In November last year I was invited to Sadistique, a BDSM party organized by my friend Ayzad. I talked about the “erotica of martyrdom” in front of an attentive, colorful and half-dressed crowd, in the dungeon-style room where at the end of my conference – quite appropriately – a Saint Andrew’s cross was mounted.
I have mulled over the possibility of recounting that evening; I was afraid that capturing its unique atmosphere, and making it palpable, goes beyond my poor literary skills.
In the end, since this blog is still a diary of my explorations, I decided to transcribe the notes I took that very night when I got back to my hotel room. They already had some kind of basic form, although not as refined as I would have preferred, so I publish them here without too many revisions.
(All images come from Sadistique’s website, and are NSFW.)

The first intense sensory overload that I become aware of is sound.
Constant, incessant symphony of slaps and shouts, a narcotic torpor, like those morning half-sleeps in which hormones suggest only vaguely erotic — but really more subterranean — visions. The syncopated hissing and popping of the whips, the dry bumps of paddles and bare hands slapping on butts and legs, as hypnotic as my memory of the African drums — that night in the slums of Dar-Es-Salaam when I met that woman possessed by a demon. Reiteration induces the trance: back and gluteus and gluteus and back — the same body parts get hit again, again, again. Even when you want to be imaginative, sex is always repetitive. Variations at first sight seem very, very sporadic: however the tools keep changing, and the discerning public knows how to recognize the progression, taste the effect, knowing al the different nuances and sensations. (Note: every sadist identifies with the victim, or there would be no pleasure in inflicting a punishment; every masochist identifies with the executioner, or there would be no joy in seeing oneself so humiliated and hurt.)

One big central arena for “public” games, before spectators. In reality almost all the sessions, even those on the most secluded sofas, earn their group of admirers. But only  the most exhibitionist, or at least the most confident, dare to appear on the central stage. And you really have to be quite self-confident, because the audience doesn’t just watch, the spectators keep judging your performance, making technical considerations as if they were commenting a football match. “There, look, that knot should not be done like that, I say, at least loosen it during the transition!” “You must not miss this flogger, he has a wonderful wrist action. You won’t get to that level of mastery in a month or two.” “Look at that, if you use a cane like that, just to hurt, you’re missing the point. Where did all the poetry go? “

The most disarming thing: the constant alternation of sweetness and brutality. Brutality administered as part of a journey done together — even if it lasts just the time of one session — exploration and alteration of space-time… Three well-adjusted lashes, then the Dom approaches the Sub and caress him, whispers in his ear, makes sure they’re both going in the right direction. He needs to have the most precise understanding, because they’re proceeding together, united so the satisfaction is mutual. He asks if it is too much or too little. As if following the shaking of a divining rod, what they’re looking for here is the hidden vein of desire. An extreme spanking scene has been going on for almost half an hour on a nearby sofa: “Will you let me give you one last smack, with all my strength?” “No, not with all your strength…” (She is already almost crying, she writhes, her marked buttocks where two or three drops of blood adorn the purple bruises.) “Half strength then, can I?” “Half. But only once. “

A man is explaining to a girl how she will have to jump on him when he is lying on the ground. “Here, and here,” he says pointing at his naked torso. “Not here.” She is hesitant, terrified at the idea of breaking his ribs. “Number one: if I tell you to jump on my belly or chest, it’s because I know you won’t hurt me. Number two — and here he lowers his voice and leans towards her, in doing so he also comes closer to me, so I can hear what he’s whispering to her — remember that you to me are a gift.” She begins to cry with emotion. She shall jump on him several times that night, from the top of a stool, sinking her heels into his belly.

Evening proceeds not without comic moments. Even the Grotesque has a right of citizenship here — it couldn’t be otherwise, in such a mental space hanging on the edge of the precipice.
I love it when even the most experienced Master misses a hit. A whip spins around badly and hits the floor; a knot gets tangled and needs to be tied all over again; a cat o’ nine tails swooping through the air comes too close to a spectator (“Hey, be careful!”). Very human moments: wonderful contrast between the general sophisticated pose — we are in Milan after all, the city of fashion — and the surfacing of  carnivalesque tones.
One flashy girl is wearing a fetish mask with a zipper that covers her mouth, she walks up to the counter. The bartender: “What do I give you?” “Mmmfmmmfmsssmchhh,” she replies. (I have to walk away to keep from laughing.)
Involuntary but also voluntary comedy: I am told of a legendary session in which the safeword was the squawking of chicken, complete with elbow movement, QUACK!

One gentleman introduces himself to a couple asking if he can act as their footstool. “But what should we do?” “Nothing, I’ll just lie here, you put your feet upon me, every now and then pull on the leash, that’s all.” After ten minutes of this treatment the gentleman gets up, politely thanks them, then leaves.
And this sketch, with its dry surrealism, pushes me to another consideration.
The man under the couple’s has maintained a serious and discreet attitude the whole time, light years away from the drooling and horny slaves à la Tokyo Decadence. I couldn’t even say if he got excited. In fact in the common areas it very seldom happens to witness actual sex (there are private rooms for that); yet everything is sex. “I specialize in knives and cutting, but my wife is a needle artist”, one guy tells me. And in fact, shortly after, here she is poking the finger of a fifty-year-old man sporting hipster mustaches, slowly, several times. He sits there, as in a normal lounge bar, a cocktail in one hand and a young lady sticking a surgical needle deeply into the index finger of his other hand. Can this be called “sex”? I have no idea. Maybe it is sex, without being it.

