My first exposure to BDSM was in this movie called Waxwork. It's a campy horror with the guy from another campy horror called Gremlins. Out right there wasn't anything super sexual about the movie, at least not by 80's horror standards. No boobs, no gratuitous sex, just him... the Marquis de Sade.
I was fascinated by the plot, the idea of how these wax figures were fashioned and posed in such a way to replicate particular monsters throughout history. I remember my own brush with a wax museum in New Orleans, and the story of a little slave girl who supposedly ran and jumped out of a third story window in an effort to escape the wrath of the Madame Lalaurie. To this day, the window remains boarded up, and the thought of that particular scene is etched in my mind.
It was the de Sade scene in the movie that gripped me though. At the time I didn't know who de Sade was, or what the scene represented. Still. despite the mediocre acting and shoddy set, I was captivated and something stirred within me. A young, innocent looking girl dressed in all white, save for a black blindfold is led into a room full of other scantily clad women and older courtly type gentlemen. I couldn't understand her compulsion. Why there was no fear in her eyes. Sure, the plot of the movie forced the characters to act out as the character in the wax scene would. So, I was confused. Was she willingly being led in of her own free will?
As the scene progressed my confusion only grew. She's shackled in the center of the room. There's no hesitation, or fear. Just this resolute stare and submission. When de Sade began to whip her, I thought surely this was punishment. Who could possibly enjoy this? However, that stirring feeling I was feeling, told me that while it might seem or feel wrong, something about it was oh so right.
For years the scene stuck in my mind. As I started to explore sexually, I was a bit animistic. I liked pushing and I liked seeing just how much of me my partner could take. I learned that women had varying degrees of pain thresholds and different ideas of rough sex. I explored and tried to learn the language of the body. I tried to learn when they wanted more, or when they had reached their limit.
Looking back, I was stabbing aimlessly in the dark. While I began to understand the baser needs and desires, I was missing the eloquence that had been in that scene. It's almost romantic in a twisted, yet delightful way. I understand now, that it was the anticipation that excited me. When I rewatched it after some years. I had a better understanding of it this time. I recognized part of myself in the de Sade character. That's why it had stirred me. It was the sense of like meets like.The Sadism, the Dominance, and the voyeuristic tendencies are all microcosms of what define me as a sexual being. This prompted me to delve into understanding who de Sade was. What made him a monster worthy of putting on display?
It's the idea of what the scene represented. I think it's the unknown and the fear that comes with it. There's the inability to understand how someone would willingly subject themselves to torture in the pursuit of pleasure. In a world as rigid as ours, dark secrets and desires are buried instead of drug out into the light of day, and the perverse is akin to the macabre. It's terrifying to the uninitiated. I was never scared though. I was intrigued.
I would rather be the monster, than be the one afraid.
The scene...
Here's the Lalaurie house and the window... I think you can spot the window.
