Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy (31 page)

From this perspective, intimacy is the disclosure of some otherwise-private aspects of self without disclosing so many that intimacy is destroyed. It is a frag- ile social condition that requires planning and tentativeness (as well as sensitiv- ity and tact) to maintain. Moreover, it should be maintained. Giddens’s intimacy thus contains a cautionary tale; people who disclose too much in their intimate endeavors become “codependent,” an unhealthy condition in which boundaries are blurred to the point of conflations with self and other (1992, 94).

Giddens’s aim in this macrosociological analysis is not to unpack the notion of intimacy at the level of interaction. For Giddens, intimacy is not an experi- ence nor an emotion, but a social obligation, “a cluster of prerogatives and responsibilities” into which people enter under particular (but not quite clear) conditions (1992, 190). He writes not of the transformation of intimacy as a social process or situation, but of the transformation of intimate relationships, of the social sphere to which we refer as intimate. Consequently, he draws on a particular understanding of intimacy that mirrors patriarchal ideals of sexual- ity, monogamous marriage, and, by extension, social control (particularly of women). Yet elsewhere he writes that “[i]ntimacy means the disclosure of emo- tions and actions which the individual is unlikely to hold up to a wider public gaze. Indeed, the disclosure of what is kept from other people is one of the main psychological markers likely to call forth trust from the other and to be sought after in return” (1991, 138).

Georg Simmel’s view of intimacy also depends on self-disclosure, but is less concerned with the goodness of intimacy, and more concerned with positing a working conceptualization of the experience:

The “intimate” character of certain relations seems to me to derive from the individual’s inclination to consider that which distinguishes him from others, that which is individual in a qualitative sense, as the core, value, and chief matter of his existence. . . . The peculiar color of intimacy exists . . . if its whole affective structure is based on what each of other two participants gives or shows only to the one other person and to nobody else. (1950, 126–27)

Intimacy, in Simmel, is not bounded by the requirement of moderation, nor that of psychological or emotional health. Although Simmel cautions that this extensive intimacy can threaten a relationship, he does not consider the destruction of the relationship to be synonymous with the destruction of inti- macy. Simmel’s recognition of the absoluteness of this self-disclosure is clear: “even material property should be common to friends” when friendship “aims

at an absolute psychological intimacy” (1950, 325). For Simmel, the elimination of limits is central to intimacy; the refusal to draw a boundary at the sharing of material property for the sake of intimacy constitutes a limitless sharing of the self and of its extensions.

Following Simmel, then, intimacy is most fundamentally about
access.
It is constituted by and through access to another’s secrets, another’s private or new expressions of self, and another’s resources. Intimacy is not necessarily about love, sex, or tenderness, but about
access
to emotional and physical experiences of others that we consider inaccessible to most people.

Intimacy therefore depends on the cultivation of a belief in the privacy of a particular experience. What is intimate is that which is normally not apparent, accessible, or available. It is therefore always dependent on whether the access is perceived as commonly available or highly guarded.

In
Unlimited Intimacy,
Tim Dean proceeds, though implicitly, from this under- standing of intimacy. His exploration of intimacy in the acts of barebacking and bug-chasing extricates it from the moral backdrop against which intimacy is so often understood.
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The title of Dean’s book is one barebacker’s description of unprotected anal sex; regarding the phrase, Dean quotes documentary pornog- rapher Paul Morris: “you can take unlimited intimacy to mean either something that is in itself unsafe, or something that’s just basically physically and emotion- ally open” (quoted in Dean 2009, 45). The relationship between intimacy and freedom from constraint is part of the fabric of the book, and of the lives of barebackers. In his deconstruction of an anal fisting scene in a pornographic essay, Dean writes: “The sexual act of fisting brings one man so far inside another as to temporarily obliterate the boundaries that conventionally separate persons. By occupying exactly the same physical space simultaneously, the men in this fantasy have become in some sense beyond individuation” (2009, 46).