A beautiful and almost totally naked  girl approaches me.
(I’m not one of those men who can’t help staring at a cleavage, but I wonder: in a situation like this, would it be considered rude as in the world out there? What’s the social rule, here?)
We chat a bit, she tells me about her degree thesis she’s just about to complete, and then says: “These thing need planning”. It is essential for her to separate these evenings from romantic commitments, she explains. She is only into ropes and whipping, the latter exclusively with the same trusted partner. I ask her what is the frequency. “Ropes I could do even once a week. Whipping just once a month, because then you have to recover and those marks take some time to disappear. This is why I say that it has to be carefully planned. Because if you go out with a guy shortly after a session, and things get hot, you might have to explain those marks, and you’ll end up looking crazy. “

My host Ayzad, an expert in alternative sexualities, often explains in his work how, in a context in which one person consensually inflicts pain on another, a “culture of respect” is even more congenital than in normal/normative sex. Here everything seems to confirm this idea.
The crowd is multi-ethnic, from all walks of life, encompassin all ages, sexual orientations, genders or genderbending possibilities, body types — including disabilities. Fashion outfits along with absolutely “proletarian” clothing solutions. Bodies that seem to come straight out of a Vogue cover, but here even adipose or withered skin is considered beautiful — in the end it does not really matter what you look like as long as you are good at handling a whip or enduring it.
I suppose the much heralded and a bit annoying “exclusivity” of the event, which I was discussing with M. the other day, is just a due facade; because on the whole, there seems to be a very high level of inclusiveness. I even see a guy wearing simple jeans, although clearly the fetish aesthetic, all studs and latex, is the prevailing one; even though a little corny by now, it’s a sort of established uniform of this subculture.

I think about how ambiguous, complex the BDSM imaginary is — one must never make the mistake of taking it at face value: echoes of slavery, imprisonment, torture… But it is, in fact, an image, a projection. And what are erotic fantasies if not a way of metabolizing the Obscene — if not even a social trauma — take f.i. Nazi exploitation films.
Translating fears, unconfessable drives and real horrors into the world of representation, of simulacra. Mise-en-scène of the obscene. (This is the reason why most of erotic literature is made up of functional characters, bi-dimensional figurines, puppets to move and recombine at will.)

I look at a woman locked in a cage. A naked female body in there would be a terrible image, if real. Instead this is what everyone here calls a “game” (again, a mise-en-scène): the woman in the cage is far from being a victim, and this whole pantomime is all but humiliating; she is delicately caressed by three or four people, men and women — and she’s the one pushing away those hands should they get too impudent, she’s deciding what’s approrpiate, she is the absolute protagonist of this theatrical tableau in which she can imagine herself as a sacrificial victim, or a captive Goddess.

A “game”. “Let’s play a game”. Everyone keeps repeating that, but is it really just a game?
Of course, there are the circus moments — sometimes I feel like I’m wandering down a sideshow’s midway. No fire eaters in sight, but plenty of fakirs: a man has 3 half-gallon bottles of water hanging from his scrotum (note: he seems to feel worse when he holds them still, so he keeps a swinging motion while his mistress is whipping his back).

There is all the picturesque panoply that one would expect: there are women hanging upside down, men trampled by stiletto heels, multicolored wax melted on breasts and genitals, male and female slaves, laces and handcuffs, collars, leashes and people on all fours.

But then I see this couple, two young people of a blinding beauty, she’s tied with her arms over her head to a metal structure… a clamped clothespin on her tongue… he’s fiercely belt-spanking her buttocks and back… the boy is methodical and expressionless, he seems almost an automaton, focused on his work. She pants and keeps her eyes closed, never opening them, not even when he comes over to say something in her ear (from what I can hear — I am very close — they seem words of encouragement). The clothespin forces her to the humiliation of a constant thread of saliva dripping down on her bare breasts, which he occasionally dries with a forgiving gesture. The body is a tuning fork, and to make it resonate it must be taken to the extreme. Curious animal, the human primate. How I would like to hide behind their eyes, understand what’s going on in their nervous system: is this public punishment a performance, a ritual, a pastime, a gym routine? A simple way of being and expressing oneself? Or is it really what it seems, an intimate moment of transcendence and total abandon to each other?
This strange crowd of people, who are always so sure of what they want or don’t want, down to the smallest contractual detail — how conscious are they of what they’re seeking?

At the end of the session, every now and then someone bursts into a liberating flood of tears. All the cuddling, the hugging, the murmured words, “you to me are a gift”… others instead laugh, chat, or they go for a cigarette break in the smoking room.
Right there I meet a 67-years-old man with whom I already spoke at the beginning of the evening, a retired employee in a copier company. Now he is caressing his wife’s shoulders. He tenderly examines the streaks he imprinted on her skin shortly before, as if those red tongues were an abstract work of art. He whispers to her, “You look like a baby tiger”. Her face lights up, and they both smile.

Here is perhaps the most surprising thing.
In this kaleidoscope of clamps, lashes, ropes, bruises, canes, screams — and that soporific, neverending slapping sound — I saw no trace of cruelty.