Read Online SM 101: A Realistic Introduction by Jay Wiseman - Free Book Online
Authors: Jay Wiseman
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Area SM community. I was its sole officer for about the first three years of its existence. When I finally stepped down because I was leaving the Bay Area to attend medical school, I must admit that I was much more than willing to turn over the job.
Let me add that I had become terribly proud of Gemini. It was a tolerant, inclusive organization that had helped many people resolve often-thorny issues around their sexuality. I felt especially proud of the work Gemini and I had done helping women realistically integrate this aspect of their sexuality into the rest of their lives. Male-dominant/female-submissive play is the “least politically correct” form of SM, and many women I met felt terribly guilty and ambivalent about doing this. They were clear that they liked it, and found erotically submitting to a man deeply rewarding, but weren’t at all sure that doing so was all right.
I remember in particular the time I told a novice submissive woman who was having trouble setting limits with her far-too-pushy boyfriend, “Look, just because you’re a slave to your lover in the bedroom doesn’t mean you have to be a slave to him in the rest of your life.”
She looked at me with astonishment.
“I don’t?” she asked incredulously.
“No,” I answered, “you don’t. Not unless you want to, anyway.”
I felt you enjoyed my submission, but didn’t exploit it. That felt really good.
A very thoughtful look appeared on her face.
Hearing that statement from the head of a male-dominant SM club clearly had an effect on her. That relationship didn’t last much longer.
During those days, I once wrote something to the effect of“Nowadays, a woman is free to do anything she wants except sometimes give up her freedom.” I heard from many, many erotically submissive women who agreed with that statement, and had experienced considerable emotional pain at how confining their new “freedom” was in this respect. Even though their sisters told them that they were completely free to make any choices they wanted, they weren’t really free to make some of the choices they were “free” to make. Thus is the human condition.
My return. I was away at medical school for about two years. During that time, I heard occasional bits of gossip, and occasionally got to read a copy of the Society of Janus newsletter “Growing Pains,” but, by and large, I was out of touch. When I returned late in 1984, the situation had changed quite a bit.
Digression. I’ve mentioned to you that I started medical school, yet you may have noticed that I’m not an M.D. Because I raised the issue, I believe I owe it to you to complete it.
Shortly after I returned to the Bay Area, I had to quit medical school, even though I was doing quite well. I was in the top third of my class, and passed the internship qualifying examination in about two years. I also helped teach classes in advanced cardiac life support to physicians, nurses, and paramedics.
Why, then, did I have to quit? This period, as I look back on it, was one of the darkest and most frustrating episodes in my life. I went to a Caribbean medical school somewhat like the one on Grenada. My money ran out, my family was no longer willing to help me, and the American medical establishment was trying its damnedest to limit the number of Americans studying medicine abroad by, among other things, denying us student loans. In this and many other ways, the treatment my fellow students and I received exposed me to the dark realities of the political and, especially, economic underbelly of how medicine is practiced in the United States. Despite the fact that many people wish it were otherwise, health care in this country today is, before anything else, a for-profit business; that brutal, basic fact is pervasive and decisive. Profit is to medicine what blood is to tissue.
It may seem contradictory to regard SM as life-affirming, but I assure you that it’s true.
Anyway, by that point it
Let me add that I had become terribly proud of Gemini. It was a tolerant, inclusive organization that had helped many people resolve often-thorny issues around their sexuality. I felt especially proud of the work Gemini and I had done helping women realistically integrate this aspect of their sexuality into the rest of their lives. Male-dominant/female-submissive play is the “least politically correct” form of SM, and many women I met felt terribly guilty and ambivalent about doing this. They were clear that they liked it, and found erotically submitting to a man deeply rewarding, but weren’t at all sure that doing so was all right.
I remember in particular the time I told a novice submissive woman who was having trouble setting limits with her far-too-pushy boyfriend, “Look, just because you’re a slave to your lover in the bedroom doesn’t mean you have to be a slave to him in the rest of your life.”
She looked at me with astonishment.
“I don’t?” she asked incredulously.
“No,” I answered, “you don’t. Not unless you want to, anyway.”
I felt you enjoyed my submission, but didn’t exploit it. That felt really good.
A very thoughtful look appeared on her face.
Hearing that statement from the head of a male-dominant SM club clearly had an effect on her. That relationship didn’t last much longer.
During those days, I once wrote something to the effect of“Nowadays, a woman is free to do anything she wants except sometimes give up her freedom.” I heard from many, many erotically submissive women who agreed with that statement, and had experienced considerable emotional pain at how confining their new “freedom” was in this respect. Even though their sisters told them that they were completely free to make any choices they wanted, they weren’t really free to make some of the choices they were “free” to make. Thus is the human condition.
My return. I was away at medical school for about two years. During that time, I heard occasional bits of gossip, and occasionally got to read a copy of the Society of Janus newsletter “Growing Pains,” but, by and large, I was out of touch. When I returned late in 1984, the situation had changed quite a bit.
Digression. I’ve mentioned to you that I started medical school, yet you may have noticed that I’m not an M.D. Because I raised the issue, I believe I owe it to you to complete it.
Shortly after I returned to the Bay Area, I had to quit medical school, even though I was doing quite well. I was in the top third of my class, and passed the internship qualifying examination in about two years. I also helped teach classes in advanced cardiac life support to physicians, nurses, and paramedics.
Why, then, did I have to quit? This period, as I look back on it, was one of the darkest and most frustrating episodes in my life. I went to a Caribbean medical school somewhat like the one on Grenada. My money ran out, my family was no longer willing to help me, and the American medical establishment was trying its damnedest to limit the number of Americans studying medicine abroad by, among other things, denying us student loans. In this and many other ways, the treatment my fellow students and I received exposed me to the dark realities of the political and, especially, economic underbelly of how medicine is practiced in the United States. Despite the fact that many people wish it were otherwise, health care in this country today is, before anything else, a for-profit business; that brutal, basic fact is pervasive and decisive. Profit is to medicine what blood is to tissue.
It may seem contradictory to regard SM as life-affirming, but I assure you that it’s true.
Anyway, by that point it
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