“Twenty Paragraphs of Written Instructions”

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Notes

notes

1 Krafft-Ebing 170. This is yet another example of the role of the formal contract in masochism, something recurrent in masochistic texts from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch to Elfride Jelinek. Deleuze discusses the role of the contract in masochism in “Coldness and Cruelty.”

2 It is important to recognise that slavery in Moll's case is imaginary, and thus cannot be too quickly or loosely identified with literal slavery. Yet its role as part of the West's slave-imaginary does supply it with an historical/political function. It would be worthwhile to investigate how fantasies of slavery (erotic, orientalist or other) have either obstructed or encouraged campaigns against slavery. The idea that fantasies of slavery might help fight slavery seems counter-intuitive. However, since fantasies of powerlessness must stage a certain irreducible ownership of power, slave-play puts power at issue in ways that must be desperately resisted by literal economies of slavery.

3 Califia 165.

4 There are, of course, significant differences between masochism and S/M, and the two cannot be simply conflated. The purely masochistic contract subordinates the putatively dominant to the submissive's designs. In S/M, on the other hand, a more complex and bilateral organisation of power takes place. Yet, whatever their specific configuration of power, they both can be understood as re-staging versions of social power. My aim is to analyse the general relationship between power in the scene and social power, regardless of the specific denomination of power being staged.

5 Califia 166.

6 Ibid. 159.

7 Foucault 46.

8 Perniola 4.

9 Ibid. 4.

10 Ibid. 10.

11 Ibid. 17.

12 Ibid. 18.

13 Ibid. 17.

14 Borradori 94.

15 Ibid. 95.

16 Ibid. 99.

17 Perniola 21.

18 Ibid.

19 Borradori 99.

20 Derrida 228–98.

21 Borradori 99.