Scenes and Settings, part 3

I thought I should continue my blogging about scenes and settings. We tend to be quite similar when it comes to that, don't you think? Often when I write of some setting I find particularly interesting I find that I share it with others. Maybe it all follows a pattern and we all think we are unique while we are just parts of something bigger.

Or maybe there are something general in those scenes that speak to our minds. Like there are historical or at least possible scenes that evoke something within us that is easily transformed into fantasies. The slave market is an obvious choice, it is degrading and speaks to our sense of unfairness. In a world that publicly shuns objectification of women, especially as sexual beings (here is the hypocrisy, though, never before has the world been so full of exposed female bodies, that are there for the pleasure of the viewer), the fantasy about a time and a place when a woman was an object you could buy and sell seems alluring, maybe because it provokes our good taste. Perhaps it is because it is about the public display of bodies, the objectification of women that makes us go there, that makes it forbidden and exciting.

I know that some out there likes to turn it around, to have a man be the focus of attention. I know this. But this is my blog so I simplify it a bit. For me there is always a woman being sold or whipped or whatever she is subjected to.

Another of those scenes that lends itself well to fantasies is the public punishment of criminals. There is a plethora of scenes and settings that fascinates us. Is it because someone is exposed to public shame and agony we like it? A real public punishment was surely a gruesome event but in our mind we take away from it some of the forbidden fascination and transform it into a fantasy.

I bet there were more men who were publicly whipped than women but in fantasy land it is often a woman who is there, tied to some whipping post being treated with a whip. In fantasy land she has no right to retain any decency. No she is brutally stripped naked, so it becomes a scene with one person stripped and exposed in front of the many and subjected to a cruel punishment.

We take something that has some roots in reality and transform it into a scene from fantasy. The shame is accentuated by being naked, the excruciating pain becomes passion and arousal.

A very typical scene, at least in my mind, is the public square, in some medieval town. There is a scaffold with a whipping post. There is a crowd, hungry for the spectacle to come. There is a man, in mask. A strong man, muscles shining in the sun, boots, a broad leather belt and a vicious whip in his hand. He is the Man. He becomes the symbol of male power, the ruthless lover, the one who takes but gives nothing back.

There are also other men, grim and old; the magistrate, the judges, the ones who judge and decide on the punishment. They are not attractive. They are cruel and ugly and cold. They are there to see that the punishment is carried out according to the law. They are the men who have the power.

Then there is the woman, the heroine, the criminal, the one deserving the punishment. She is helpless and vulnerable and have no means of protection, even the law wants to see her suffer. The crowd wants to see her suffer, the judges want to see her suffer.

On my medieval square she is stripped naked, her flimsy dress is ripped from her body and she is tied to the pole. The Man, the masked man with the whip steps forward and the crowd falls silent.

This was not supposed to be about what happens. It was about the setting, the scene. You have to do what you like with this. I am done describing it now. Maybe I return someday to write a story.

What about mutuality, that thing we really need to have for it not to become really cruel. I think this woman, in her heart, really fancies the Man with the whip, and somewhere deep inside she gets a thrill from having her clothes ripped off and whipped senseless. As I said, the pain transforms to passion in fantasy land, passion and arousal, and maybe more.