Priapus's Splinter and The Tightrope's Walk of Reconciliation with Human Deviancy

Here's my concern. And it's not really a concern but a statement of position.

Years ago I read a little book called "Priapus and the Phallic Quest." It was an interesting, if incomplete book on a certain strain of "inflated" male psychology, that of the Don Juan and the Transvestite. The book describes the ancient mythology of the minor Roman deity Priapus, whose primary attribute was his having an enormous penis. Other than that, he was a fairly squat, often very ugly man, but his cock was always portrayed as outsized, erect, and humongous (there are even pictures of him weighing his cock to see how big it was). Priapus's mythology was also, not surprisingly, associated with the scythe, which is the tool used for "cutting back." So the connection is either that when one exaggerates one's manhood, one faces a "cutting back" or castration as a compensatory response from the outside world, or that some original cutting was the source of the inflation in the first place. So the god seems to be a little trapped.

Anyway, my point here, unfortunately, is not to go into the mythology of the God and his expression through the lives of men both modern and ancient. The author of the book, James Wyly does an adequate, if meandering job of that in his text. My point here is something Wyly mentions about the origins of Priapus: He writes that Priapus was not always around in Roman mythology. He arrived on the scene sometime in the early part of the Common Era, when a kind of masculine stasis had set in in the Roman culture, and so the need for such a God arose in the collective psyche. Priapus, Wyly writes, was a "splinter god," a god who is almost a fragment, split off from the other chthonic masculine gods of the time who had lost their potency. So in a culture that could no longer express its natural Martial (of Mars) energy, the god Priapus would emerge as a kind of compensation for the weak, or lost masculine energies of the more complete god, often displayed as a pouty but proud mother's boy. When the organic masculinity could become restored in the culture, the need for Priapus would disappear, and the masculine principle in the culture would reintegrate and find itself whole again, not needing any kind of splintering off.

This concept of "splinter god" is what fascinates me here- that our psyches, when they are not permitted to express organically, form fractures that live out detached, separate - but also incomplete - lives apart from the main stream of the collective psyche. So of course in our modern world, BDSM comes to mind as a kind of expression of this fragment, this detached world which lives out a very particular strain of masculine (and feminine) life that is not permitted or available to the culture at large.

In its broadest sense, putting aside all the accoutrements and gadgets, the elements of submission and Dominance have made themselves unavailable in our increasingly egalitarian culture. From many points of view, the rise of female equality, masculine curtailment, and the end of slavery and serfdom are substantial human achievements. They mark a kind of capital-P Progress that may have been the goal of humanity since its inception.

But what is left off from that condition is, by necessity, the primitive, instinctual, un-evolved realm of ancient, primordial sexuality. The cerebral cortex that mankind bandies about with so much glee and pride is the part of our brain that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is what makes us human and not "merely beasts," as many scholars (not surprisingly) have put it. The ability to inhibit instinct, to reason and control - these are the attributes which have brought us society, culture, and civilization, and they are worthy of the credit for defining us as humans.

But what we typically forget is that this prefrontal cortex is not able to carry itself around on its own. It is not a free floating computer that is wired merely to a mouth for talking and fingers for typing on a computer. No, it is attached to an entire primitive organism that is governed by both the limbic system and the reptilian brainstem. It is an adjunct, not a replacement. And yet so often we think it is just this sort of disembodied, walking "truth." We wish to ourselves, "If only we could get rid of these primitive instincts for sex and war and barbary, then we would truly be enlightened." And it may yet be that we will figure out how to do that (though I have my doubts), but for the moment, our prefrontal cortex is wedded to both our mammalian and our reptilian instincts, which provide all of the organic intelligence for supporting the biological life that permits our "human" brain to exist at all.

So the cultural desire to split off the instinctive brain from the human brain leaves us in a bit of a quandary. How on earth do we do that? Well, the complete answer is that we don't. But as we try to anyway, we create "splinters," or "remainders," in the sense of the leftovers from a mathematical division equation that aren't able to fit neatly into the larger number (i.e. 16 divided by 5 = 3, Remainder: 1).

And for many intents and purposes, that is what the BDSM world is in the context of our modern society. It is the remainder, or the fragment that has become a world unto itself, for all the instinctual desires to be Unequal, to be sexually differentiated and not homogenous. It is the desire to surrender and submit completely to another person - or to control another person - in ways that are wholly forbidden in an enlightened society. In the uncivilized context, the D/s dynamics play out naturally. We have hierarchies of power (alpha and beta males/females), we have overt aggression, violence, and torture, and we have the pleasure of submissives to yield to the power of the "higher ups." So in the uncivilized context, there is no need for an explicit arena of life dedicated solely to D/s, just as there was no need for an explicit arena of life to go to the gym and exercise. Exercise is completely interwoven with the processes of life. There is no separation. Both exercise and BDSM are simply what happens when animals get together. But the idealized society our frontal cortex has envisioned has dedicated itself to the curtailing of these baser instincts in the service of peace and equality. And bully for them. But since we are unable to eliminate or "carve away" these baser instincts, we require both health clubs and dungeons to live out these fragments from our natural, un"improved" selves.

