Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy

3. Tipping the Scales: Striving for Imbalance

Tipping the Scales 59 Chapter 3 Tipping the Scales Striving for Imbalance I stood facing him, trying to keep my abraded back from brushing against the rough concrete wall. I was exhausted. We’d been playing for a long time; it must have been at least two hours. I think he used just about every toy he owned. My legs were stiff. My arms ached from straining against the cuffs. I was depleted from the scene, ready to go home and crawl into bed. He set his flogger on the table beside him. He moved close to me and stroked my hair. “How ya doin’?” he asked softly. “Good . . . ,” I responded, “. . . sleepy.” I smiled and he laughed at me. “What?” I asked, half-dazed. Mimicking me, Adam smiled—a wide, spacey, extremely goofy grin. “Here, let me get that,” he said, miming wiping drool from my chin. I laughed. He laughed. Then he hit me, open-handed, across my left cheek, probably about as hard as I had ever been hit. My face swung toward the wall. I was stunned. I stared at him in disbelief, recognizing nothing in his expression . I was silent. No words came to mind. I felt something like fear, though fear doesn’t quite describe it. I wasn’t worried about any particular consequences; I wasn’t clear-headed enough for worry. I was on edge—not quite needing to run, but wide-eyed and vigilant. I had no idea what he might do next. It bred a strange state of something akin to fear, without the consciousness that fear normally requires. As I stared at him wordlessly, he hit me again. Then again, almost as soon as his hand left my face, another, followed by a dizzying series of rapid-fire slaps. 59 60 Play He stopped and looked at me. He hit me again, followed by another pause, more time between slaps—then faster, then slow again. Completely off-kilter, I winced in anticipation of slaps that never came— relaxing my body just before they landed. I was overwhelmed by the constant barrage of blows, the never having had the chance to get my head together in the scene, no chance to shake my mind clear, assess how I was feeling—too much, too fast, all on top of itself. I don’t remember how it ended, exactly. He must have uncuffed me . . . he hugged me and we walked over to the booths. He kept his arms around me and stroked my hair. After a while, I started to talk. I couldn’t really communicate. I kept losing the words I wanted, and instead I started to giggle. The giggling became uncontrollable. I felt completely intoxicated. Every time I opened my mouth, I found the situation hysterically funny. He rubbed my back and smoothed my hair silently for awhile, and then conversations began to crop up around me. I remember none of them. I lay there feeling relaxed—drained—trying to get back into my own head. When I was ready to sit up, I did so. He kissed my forehead, near the temple. SM is often viewed as an alternative sexual practice. It is also frequently understood as role play. Neither of these, by itself, is an especially useful frame for understanding SM play. Perhaps partly in an effort to avoid miring current SM research in longstanding feminist debates over patriarchal gender performances , the view of SM as either (simply) sex or (simply) fantasy is implicit in contemporary work on the topic. The Role-Play Problem In the perspective of SM as role play, consenting adults are free to suspend their individual lived realities for the sake of erotic enjoyment; the teacher spanks the misbehaving student in order to enhance the sex life of the couple. Roleplaying , as Gary Alan Fine illustrates in his study of fantasy gaming, involves a distancing from their roles even as they are engaged; during play, they say, for example, “I hit him” rather than actually hit him (Fine 1983). These roles are not the everyday performative roles that Erving Goffman regards as comprising all social interaction, but “contrived performances,” in which the actors are insincere (Goffman 1959b). Contrived performances do not typify SM interaction in Caeden. Real-life SM, at least in this community, is rarely role play. Scenes do not typically involve Tipping the Scales 61 the adoption of alternate personae or plotlines...