On the subject of subs who want to be the victim, some years ago I got into correspondence with a genteel elderly man who very badly wanted someone to wall him up in a corner of a cellar, feed him through a hole till the food stopped being taken, then brick up the hole and forget about it. (His alternative dream was to be locked into a body bag and tube fed till he drowned in his accumulating excreta, then the bag sealed up and buried.) I talked to him a lot on the phone - he was as talkative as anyone who rarely gets a chance to share his deepest need - and I had no doubt that his desire was real and urgent: he said more than once, as if it made perfect sense, "It's what I deserve."

There was absolutely no way I was going to tell him that what he needed was major therapy, but likewise there was no way I was going to do it. As it happened, for quite separate reasons I was at that time very much under the eye of the Law, and all it would have needed to make my troubles complete would be a body in my cellar; but I wouldn't have done it even if I had been certain I could get away with it.

I've noted before that I'm cool with the idea of giving an extreme masochist a good (i.e. exquisitely painful) death, but only if hir life is at an end anyway. Like most euthanasia advocates, while I can accept helping someone who's dying anyhow and doesn't want it to be needlessly hard, I don't consider just being sick of oneself a good enough reason to die; certainly not good enough to warrant my help.

But I was really sorry for him, and if I could have put him in touch with someone who would realise his dream, I would have been happy to.