Exploring the Mystery....

For those of you who, like me, have a deep, abiding interest in the exploration of sex and the human condition, get your butt out of the house and see Kinsey. (and, for that matter, also check out The American Experience show on Alfred Kinsey, as well as the Kinsey Institute.)

From a storytelling and filmmaking aspect, Kinsey is definitely one of the best biopics ever made. Kinsey's life and sexual explorations are depicted with respect for the lives and humanity of Kinsey himself, his wife, family and associates--and without any overweening reverence. No sensationalism here either:. even Kinsey's explorations into homosexuality are handled in a mature manner, with no "oooh! oooh!" or wink-wink-nudge-nudge garbage.

One criticism that could be leveled against the film is that it does not delve into Kinsey's masochism. However, that subject could not only be a film in itself, but also that delving too far into that particular subject would have detracted from the basic, compassionate aim of Kinsey's work.

Simply put, Kinsey wanted people to have good, solid information on sex and sexuality, free from voodoo, mumbojumbo, religious ignorance, and trite colloquial customs.

What he found, though, is what many of us since have found: that sex is so multi-layered and multi-faceted that any exploration of it yields far more questions than one might be able to answer in a single lifetime.

But, we all owe alot to the man--even if, for the most part, his work was taken as a cold exploration of sexuality without a concurrent exploration of the emotions that often accompany sexual experience. Because the basic physiological and biological information about sex and sexuality was so lacking at that time, Kinsey more than likely did not have the time nor the means to explore the subtle nuances of sexual psychology as well.

I got to thinking, though, about Kinsey's gall wasp research (the springboard for his sexual research) and of the things I found in my explorations of the shadowy world of sadomasochism--and how the psychological things I discovered seem to challenge the pervading ethos held by members of the psychological community.

More often than not, the psychological community likes to believe that it has the pat explanation for why people are drawn to sadomasochistic activities--maybe because there has been so little written on it from a physiological perspective, and maybe because no researchers have asked the right questions. Still, the approved explanation for people's sadomasochistic tendencies--that these tendencies derive from abusive childhood experiences--is one that the majority of those that encounter sadomasochism like to believe is the only true answer for why some indulge in it.

I say bullshit.

I cannot say that my interest in dominance and sadomasochism came from an abusive childhood. I used to think so. Or that's what my shrinks wanted me to think while they tried to de-program me from all those nasty awful pathological thoughts....until I really went into it.

And when I went into it, I met so many different people who were exploring it for different reasons--for latent bi and homosexuality, for the relief it gave from various mental conditions, for the need to have a daddy/mommy figure, for the need for heightened physical stimulus....and for many more reasons than I have words to explain. The people who were the most helpful to me were (and continue to be) those who were into sadomasochism way before the Internet and way before the whacko abuse theories that evolved out of the Recovery Movement of the 1980s--people who had experienced sadomasochism in Europe and those in the Leather community. Through some of the tough love I received from them, I was able to differentiate my own desires from the motives projected onto me by a pop culture that likes to take sadomasochistic imagery and use it as a marketing tool and from the psychotherapists who believe that any tic or wince outside of a normative scale must be exorcised and excoriated.

For me, it comes down to intimacy. Is a man strong enough and willing enough to let me take him places he's never thought of, to open his body up to new experiences without feeling threatened by the emotions he may also experience, and can he do the same for me? Can we, together, build a world that no one else knows of or dares to enter, and can that world comprise the most profound love two individuals can experience?

I see glimpses of this intimacy in experiences with Steady Eddie and with Lucky Bastard. Do I think I will ever get it all together in one person? Doubtful. Does it bother me? Yes and no. Yes that, like a kid in a candy store, I might not be able to have all I feel entitled to....and No, that at least I have had some experience of what that kind of intimacy might be.

There are risks when you push the envelope of sexuality and want to know more than what everybody else does. Kinsey took risks that brought him derision and ridicule. Perhaps, in my explorations, the risks will not bring derision and ridicule, but will hamper my abilities to attain that high level of intimacy with one single person.

I don't know. There is still much to explore.