Q.
‘Alive and kicking. She lives with my sister and her husband and their two small children. Very much alive. Nor do — rest assured that I do not delude myself that the low percentage of rebuffs is due to any over-whelming allure on my part. This is not how an activity like this works. In fact, it is one reason why I propose the possibility in such a bold and apparently graceless way. I withhold any attempt at charm or assuasion. Because I know, full well, that their response to the proposal depends on factors internal to them. Some will wish to play. A few will not. That is all there is to it. The only real [finger flexion] talent I profess is the ability to gauge them, screen them, so that by the — such that a preponderance of the third dates are, if you will, [finger flexion] hens rather than [finger flexion] cocks. I use these avian tropes as metaphors, not in any way to characterize the subjects but rather to emphasize my own unanalyzable ability to know, intuitively, as early as the first date, whether they are, if you will, [f.f.] ripe for the proposal. To tie them up. And that is just how I put it. I do not dress it up or attempt to make it seem any more [sustained f.f.] romantic or exotic than that. Now, as to the rebuffs. The rebuffs are very rarely hostile, very rarely, and then only if the subject in question really in fact does wish to play but is conflicted or emotionally inequipped to accept this wish and so must use hostility to the proposal as a means of assuring herself that no such wish or affinity exists. This is sometimes known as [f.f.] aversion coding. It is very easy to discern and decipher, and as such it is nearly impossible to take the hostility personally. The rare subjects about whom I’ve simply been incorrect, on the other hand, are often amused, or sometimes curious and thus interrogative, but in all events in the end they simply decline the proposal in clear and forthright terms. These are the cocks I have mistaken for hens. It happens. As of my last reckoning, I have been rebuffed just over fifteen percent of the time. On the third date. This figure is actually a bit high, because it includes the hostile, hysterical, or affronted rebuffs, which do not result — at least in my opinion — which do not result from my misjudging a [f.f.] cock.’
Q.
‘Again, please note that I do not possess or pretend to possess specialized knowledge about poultry or professional brood-management. I use the metaphors only to convey the apparent ineffability of my intuition about prospective players in the [f.f.] game I propose. Nor, please also note, do I so much as touch them or in any way flirt with them before the third date. Nor, on that third date, do I launch myself at them or move toward them in any way as I hit them with the proposal. I propose it bluntly but unthreateningly from my end of a four-and-a-half-foot ottoman. I do not force myself on them in any way. I am not a Lothario. I know what the contract is about, and it is not about seduction, conquest, intercourse, or algolagnia. What it is about is my desire symbolically to work out certain internal complexes consequent to my rather irregular childhood relations with my mother and twin sister. It is not [f.f.] S and M, and I am not a [f.f.] sadist, and I am not interested in subjects who wish to be [f.f.] hurt. My sister and I are fraternal twins, by the way, and in adulthood look scarcely anything alike. What I am about, when I suddenly inquire, à propos nothing, whether I might take them into the other room and tie them up, is describable, at least in part, in the phrase of Marchesani and Van Slyke’s theory of masochistic symbolism, as proposing a contractual scenario [no f.f.]. The crucial factor here is that I am every bit as interested in the contract as in the scenario. Hence the blunt formality, the mix of aggression and decorum in my proposal. They took her in after she suffered a series of small but not life-threatening strokes, cerebral events, and simply could no longer get around well enough to live on her own. She refused even to consider institutional care. This was not even a possibility so far as she was concerned. My sister, of course, came immediately to the rescue. Mummy has her own room, while my sister’s two children must now share one. The room is on the first floor to prevent her having to negotiate the staircase, which is steep and uncarpeted. I have to tell you, I know precisely what the whole thing is about.’
Q.
‘It is easy to know, there on the ottoman, that it is going to happen. That I have gauged the affinity correctly. Ligeti, whose work, you are doubtless aware, is abstract nearly to the point of atonality, provides the ideal atmosphere in which to propose the contractual scenario. Over eighty-five percent of the time the subject accepts. There is no [f.f.] predatory thrill at the subject’s [f.f.] acquiescence, because it is not a matter of acquiescence at all. Not at all. I will ask how they feel about the idea of my tying them up. There will be a dense and heavily charged silence, a gathering voltage in the air above the ottoman. In that voltage the question dwells until it has, comme on dit, [f.f.] sunk in. They will, in most cases, abruptly change their position on the ottoman so as suddenly to straighten their posture, [f.f.] sit up straight and so on — this is an unconscious gesture designed to communicate strength and autonomy, to assert that they alone have the power to decide how to respond to the proposal. It stems from an insecure fear that something ostensibly weak or pliable in their character might have led me to view them as candidates for [sustained f.f.] domination or bondage. People’s psychological dynamics are fascinating — that a subject’s first, unconscious concern is what it might be about her that might prompt such a proposal, might lead a man to think such a thing might be possible. Reflexively concerned, in other words, about their self-presentation. You would almost have to be there in the room with us to appreciate the very, very complex and fascinating dynamics that accompany this charged silence. In point of fact, in its naked assertion of personal power, the sudden improvement in posture in fact communicates a clear desire to submit. To accept. To play. In other words, any assertion of [f.f.] power signifies, in this charged context, a hen. In the heavily stylized formalism of [f.f.] masochistic play, you see, the ritual is contracted and organized in such a way that the apparent inequality in power is, in fact, fully empowered and autonomous.’
Q.
‘Thank you. This shows me you really are attending. That you are an acute and assertive auditor. Nor have I put it very gracefully. What would render you and I, for example, going to my apartment and entering into some contractual activity that included my tying you up true [f.f.] play is that it would be entirely different from my somehow luring you to my home and once there launching myself at you and overpowering you and tying you up. There would be no play in that. The play is in your freely and autonomously submitting to being tied up. The purpose of the contractual nature of masochistic or [f.f.] bonded play — I propose, she accepts, I propose something further, she accepts — is to formalize the power structure. Ritualize it. The [f.f.] play is the submission to bondage, the giving up of power to another, but the [f.f.] contract—the [f.f.] rules, as it were, of the game — the contract ensures that all abdications of power are freely chosen. In other words, an assertion that one is secure enough in one’s concept of one’s own personal power to ritualistically give up that power to another person — in this example, me — who will then proceed to take off your slacks and sweater and underthings and tie your wrists and ankles to my antique bedposts with satin thongs. I am, of course, for the purposes of this conversation, merely using you as an example. Do not think that I am actually proposing any contractual possibility with you. I scarcely know you. Not to mention the amount of context and explanation I am granting you here — this is not how I operate. [Laughter.] No, my dear, you have nothing to fear from me.’