By L.S. Hallgren
I had been thinking about love and sex for a long time, long before Daniel and thick-thighed Phyllis brought their cruel comes and electric brutality to my attention. It could be said that Daniel’s neanderthalistic observations of his wife, with all her robust breeding qualities and fleshy rolling tundras, are the result of his attempt at love. Perhaps Daniel is limited, damaged by the execution of his parents and subsequent lack of a childhood. I could agree with that. I would be willing to accept that Daniel might actually, in a broken, unclean way, love Phyllis. The real problem for me is that he doesn’t just like rough sex and a little smacking around. Daniel likes to hurt. Daniel likes to scare. Daniel likes to push the accelerator down and force Phyllis to take her pants off with their child in the backseat. The point was raised in class that masochists believe they love the person they torment. That may be true, but there are a few problems with applying that philosophy here. First of all, a masochist believing they love someone is not the same as loving someone. People believe a lot of things about themselves; that doesn’t make them true. Secondly, someone that is into masochistic sex most likely didn’t marry someone that’s not into that or at LEAST a little curious. Phyllis just seems scared of Daniel; she does what he wants out of fear, and usually because Daniel has waited until he has some kind of leverage before he makes his demands (the car, the child, her approaching orgasm).
There is a vast gap between, “Because I love you, I will let you tie me up and film this even though it’s not really my thing” and “you’re scaring me to death and endangering our child so I will do what you say.” One is love and one isn’t. My personal, unsolicited position on this is that Daniel isn’t capable of love. I think he uses sex and her vulnerability as a way of distancing himself from Phyllis. It’s much easier to be brutal than tender. Daniel’s worst tends to come out right at moments that require the most vulnerability. Making love to his wife (in any style), sharing a tender moment with his child in the park, and feeling an erotic desire for a little roadside action. But when it comes down to the wire, Daniel doesn’t soften, doesn’t bury himself in her femininity. He burns her. He frightens onlookers. What if, and this thought just occurred to me, Daniel does love her but just can’t allow himself to feel it? Perhaps his murderous tendencies are a knee jerk reaction to an emotion he is attempting to suppress. It’s just a thought.
I’m all for a good time, but I don’t think a desire to hurt and cause fear is part of any loving relationship, sexual or otherwise. Am I over thinking it? Does any of it matter anyway? As Tina Turner once said, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Rather than bright-lining emotion as “love” and “hate,” in a case such as Daniel’s it likely is more comprehendible to imagine them on spectrum. Rather than being incompatible, love and hate are on opposite sides of a range of emotions. The basis of a relationship, in my opinion, is not the existence of love, but the existence of emotion, in its many shades and colors.
Daniel’s desire to hurt reflects a heightened emotional attitude towards Phyllis. Maybe he fears his own emotions, and wishes to control them by controlling her. Or maybe his masochism is a reflection of a deep self-loathing. The State used electrical current to destroy his parent’s internal faculties. Reducing them to shells. His final living memories of his parents are full of shame and confusion. Any love he feels for them now is unrequited by their corpses. And yet, Phyllis loves him, stays with him, bears children for him. I imagine her feelings for him are confusing to Daniel. Is it impossible to see how Daniel could both love and hate Phyllis for her appreciation of that which he loathes. He thinks less of her for thinking more of him, and that disgust is reflected in his infliction of pain.
Is it right or proper? No. But may their be aspects of emotional complexity that must permeate a bright-line assessment of one’s expression of emotion? Yes.