The view of intimacy as accessing what is innermost approaches literal man- ifestation in fisting. In one sense, fisting, of course, parallels sexual intercourse (anus-penis and vagina-penis) in its construction of the occupation of shared physical space (penetration) as intimate. In another sense, it moves beyond the transgression of this particular boundary through the additional transgressions of cultural lines that separate the erotic and the mundane, dirt from cleanli- ness, and sex from violence. Fisting crosses, also collaboratively, social, ethical, and sexual limits as it simultaneously “obliterates” the boundary between self and other. The intimacy of fisting (which is also practiced in the SM commu- nity, though less so in public spaces) derives from the access to another self that it grants and provides.

What is experienced as intimacy is what is understood as somehow
dis- tinguishing the relationship from others.
As ideas about what is protected and private change, the experience—and quest—for intimacy also changes. The (potential) transformation of intimacy lies not in the places where intimacy newly appears, but in the processes through which it is created. It lies not neces- sarily in marriage, disclosure, or sex, but anywhere that people experience each other
differently enough
than other people experience them.

The achievement of intimacy is therefore also an inherently competitive process. It rests on the notion that one actor possesses special experiential information about another—information that is not readily available or not easily presented. It is always an attempt to gain access to something otherwise restricted, and to be the only one to gain it. However it is constructed or achieved, intimacy represents conquest; the experience of intimacy is always a victory.

Intimacy in SM Play

It is a basic assumption in Caeden that participants “access” each other through play in ways that others do not. Even the observation of play is understood as revelatory; the statement “I’ve seen you play” is a common means of claim- ing intimate knowledge, euphemistic in Caeden for “I know you.” Although intimacy is assumed to be greatest between people playing together, SM scenes generate feelings of intimacy even among onlookers through their access to the intimate experience.

The relationship between boundary transgressions and feelings of knowing another was articulated rather clearly in the Web blog of a longtime member of the Caeden community:

But . . . there is a deeper, more significant drive to why I play.

The reason is that I love people. I am fascinated with them, love to be around them. I constantly seek out new connections, new friends, and dive head first into kinky social situations. Even more importantly, I love to see the
real
person underneath the layers. The human being is an amazing creature, but we are too often guarded by walls. Walls of our own creation and for our protection, sure, but walls none the same.

I find SM to be an amazing method to get glimpses of the real person underneath. The pain sheds the layers. Endorphins fly out, bringing with them the very essence of the person out to be enjoyed and marveled. Joy

and sadness and pain and catharsis all leap out of the body in a world of trust, honesty, and safety.

I played with someone this weekend who is known far more for her sexual energy than her SM bottoming. [ . . . ]

This round, she instantly stated how badly she wanted to fuck, and expressed remorse about my inability to do so (more on that in another post). I replied that I didn’t want her cunt, but that I wanted her soul. I wanted to see the
real
girl behind the veil—what lives beyond her drive to have sex. She was scared . . . warned me that I wouldn’t want to see it.

I did want to, and I did see it.

Through a singletail, she shook, she gasped, she moaned, she cried, she screamed. And in all that shaking the real person came to view. The rawness of humanity came to vision . . . I looked into her eyes and could see everything. There was connection. There was oneness. There was the very essence of being. She was alive, and I was the conduit.

I love to play because I love to see what is deep within each of us. I long to embrace the part of all of our souls that makes us whole. To connect with the animalistic part of our beings. (2006, reprinted with permission of author)

The word “intimacy” is not part of the discourse of the Caeden commu- nity; rather, words such as “connection” and “energy” are used to describe the experience that I am calling intimacy. These narratives focus on access—on knowing others in ways that they are not normally known, and on feeling known in ways that one usually does not. These experiences are assumed to be a part of SM play, and are highly valued in the Caeden community:

A good scene to me is more than just a sadistic, masochistic element. There’s also a connection between the person . . . it’s the energy I have with that person, it’s where we let our minds go, it’s how much that per- son gives themself over to me at the time, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally. (Interview transcript, Frank)

For SM participants, “connection” and “energy” are better tools for describing intimate moments than “intimacy.” Jack’s discussion of intimacy illuminates the tension between intimacy as an authentically good and long-lasting condi- tion of a relationship and intimacy as a social situation:

But either verbally or nonverbally, or both, you definitely share a huge part of yourself, and a huge very personal part of yourself, with people.

