flagellation

4. 25.21

       Every week, generally on Saturday, I go to my site and create a file of the past week’s essay to transfer to the Journal Archives page.  Once there, I decided this week to open the Madam Heidi essay because there was something that I wondered about.  Namely, “Women in the profession speak about the many highly successful men who seek to be dominated and mistreated by them.  Isn't that what Heidi seeks too?”  Isn’t that what we all seek?  Well, some of us do.

      Some men like to be beaten and excoriated by women because it makes them stronger, physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.  So do athletes who abuse their bodies in all manner of workouts and contests.  Think of mountain climbers; there’s nothing at the top, why bother? 

Some woman gussied up as some Goddess of the Sexual Kingdom challenges your manhood.  You listen carefully to what she has to say take in the blows and humiliation, then you go out in the world like a bull primed for the kill.  You are going to show that bitch what you are made of.  It’s a game to prime the engine.  And dominatrix, the best ones, study their victims carefully to know what will get a rise out of them.

      Heidi likes that game because she is a strong woman.  She prefers living on the edge, rather than feeding on society’s pablum, as the moguls she is so fond of did and do.  In the essay I go on to state that when I first encountered women like Heidi I immediately understood them to be strong, but repulsive.  Ah, the niches society puts us in.  Girls do not fuck, and they certainly don’t brag about it.  Men also have their niches, are not allowed sensuality, that’s for sissies and queers, repulsive. 

      I have for the past two years and two months been going to court, initially because I got permission to put my gazebo in the yard where I rent an apartment, which was rescinded two weeks after I set it up.  The people who own and manage this property are unpleasant, to put mildly, so a difficult time for me.  I’m not a lawyer and so have worked ceaselessly studying law for ten and twelve hour days, procedures, courts, precedents.  I have used 5 reams of paper for the documents I prepare.  There is no longer any room in my filing cabinet for all the files I’ve created.  I am on my 4th case; first case, gazebo, I seek a permanent injunction preventing maintenance company from taking down my gazebo once reinstalled and also to get them off my back because they abuse their power,  Second case, eviction court, maintenance company with landlord’s approval seek to make their problem go away, namely me.  Third case, federal court, where I assert my rights as a federal leaseholder, the eviction is sent back to state court where the eviction is denied.  But the gazebo case is not yet resolved and I won’t get a decision for another 3 weeks because of the backup what with virus situation.  So what’s the fourth case?  One is not allowed to talk about this one until it gets resolved.

      Wouldn’t it have been much easier to move out?  Well, here’s the situation; I lived in Manhattan, New York for twenty years and then came to Maine.  Major culture shock.  Maine has no cities, Portland it the closest it comes to being a city; mostly, it has a downtown area surrounded by suburban housing and dying mini-malls every several miles or so.  It has a public transportation system and some good restaurants.  Once I moved into the apartment and had my possessions in place, sitting on the sofa looking at the artwork on the walls, a question came to me.  Who am I now; who will I become in my new environment?

      How does one reform, reshape oneself, create the appropriate being to address the world I now live in, which is very different from NYC?  Through flagellation.  Change is painful.  It is not generally something one does willingly.  But some of us . . . the repulsive . . . dive right in!

.The favorite essay this past month has been Milgram Experiment