaustion. Externally, people can switch positions. The sadist is a masochist striving to meet the demands of, and be recognized by, a more powerful sadist. 4.There are severe consequences for resistance.

This book was written 1992. The subsequent history of the World Trade Organization and its sponsorhip of capitalism without limits, the triumph of the ideology of the free market economy, and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor world-wide with no end in sight, is proof this book needs to be read and studied. Without it, I am afraid, we just don't know what we are dealing with.

One criticism I have of the book is I could not tell if Ms Chancer sees masochism as a position in which people have choice-a popular psychological interpretation-or whether she believes there are some caught in the position of the masochist through no fault of their own and are powerless to change it. I believe that the latter is too often is the case. Our failure to recognize it is our failure to acknowledge tragedy as a necessary companion to living and learning.

A brilliant book.Those who question why people might kill themselves, or do themselves or others harm, no longer can, if they understand the essence of the game that is so precisely described and unveiled in this book. Chancer, in minute detail, explains the dynamics of the destructive power-game when people seek to find love through power. Pursuing the power game - unreflected - must, if taken to its ultimate conclusion, result in violence and/or even death. Revealing is the phrase: "when the masochist dies, so does the sadist."

By returning to the formation of humans in early life, Chancer explains the bonding process, and how some fail to succeed in tearing away from the clutches of excessive bonding - with devastating results: caught in a non-stop game of dependency of not finding the exit door. In the book 9-1/2 weeks, the female star actually dies, unable to tear away. The sadist, too does not achieve his aim.

The dynamics exist at all levels - between individuals, and between individuals and the state.

It's not easy reading - but very revealing. Ideal reading for AFTERWARDS would be Satre's "The chips are down." In The German title is even better: "Das Spiel ist aus." (The game is over.)

Terrence Downes has hit the nail in his review above.

I would add the recommendation of two other books, Sexual Citizenship: The Material Construction of Sexualities and The Reification of Desire: Toward a Queer Marxism. Here, this insightful work leans too heavily on an ahistorical, psychological approach to sadomasochism, neglecting the various historical contexts in which it has arisen.

De Sade's original books, Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings and The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings are compendiums of sadomasochistic scenes much like 19th Century imperialist writers catalogues of species or ethnographies with the difference that power is made explicit as it would have been in feudalistic or slave societies. De Sade's works are aristocratic, even feudal in perspective. On the other hand, when one reads Darwin, for example, you aren't particularly aware of the British Empire whose ships and scientific societies made the work possible. Even though conquest made the theory of evolution possible, those who subscribe to the theory would consider that irrelevant to the theory itself.

Under capitalism, power isn't displayed as a king, lord, or emperor would show it--by very public executions, for example, or the immediate use of force by the slave-owner or feudal lord himself. Rather, power is exercised by the state, an abstract entity whose physical manifestation is the government which has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force which it often claims to be rational and dispassionate. The government is an impersonal agency of the state. When a judge orders punishment, the punishment is never executed by the judge himself. When the state executes someone, it is private, sometimes secret, and thereby more terrifying. Being abstract, it seems unassailable. This process of rendering the physical abstract and intangible is called reification by marxists. Under capitalism, these reifications have a physical reality despite their being intangible. The classic example being the commodity which has a value which though abstract and intangible is nevertheless real. Argue as much as you want but a commodity is worth what it is worth.

Those who practice sadomasochism pierce rationality, play with these abstractions, making them physical as they would have been under earlier class systems. Even the clothes that are worn harken back to feudal and slave societies even as the practices are distinctly modern ideas of what is sexual with its peculiar emphasis on individual, psychological experience.

Here, Chancer identifies ways in which contemporary capitalist culture, especially the workplace, likewise turn the abstraction of power into a sadomasochistic reality, usually without the costumes (save for the use of uniforms). However, as Downes points out, unlike those who do a sadomasochistic scene, the safe words are "I quit" which for most has severe consequences unlike those in an intolerable scene for whom leaving doesn't ordinarily carry the consequence of not being able to return. I would add that those who play at sadomasochism do so self-consciously while employers, police, or whomever, pretend its just a job being rationally, legitimately executed. Chancer is right in questioning that posture.