And many people. And people you don’t know so well. People you only know certain parts about. And it’s not the foundation of anything long- lasting. Anything long-lasting has to be based in something that is at least a proven substance, I mean there has to be something there. And if you just met the person a couple of parties ago, for example, you’re not going to know them, really. You don’t know what kind of foods they like and what their favorite color is, or shit like that. Or, maybe that’s all you know. And so what ends up happening is that a lot of people will get very naked with each other and think that they’re very personally involved with these people, with these other people. Which [ . . . ] creates this immense feel- ing of false intimacy, well, of intimacy, which when you actually take a look at it, turns out to crumble under any close inspection at all.

By calling into question the authenticity of intimacy of SM play, Jack questions its meaning. As with Giddens, if intimacy is something healthy and positive that must hold up under scrutiny, then Jack’s feelings must be something else. Jack’s account vacillates between an intimacy linked to meaningful disclosure and one that privileges experiences in interaction; that the latter does not nec- essarily mean the former leads him to posit that the intimacy is “false.”

Immediately, though, Jack corrects himself. His sense of intimate experience is betrayed by the absence of conventional and accepted forms of disclosure. Ultimately he refuses to disavow the intimate nature of SM. He reconciles this tension by considering it authentic but short-lived; the intimacy is not false, only fleeting. This passage is mired in the very same positive and retrospective view of intimacy: if we are later betrayed, then we conclude that the intimacy was inauthentic; we were fooled by our feelings. Nonetheless, in the moment, the access to otherwise unknown parts of people—the transgressive metaphoric nakedness—creates a sense, whether justifiable later or not, of intimacy.

Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence

The understanding of intimacy as the moderate and healthy space between too little and too much disclosure in personal relationships obscures the extent to which intimate experience amounts to gaining access. The challenges in under- standing intimacy parallel the problems in conceptualizing violence, pain, and eroticism. Trapped in moral frameworks and tethered to political agendas, these ideas are rarely deconstructed. SM forces us to confront the apparent inconsistencies and paradoxes contained within them. In so doing, we can trace

conceptual links between intimacy, eroticism, and violence that move beyond psychological models of innate drives and pathologies.

Heteronormative sexuality, of course, has been constructed around restrict- ing access. As Foucault illustrated so powerfully, sexuality as we understand it is built upon issues and questions of access; we can barely think about it apart from concerning ourselves with who gets to do what, where, to whom, for what reasons, and with what consequences. Heteronormative eroticism is inextri- cable from ideas about, and experiences of, interpersonal access; the parts of the body we eroticize are the parts that we guard. Monogamy and virginity are systems of meaning (and power) built around access to women’s bodies. Eroticism is rooted in access and intimacy is achieved through access; eroticism and intimacy are linked through their emphasis on access to particular aspects of others. Non-normative eroticism is similarly rooted in issues of access— voyeurism, exhibitionism, frotteurism, and even foot fetishism all eroticize the granting or gaining of access to the normally inaccessible.

As regulatory (and thereby disciplinary) forces regarding sexuality are chal- lenged and sexual practices and identities change, other aspects of self acquire the potential to supplant sexuality as a highly protected aspect of self. As Giddens argues, the portrait of what has conventionally been understood as “intimate” life is changing (Giddens 1992). He does not argue that what is understood and experienced as intimacy—that the very notion of what is and what is not intimate—is undergoing a transformation. Intimacy is culturally and socially situated; hence sex becomes less intimate as it becomes less protected. This may be a function not of a “purer” relationship in the context of gender egalitarian- ism, as Giddens assumes, but of changing, and perhaps increasing, avenues and realms of disclosure in social life. Changes in intimacy are directly impacted by changes in the importance of notions of privacy.