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RE: How are we Meant to be Used? A Meditation on Faith, Death, and Bondage
I don't know how I managed to miss this poem for so long, but I must say I love it! It's so...creepy and dark, it's right up my alley.
As I was reading, I wanted to comment that I think it's a bit darker than reality, but then again, it's poetic license, isn't it? Reality's as dark as you want it to be, when you're writing.
This reminded me of a Slash lyric I love 'But today, you'll be the master, Or the slave, it's up to you'....
Write on, my friend!
Well, I wanted to write something that was about more than sex. And about what makes ideas of mastery and submission so appealing to some people.
For example, both Jordan Peterson and Michel Houellebecq (two very different intellectuals) have written on the idea that religious submission and sexual submission may be linked in the psyche - and may even go some ways to explaining the appeal of the Muslim faith among otherwise progressive Western women.
Indeed, it is a very interesting topic - it's fun to see how the mind works, why you want what you do.
And that (about Western women joining Islam) is a very good observation, I'd say, but still, how do these women get to that? I wonder...I mean you want to be dominated, that's fine, but why not try being tied down or a whip n some leather or something. No, I want Islam!...who says that :O
Maybe (and I know that as a man I'm treading on very thin ice here...) now that women have been freed from traditional gender roles to do whatever they please, a few of them decide they feel more comfortable without all that choice. And since in western culture it's not politically acceptable to be a stay at home housewife of the 1950s christian stereotype, they seek comfort in a culture that will tell them how to behave and reward them for fulfilling a proscribed role.
If you have a chance to read Houellebecq's novel Submission, I highly recommend it. It describes the Muslim Brotherhood coming to dominance in French politics and instituting sweeping changes overnight. It was a very controversial book - but Houellebecq feels it's the job of authors to make readers uncomfortable - and I'm with him in that 100%.
Hmm the whole thing seems pretty backwards to me, although it's logical and you're probably right. Thinking about it, I figure that in a sexual role play or BDSM or whatever you want to call it, they know, in their heads, that it's a game and that they are, in all truth, in charge..Whereas, if they truly convert to Islam and go through with all that, they're not.
Still, the idea that someone would willingly give up their freedom and their power is astonishing to me. And frightening.
Thank you for the recommendation, I'll look it up - sounds really interesting. And I agree, that's the purpose (or at least one of the purposes of art - to make people question things, to make them feel.