Question about Psychology of BDSM (with apologies)

[TomOfSweden]

TomofSweden, you can probably replace my talk of "story" above with some appropriate locution concerning "interpretation," and you'll see that Nietzsche's thought has indeed already done some work in helping me articulate the position I find myself in. The other authors you mentioned, I have not read. But I hope you see now that my concern isn't for "normalcy" but rather I simply am (as I said in my OP) perplexed by the situation in which I find myself, and interested in working through that perplexity somehow. I have no preconceptions as to what the end of such a working-through should look like.

Well, I think understanding human nature is the key to being less perplexed. I think that having a submissive nature is what most people are. That's just how the world works.

Next topic:

I do not understand Ozme's post and the ones following upon it. What is it you guys are saying is "true" about the situation he depicts? The situation does not appear to me to be appealing at all. (I say this both as my "public" "self" and as the "self" who fantasizes.) Does this mean that I've not really got BDSM in mind after all?

Mumei

Being vague is only a trick to cover up superficiality. Always. This thing that men protect the family, work and the woman is submissive at home is 100% myth created in the 40'ies. It's got nothing to do with basic human behaviour and has no basis in history. It's easy to find out if you spend some time studying. Sorry about being such an abrasive idiot here. But I couldn't find any way of formulating this kindly. Reinforcing false mythic images which have never been true really gets to me.

This is all covered by Focault. It's his main thing. Linky. But all modern philosophers share this view on this. This is just the continuation of the old Christian moral system we inherited, and which had pretty much died out by WWI had been replaced by new moral systems. Fear of god wasn't working. But it isn't a flaw in Christianity, we probably had the same moral codes in the religions before Christianity, that it simply took over.

The main features are.
Original sin - basicaly, we're all flawed and are no good no matter how hard we try. This is still pervasive in our culture. No matter if we're atheist or not.

Satan - We need an evil threatening other that defines us. ie what we're not. This was replaced by comunism, disease, radioctivity, drugs and so on depending on where you live. Different countries have their own Satans.

Garden of Eden/the noble savage - Humanity used to be better and now we're corrupted. We have to fight this corruption and return to naturalness.

Just take a thing like comunism. The maths doesn't stack up. Nobody ever who worked on it could have thought it was a good idea. It didn't matter. It wasn't a economic system. It's just Christianity in a new skin. All utopian ideologies are all about returning to the Garden of Eden where there exists no hate or greed.

The nuclear family was a similar construction to replace religion. It's original sin, all over again. It's a model of a family which very few people can live up to, which is the key to understand it. Women who didn't find a good man to take care of her was to feel guilty about it. Men who didn't find a good housewife and couldn't afford a nice car was similarly suposed to feel guilty about it. It's god nothing to do with any external force creating this, but a need in our culture. We have been used to this so long that if we don't have this, we create it superficially.

In the old European world the family was mostly a economic institution where both parties worked and the husband had fun sex with prostitutes. He had children with his wife. Most people lived in very cramped housing, and nobody ever had any private life. Cooperation with neighbours and family was vital for survival. Above all, mortality was very high so one parent families where very common. See, nuclear family is all just myth. We couldn't even begin to relate to that world today.