Following Sam

Reading now Roy F. Baumeister's Masochism and the Self and Identity (Cultural Change and the Struggle for Self), I note with satisfaction that Sam D'Allessandro's exposition of the meaning and purpose of sexual (there is no other kind--further proof of Freud's fraudulence)masochism tallies exactly with the analysis derived from empirical study by Baumeister: Deconstruction of the self; abnegation of the will and reduction of the self to specific bodily sensation. Baumeister even goes very plausibly into why that is a pleasurable thing for masochists. He also gives a very good summation of the the nature of the complex, abstract, outwardly focused self which has evolved since the Renaissance in the Western World (and nowhere else): "The culture began to prescribe that everyone be unique, autonomous, self-promoting, and responsible. No doubt many people were quite happy about these new demands, but it is unlikely [but still, why?] that everyone would be equally comfortable with the new selfhood. As a result, there may have been an increased need to escape from [the] self periodically." Gotta say, it ain't my bag, but thanks to Sam D'Allessandro and Roy F. Baumeister, at last (because I've always wondered), I think I've got a handle on it. That does not mean, however, that I am going to go that extra step and extend the hand of compassionate friendship to homophobic, heterosexual creeps like Earnest Hemingway who want to chop the ends of their penises off (as in The Sun Also Rises) just so they can be more thoroughly sodomized by women. Yuck.