Different Loving: An Exploration of the World of Sexual Dominance and Submission

Although the authors insist this tome ``is not an apologia for sadomasochism,'' it often reads like one. Rejecting theories that explain S&M in terms of low self-esteem or regressed sexuality, they portray sexual dominants, submissives and fetishists ``as they see themselves: loving and compassionate individuals'' for whom pain is pleasure and physical bondage is psychologically liberating. However, it is hard to reconcile this formula with the interviewees' graphic accounts of whipping, spanking, ``golden showers'' (urination), the use of hot wax and clothespins, depersonalization fantasies (being treated like an animal or a chair) and so forth. The wife-husband Brames (she is a poet, he a novelist) and freelance writer Jacobs also devote sections to genital piercing, scarification (cutting one's body with a knife), tattooing, female wrestling and transvestites and transsexuals who engage in S&M. Author tour. (June)