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Silence8 -> RE: The Psychology of the Sadist (5/2/2010 1:22:28 AM)
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Here's an attempt at a rewrite that certainly will disappoint:
Sexual sadistic objectification, I think, represents a fundamental reversal of the standard objectification of the sexual partner. This standard objectification, in its modern form, entails using the sexual partner as a purely physical device from which to dissociate while mentally projecting one's living fantasies, whether of other women, men, or something else altogether. In this sense, sex merely extends masturbation from a solo act to a mutually solipsistic activity for two or more disconnected partners. (In modern times, this disconnection is then reinstantiated in the distance of the condom's thickness.) You masturbate inside of him or her, and this you call sex.
The objectification enacted by the sadist occurs much more ambiguously. In one sense, the sadist's joy demands that only he or she can resolve the tension he or she imposes. One might argue, then, that this form of objectification exceeds that of the standard sexual mode, that is, if we immediately relate objectification to one's position in relative power structures. We can also argue whether the sadist is unique in consciously addressing his or her partner as an object. Yet we miss here the crucial point, namely, that the sadist quite essentially produces his partner's failure as an object. That is to say, straightforwardly, that the sadist establishes his or her partner as an impossible object, or, rather, as not an object at all. In the case of heterosexual sadistic men, we arrive at what appears a rather unlikely and unexpected solution, the sadistic male suddenly representing an almost uncanny feminism where one would immediately expect the opposite, the most derivative misogyny.
What is more, the state of mind that the sadist attempts to manifest in the opposite sexual partner more often than not represents an engagement of his or her own state of mind displaced over time. So whereas the partner in the standard sexual mode serves as a sort of empty symbolic conduit through which to pursue strictly external fantasy coordinates, (just as money serves as an empty conduit through which to activate labor value), the submissive partner in the sadomasochistic mode becomes the endpoint itself, the ultimate object Herself, that is to say, the mutual simultaneous means and ends for engaging the humanity of one's experience in its extremities, in the emotional force of impossibly boundless human will facing impossible predicament.
The preceding analysis neglects to demonstrate that sadistic and standard objectification potentially represent two sides of the same coin, that is, two polarized effects of the same market society. We could proceed in arguing that the sadist's prototypical idea of the 'sex slave' is the exact opposite of an arguably more normative form, the prostitute, the other side of the same problem of value's representation. The sex slave is privately owned forever, while the prostitute is publicly for sale but just for the moment.
We see also that the sexual slave and the traditional wife bear a certain resemblance, the same permanence, as if the latter is simply a 'domesticated' form of the former.
Likewise, the prostitute exists as a gross extension of a bachelors' more notorious escapades, replacing women weekend after weekend. Again, the analogy with material goods holds up -- until you're ready to buy, it's best to rent.
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