For ethical reason we aren't allowed to ask subjects to do anything which they or their society consider unethical. The problem to which I was devoting my life - how much a human being can be changed - could never be touched by scientists, since the bone ingredient of all men is their resistance to change; and it is unethical to insist that subjects do anything they don't want to do.
I decided to try to change some of the subjects of the Felloni-Rhinehart investigation. Since the research dealt with sexual behavior I would try to change sexual attitudes, proclivities and actions. Unfortunately, I knew that it took two years of analysis to change a homosexual to heterosexual, and that then such change rarely occurred. Could I convert virgins to nymphomania? Masturbators to rakehood? Faithful wives to adulteresses? Seducers to ascetics? Very doubtful. But possible.
To change man, the audience by which he judges himself must be changed. A man is defined by his audience: by the people, institutions, authors, magazines, movie heroes, philosophers by whom he pictures himself being cheered and booed. Major psychological disturbances, `identity crises,' are caused when an individual begins to change the audience for whom he plays: from parents to peers; from peers to the works of Albert Camas; from the Bible to Hugh Hefner. The-change from I-am-he-who-is-a-good-son to I-am-he-who-is-a-goodbuddy constitutes a revolution. On the other hand, if the man's buddies approve fidelity one year and infidelity the next, and the man changes from faithful husband to rake, no revolution has occurred. The class tale remains intact; only the policy on a minor matter has been altered.
In first becoming the dice man, my audience was changed from my peers in psychiatry to Blake, Nietzsche, Lao-Tzu. My goal was to destroy all sense of an audience; to become without values, evaluators, without desires: to be inhuman, all-inclusive. God.
In moving the dice man into sexual research, however, what I aspired to was a piece of ass. Zeus wished to disguise himself as beast and fornicate with a beautiful woman. But my equal desire, as strong as lust, was to become the audience for our subjects. As audience I might be able to create an atmosphere of all-embracing permissiveness, one in which the virgin would feel free to express her latest lech; the queer to express his latent desire for cunt. The dice man had discovered that the experimenting man was permitted almost everything. Could I create an experimental situation for the subjects which would be equally permissive? Such was my hope. Seduction is the art of making normal, desirable, good and rewarding what had previously seemed abnormal, undesirable, evil and unrewarding. Seduction was the art of changing another's audience and hence his personality. I refer, of course, to the classical seduction of the `innocent' and not to the mutual masturbation of promiscuous adults.
Dr. Felloni's dean-of-women dignity and my own rugged, professional look had convinced our subjects that we were the epitome of respectability. They had become more accustomed than the average person to discussing all sorts of outrageous sexuality with strange, non-condemning adults. All of this might ready them, so my thinking went, for any outrageous instructions we might give them.
`Now this afternoon, Mr. F., in the next room is a shy but promiscuous young woman your own age. She has been paid to make love to you. Be a gentleman with her, but insist that she fuck good. At the conclusion of your experience fill out the questionnaire in this sealed envelope. Be as honest as possible with your answers; they will be completely anonymous.'
`Miss F., in the next room is a shy young man your own age named F. Like yourself he is a virgin. He has been told that you are a prostitute hired to teach him the art of love. For this experiment we wish to see how well you can play this role by interacting with him sexually to permit us to collect as much data as possible. If you overcome your inhibitions about nudity and intimate sexual contact with a man you will receive a bonus of one hundred dollars. If you permit him to have sexual intercourse you will receive a bonus of two hundred dollars. For other possible bonuses read pages five and six of the enclosed instruction sheet and questionnaire. You need not fear pregnancy, since the other subject has been medically certified as sterile.'
`Tomorrow afternoon, Mr. J., you are to go to the address printed on this card. You will meet there a man who has been told you are a fellow homosexual. He will attempt to seduce you. You are to encourage him as much as possible, while noting your own feelings and reactions. If he achieves an orgasm you will receive a bonus of one hundred dollars for producing such significant data. If you also achieve orgasm you will receive an additional two-hundred #161;dollar bonus. We are interested in studying the social and sexual intercourse between normal men like yourself and homosexual men.. Within the enclosed…'
Instructions like these came parading through my mind. I might have to hire prostitutes and homosexuals, but in some cases I might have subjects playing both roles. (Two heterosexual men banging away at each other collecting data.) I began to believe that human beings are capable of anything. Our other-directed modern men are so accustomed to looking to the immediate social environment for approval or disapproval that, given the correct experimental leader, tone and situation, I should be able to get the subjects to alter their customary sexual roles.
It seemed a worthy project, worthy of the Marquis de Sade. Consciously, I wanted to confirm my theory of the malleability of man, but I seemed to be taking a rather fiendish non-rational delight in the prospect.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Hectic, hectic, hectic. The life of an experimenter is not easy. To set up mazes, find rats to run them, measure the results and to tabulate everything is hard. To set up sexual encounters, find people to run them, measure the results and believe everything is harder.
Nevertheless, in the next few weeks I completed the complicated task of setting up what was officially named the Rhinehart-Felloni Investigation of Amorality Tolerance, but which has become generally known among New York psychiatrists as `Fuck Without Fear for Fun and Profit,' and in the New York Daily News as `The Columbia Copulation Caper.'
I had some trouble convincing Dr. Felloni of the correctness of our joint venture, but I took her to lunch one day and just kept talking about `test of the stability of behavioral patterns and attitudes under experimental conditions' and `the Leiberwitz-Loom criteria for defining a homosexual,' and `heterosexuality as defined operationally by the maintenance of an erection in the presence of a woman for five or more minutes' and, as my clincher, `the complete quantification of all results.'
She finally agreed and laid great professional stress on the necessity of anonymity for all subjects.
The first two weeks of the experiment were incredibly confusing. Too many of our hired personnel - prostitutes male and female - were failing to show up or, more usually, failing to follow instructions. Women hired to play hard-to-get would bring along a friend and give our subject an orgy. Another woman hired to exhaust a Don Juan type sexually, fell asleep after fifteen minutes and couldn't be roused even by a gentle beating with a belt.
Many of our subjects, after seeming to agree to the experiment, disappeared. I was desperate for subjects, `lab assistants' (our `help' was so designated in our budget and foundation report) and data. I found myself tempted to hire my wife, Arlene, Miss Reingold even, to meet the various appointments. Dr. Felloni reported that she was having the same problem with the group of subjects she was dealing with. The confusion was further compounded by our having to use the same two apartments for all our `experimental sessions.'