My sense is that the marriage of the two principles re-emerges at a higher plane of consciousness in the understanding that the submission/Dominance relationship is entered into voluntarily and not by force. So the egalitarian, liberated requirements of society are fulfilled in that one moment when one chooses to surrender all of one's power to another. That differentiates us from the beasts and the ancients enough to satisfy our egalitarian prejudices, but leaves us completely free to give up our freedom or to absorb it from another by an act of will. After all, presumably there were ancient (and modern) slaves who would rather not be slaves, and there were many masters who would have preferred not to have been masters. Neither one was fulfilled by their society's lack of freedom to choose their roles. So in the end, out modern method, should it finally reintegrate, would indeed be a great step forward.

But for now, the fragmentary relationship between BDSM and the mainstream society remains.

That's not to say that there aren't other avenues for D/s roles out in the world - business, politics, and the politics that permeate every business, from university faculties to construction teams, betray elements of primitive BDSM dynamics in ways that aren't freely chosen by the participants. So does High School. In a way, this makes the deliberate bondage world we live in far more enlightened than the society that pretends to having transcended primitivism altogether. By acknowledging the reality of this dynamic, we are able to put in place structures that protect the fundamental humanity of our participants while apparently expunging it completely. This is the paradox of BDSM which I love so much and which leads me to believe we have stumbled upon something closer to the Truth than situations that come to cleaner, paradox-free conclusions.

One of my concerns, however, is the tendency to institutionalize the fragment that is BDSM - to invest too much in the splinter world such that we forget its context in the larger reality. This is a real danger, because when it becomes time to reintegrate with the larger culture (to nourish and liberate both fragment and norm), it will be harder to let go of the identification with fragment status, and this could sabotage the whole enterprise. For example, in the modern drug war, which has tuned Marijuana from a naturally occurring organism into contraband, an entire fragmentary culture of pot growers, distributors, and dealers has arisen as a parallel underground to the mainstream culture - just like BDSM has arisen as a parallel culture to explore authentic sexual dynamics in a culture of sexual prohibition.* The stated purpose of both subcultures is to get the mainstream to accept the reality of the D/s sex drive and to accept the legitimacy of wanting to get high. But in recent years, as movements to legalize Marijuana have come to the fore, it has been the pot growers themselves who have opposed it. After all, making the drug legal would cut into their profits considerably, since pot is a weed and can be grown anywhere. Why pay $3000 a pound to a professional pot grower when you can grow your own for free? So because in the intervening years of prohibition, the illegal pot dispensing industry has invested so much in their fragment status, when it comes time to reintegrate, they actually wind up resisting and holding back their original goal of "healing" the mainstream (and themselves) by forming a higher union (no pun intended) .

And so for the BDSM "practitioner" to invest too heavily in their fragment identity, they run the risk of committing this same offense. One must live out the fragment qua fragment in order to remain a whole person internally in the context of a D/s-prohibitive society - that is why we do this in the first place. But we also have to keep one or two toes firmly planted in the vanilla world so that when it comes time to reintegrate and live even fuller lives, we are able to do so without feeling that our whole identity is coming apart.

One could make other analogies as well - from gay liberation to corn growers. Corn subsidies seemed like a good idea during the Depression (they weren't) because people were starving. And so it seemed sensible to make corn cheaper for the starving people to buy. But the corn growers got used to the subsidies, invested as if the temporary subsidies were permanent, and when it became time to release the subsidies to the market (when the acute economic Depression had ended), the corn industry balked. They said, "We want to keep these, thank you very much, and the public's attention has largely moved on to other topics, so we will lobby to preserve our handouts." The results have been disastrous: Monocropping, GMO infestation, and the epidemic of corn syrup-manufactured obesity that has killed many more Americans over the past 50 years than the original subsidies may have saved from starvation. These are all side effects from the corn industry's adherence to an outmoded "identity" of government dependence. But this is what investing in fragments begets. And it is the rare sage who is able to see the inevitable temporariness of a fragment situation (like the Depression) and not make permanent investments in it.

For gay rights the problem may be more obvious. I have seen only a couple of handfuls of LGBT films in my day, but the central theme to all of them was "The culture rejects me and doesn't understand me. This is who I am." But what happens when the culture begins to accept and understand you (typical liberal hypocrisy aside)? Who are you then? One lesbian friend of mine refers to this condition as being "a professional gay," in which your entire identity is based not on yourself, but on your rejection by society and your fight against that society. This makes progress extremely difficult, again, because the investment has been made in the fragment status, rather than the total self. Obviously this is not a problem for all gay people (such as my friend), as it isn't for all corn crowers. But it is a common enough and natural enough occurrence that it needs to be brought up. Because for BDSM to serve out its function, which I believe is as a fragment for the authentic - UNequal - nature of sexuality that is forbidden in mainstream culture, it needs to keep one eye on the prize of eventual reunion and cultural awakening to the joys of ownership, possession, pain, pleasure, submission, and authentic Dominance - all in the context of mutual consent and agreement, which modern civilization rightfully requires.

