“What’s With The Needles?”: The Origin of Desire & The Fall

I got an email today. All it said is: “What’s with the needles?” Yup, that’s all. With a fake return address.  And since I take questions seriously, because they afford me some opportunity for reflection, I’m going answer it publicly. I gather it was actually an expression of disgust at story I recently posted called “Jouissance Précoce” but I’m going to pretend it was a real question and give it a real answer.

Behind every kink, there’s a story. I’m not sure who said that. I can’t track down the quote, but I’m a little envious that it wasn’t me. It forms the basis of why I write what I write. And if every kink has a story behind it, then the story doesn’t just explain the kink; it offers you insight to the story of the whole person.

So, first I’ll admit that the story is broadly autobiographical. I don’t often write stories about myself. And it was only after reading Barthes’ “The Pleasure of the Text” and his concept of ‘Jouissance Precoce‘ (precocious ejaculation, or premature ejaculation – literally ‘undercooked’) that I decided to write it. It’s also over at my academic blog, forming part of a creative response to a piece of critical literary theory.

People begin their sexual lives much earlier than most of us are comfortable discussing in our present society, and certainly in the erotica genre, but there are ages where the chances of wires getting crossed seems to be greater. Usually in puberty or early adolescence. Sometimes, Freud would have argued, much younger. The seemingly unerotic converges with a moment of hyper-arousal and the event becomes inscribed upon the landscape of our sexualities. It might be something as innocent as a particular colour or smell. Or a song. Or the particular way someone touched you in friendship. Or something as dark as needles.

As time goes on, that node of eroticism formed by the overlapping wires accrues more and more meaning. Certainly, I wasn’t conscious of, nor did I understand the power dynamic inherent in a doctor/patient relationship. I didn’t know about Foucault’s “The Birth of the Clinic“. But instinctively, I must have read my expected role as a submissive/subordinate one. Patients are petitioners, asking for relief from an all-knowing, all-seeing physician.

Of course, I have a different view of doctors now. But in the minutes it took to live through that formative event, the instruction to lie on my side, look at the wall and stay still struck me as deeply arousing, as did the sense of exposure. The prick of the needle heightened it; symbolically, it was a penetration of a sort – my first, you could say. It wasn’t particularly painful or truly traumatic, just incredibly embarrassing. And there was the added psychological complication of tangible positive reinforcement: I desperately believed that it would instantly relieve me of my awful seasickness. And it did – or close enough. It wasn’t instant, but within the hour, I was feeling much better. I’m not a psychologist, and perhaps other more educated people might have a different reading of this. But the story is my, very subjecting telling and it comes with an admittedly highly subjective reading of the event.

In adulthood, the very few times I have allowed a lover to stick needles in me, all those early visceral reactions come back. It makes me feel deeply submissive. I sit or lie still. I get very aroused and a strong sense of impending pleasure.  Interestingly enough, unlike a lot of other people who enjoy needle-play, I don’t like to watch them go in. I don’t dislike it, but it gets me off more when I don’t see it, but just feel it.

As an adult, the act takes on more meaning, because obviously, sticking needles into someone for no medical reason is a transgressive act. I don’t need medicine, the person doing it is not a doctor. They are transgressing a social norm by doing it, and that gets me off even more. I find the ‘fall of man’  –  the conscious commission of an act of social disorder – as very hot indeed.

I have a number of other kinks, few of which I have located the origin for. This one just seemed ripe for exploring, both as a writer, and in terms of literary theory.

I’m pretty sure that many people didn’t find the story a turn on. But I don’t feel erotica is porn. My obligation is not to give you an orgasm, but to write about desire. Perhaps it will arouse you, perhaps it won’t. Then it’s just a written portrait of an event. Hopefully a skillfully written one.

Addendum: This post is not meant as a response to the nature vs nurture argument raging on the net at the moment. If I was pressed on the issue I’d say that, as an individual, my propensity towards towards sexual deviance in general may very well be genetically primed, and my acquisition of specific kinky fixations was a consequence of nurture.

So… got a kink? Any ideas on its origin?