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So I just finished reading Venus in Furs (which I was compelled to quote even before I finished reading it). It goes without saying that this book does a beautiful job of exploring the desire of a man to subjugate himself to a cruel and dominant female. However, being the wierdo that I am I also found some interesting quotes that resonated with me as a practitioner of the alternative relationship lifestyle (doesn’t that sound fancy, basically my partner and I are polyamorous). A puritanical society always seems to vilify a sexually voracious woman, we are witches, succubi, heartbreakers. I have always felt that a relationship is an opportunity for growth and enjoyment and yet we want to possess our partners and lovers. As Severin says in Venus in Furs:

We would rather have a pale, sorry Holbein Virgin who belongs entirely to us than a classical Venus, no matter how divinely beautiful, if she loves Anchises today, Paris tomorrow, and Adonis the day after. And when Nature does triumph in us, when we abandon ourselves in burning passion to such a woman, her cheerful joie de vivre strikes us as demonic, as cruel, and we see our bliss as a sin that we must atone for.

I have always rebelled against conventional relationships and the idealization of female virginity (unless of course we are talking about some good cherry popping erotica). And Wanda’s response to her society’s restraints:

But you mean to say that the individual who rebels against the institutions of society is ostracized, stigmatized, stoned. Fine, I dare to try. My principles are quite pagan, I want to make the most of my existence. I can do without your hypocritical respect, I prefer happiness.

Yes! Yes! Yes! And what sane passionate woman wouldn’t? Now the story takes a few interesting turns (some that I did not expect from what I heard about it) and you will have to read it yourself to really get to know these two characters. However, the last titbit I want to share with you is from the last page when the protagonist is trying to explain to his friend the moral of his story (remember this was written in the 1800s). He says that in their current society a woman can never be man’s companion, she is his “enemy” and can only be either his “slave or his despot”:

She will be able to become his companion only when she has the same rights as he, when she is his equal in education and work.”

Now maybe I am a complete nerd but I find that thought fascinating. That a cruelly dominant woman is a product of the patriarchal society. So in fact the very society that denies women equal rights is a breeding ground for the perfectly sadistic fem domme. Hmmm…

I heard about Venus in Furs, by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch (yes, the term masochist was coined after his name) a while ago but I only just picked it up from the bookstore the other day, and even though I haven’t finished it yet I must say… Wow! What a marvelous venture into the mind of man obsessed with the ideal cruelly dominant woman, Venus herself… in furs no less. Some quotes to titillate you:

…and am I not entitled to be cruel? Man desires, woman is desired. That is woman’s entire but decisive advantage. Nature has put man at woman’s mercy through his passion, and woman is misguided if she fails to make him her subject, her slave, no, her toy…

We can truly love only that what stands above us, a woman who subjugates us through beauty, temperment, intellect, willpower, a woman who becomes our despot.

…and everyone knows and feels the close kinship between voluptuousness and cruelty.

Think, you man, you’re not much better than a dog, a lifeless obect. You are my thing, my toy, which I can smash to while away an hour. You are nothing, and I am everything. Do you understand?

So I finally got a few moments of free time to sneak into the comic book store and get me the last two installments in the Lucifer series. I think I want to do some very very naught things to Mike Carey. Here are some of my favorite quotes from books 10 and 11:

I stared at the fruits of my labors and wondered whether anyone had ever asked the devil for his money back

We must learn not to love, soldier. I was never cruel until I loved.

They obey me because Duma does and because, in the end, obedience is what angels are best at.

Flowers grow. Rain falls. People live, and die. The entire system maintained and guaranteed by a single will. Mine. In a room in a house in Antwerp, say, or Capetown, or New York, a child wakes from sleep, crying. The tear coursing down her cheek is like a miniature world, profound and crystalline and perfect. I am lost in it.

And this, too, is a lie. All stories are lies. But good stories are lies made of light and fire.

And long and late we lie together. After a coupling which, like the perfumes, deceived expectations. Sharp under sweetness. Delicate and harsh at once.

I’m not leaving. I’m arriving. Everywhere at once. And whatever else it might be, it’s not the end. It doesn’t feel like death. Unless a rockpool dies, when a wave breaks over it. Or warm breath dies as it fades and makes its peace with air.

And last but not least, this is Lucifer talking to Dream as Lucifer closes all the gates to hell. This excerpt is actually originally in Sandman by Neil Gaiman (another man I would do naughty things to) who created the Lucifer character:

Can you imagine what it was like? Ten billion years spent providing a place for dead mortals to torture themselves? And like all masochists they called the shots. “Burn me.” “Freeze me.” “Eat me.” “Hurt me.” and we did…They talk of me going around buying souls like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No they belong to themselves. They just hate to have to face up to it.

Mmmm…yes the things I would do to Mike Carey if I ever got my hands on him. I know, I know, I’m weird, artists who are good at what they do turn me on. And now I must go off and masturbate and then write some stories of my own.