Will there always be a place for hard edge play, in which non-consent and brute force are really what are required (as in NON-non-consent-consent, i.e. real rape and battery)? I'm not sure. It may always be so that we wish to complete ourselves collectively by integrating every last bit of the historical human/mammallian/repitlian experience into our psyches. And non-consensual rape, slavery, and assault are part of that history. But I think the beauty of the enlightened perspective is its win-win nature: that the slave is as gratified by the service as the master is by receiving it.** In the case of forced slavery or rape, it seems likely that the slave is not gratified by their service and, we have to presume, at some deeper level, the Master is not really satisfied either.

There may be all sorts of esoteric and mythological reasons that these seemingly involuntary exchanges occur anyway - one would be through the classic pattern of the Persephone myth: In this central Greco-Roman myth, Demeter, the traditional Earth Goddess of the Harvest and the Fields was herself raped and, as typically happens, became rather resentful of men. When she had a daughter, Persephone, she did what she thought was right and tried to protect her daughter from the evils of men and thus kept her daughter's sexuality in check. Persephone, therefore, grew up incomplete, with her natural sexuality quashed by her mother's rage. And so Pluto, the god of the underworld, who represents the repressed/excluded shadow of mankind, became magnetically drawn into the scene to "complete" Persephone by giving her the dark form of masculine energy: rape. This dark, totally aggressive expression of masculine Dominance was the only avenue available into Persephone's sexuality, and so it was the only way she could experience her sexuality at all, thanks to her mother's attempt to control it away.

Interestingly, in the mythology, Pluto/Hades does not act alone. He is actually beckoned by two other Female Goddesses, Aphrodite/Venus and Hera/Juno, who are offended by Persephone's forced virginity. It is therefore the dormant desire for sexual fulfillment and eventually wifehood that are the real instigators in Persephone's rape. But because there is no authentic outlet for these expressions - thanks to the mother's forceful (even well-meaning) quashing of her daughter's instincts - the rape becomes inevitable as the only channel left available to sexual expression for Persephone- being completely taken against her will, possibly the most intense sexual experience available to women.***

The consensuality of rape is a much disputed legal question, as well it should be. But most laws were written for men by men and have a decidedly masculine bent. That is, things are either one thing or another - cut and dry.

The female psyche doesn't work like this, of course, and the confused feelings - and often real or suppressed orgasms - that can accompany rape are difficult to flesh out. The BDSM context provides a marvelous format for getting to the bottom of the feelings we all have about rape, reaching below the surface of simple morality or artificial legal contracts, into the "underworld," if you will, where Pluto and Persephone reign.

And so in the end, whatever the psychological precursors for what appear to be non-consensual rape are are best explored in a BDSM context, and it is for just this kind of purpose that the scene exists at all. One has to assume that, whatever Demeter's experience of her rape was, Persephone's was actually quite enjoyable. She became Pluto's wife -against the wishes of her mother - and ruled the underworld, where rape, torture, and Bondage all exist, shadowed away from the niceties of self-respecting vanilla civilization. Persephone's, like so many sub-girls', need to be commanded and commandeered has very few openings in the above ground world with its grief, moralizing, and concomitant hypocrisy. BDSM gives us access to the deeper, authentic longings of the human organism for service, submission, and control. It is as magnetically - indeed alchemically - drawn to vanilla civilization as Pluto was to Persephone. They require one another completely.

But the art of our larger lives lies in striking the balance between the below world and the above world - the splinter and the core. To invest too much in one and to deny the realty of the other is to live a forever shattered life, either dismally vanilla or hatefully kink. To dance gracefully - and unapologetically - between the two is the ultimate salvation for the total human self. This essay is simply a cautionary imploring to keep the dance moving onwards. . .

*In this context I mean prohibition of authentic D/s sexuality, not the omnipresent teeny-bopper sexuality that appears to be liberated but is in fact highly confused and unsatisfying. The popular liberal notion that we are now sexually liberated because women are now "allowed" to have orgasms only gets about half way around the bases. Coming back to the embrace of the fulfillment of women (and other subs) at total submission to Dominant (or Domme-inant) power is a step our supposedly sex-positive culture has yet to take.

** Worth noting the delightful paradox (and hence approachment to Truth) that the (masculine) Top receives (feminine) and the (feminine) bottom Gives (masculine) in the service context.

*** This likely makes Persephone's rape qualitatively very different from her mother's. It is hard to say, and I am not a woman, but it seems that Persephone would have been one of those women who very clearly enjoyed the experience, whereas her mother very clearly did not - or at least rebelled against the part of herself that did enough to destroy it completely in herself. Fortunately, from a cosmic perspective, she was not able to continue that destruction into the next generation, and so Persephone experiences the fullest brunt of aggressive masculine sexuality to break her mother's generational curse, and in doing so, remained in the Underworld with her Husband/God to rule over the dead and fulfill her sexual destiny. In every way, therefore, Persephone is the Queen of Bondage, taboo, rape, and chthonic female sexuality.