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| I think you'll find the whips and chains in Aisle 7, ma'am. |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).
The article: "If You're in the Market for S-M." Originally published in Savage (Gallery Press), vol. 2, no. 1, March/April 1973. Credited to "Dick Trent."
Excerpt: "We have heard of the husband who is completely dominated by his wife, yet they live together thirty years or more. If the man didn't like what was happening to him he certainly wouldn't stick around all his life. And since sex is the motivating force of the universe, the man is sticking around because his sex life . . . his sex thrills . . . overshadow all else."
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| Louis Jordan had some thoughts on marriage. |
Reflections: Anyone who has read Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992) knows that Ed Wood had a violent temper and would abuse his wife Kathy physically during their near-constant arguments. This abhorrent behavior was witnessed by multiple friends and neighbors, several of whom are quoted in Grey's book. When I spoke to actor David Ward on the telephone several years ago, he confirmed it personally but said he never did anything to intervene.
The Woods' tumultuous marriage reminds me of a jazz song from 1948 called "Pettin' and Pokin'" by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. The lyrics describe a couple, Jack and Jill, whose marriage vacillates between love and hate with dizzying speed. In this union, though, both couples are capable of physical violence. "He holds her hands as long as he's able," Jordan explains in a proto-rap style, "but when he lets go, she bops him with a table." Various concerned parties, including a reverend and even the bride's mother, try to intervene but only end up being injured themselves. Jordan assures us that Jack and Jill "are in love" and "having a good time."
Ed Wood wrote about both sadism and masochism often in his short stories, novels, and films, with whipping being a particular favorite topic of his. When Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) whips his assistant Lobo (Tor Johnson) in Bride of the Monster (1955), that may have been the first time Eddie worked his fetish into one of his film scripts. The 1973 short story "2 X Double" is about a married couple who eventually incorporate S&M elements, including whipping, into their lovemaking. But perhaps Ed Wood had a masochistic side, too. Remember that in Love Feast (1969), he is the one playing the submissive role during the infamous humiliation scene. He even describes himself as feeling "like a whipped dog."
"If You're in the Market for S-M" is typical of the nonfiction magazine articles about sadomasochism that Eddie was writing for Pendulum/Gallery in the early 1970s. Once again, he explains to his readers exactly what this fetish is and where its name originates. What's unique about this one is that Eddie does more philosophizing and moralizing than usual. He writes: "We have to, whether it lays heavily on our minds or not, accept the notion that there is a cruel streak in man and this cruelty may become linked with one's sexuality for better or worse." The article cites other examples of man's taste for cruelty: football games, horror movies, and even the public executions of yesteryear.
What I have to wonder is whether or not Ed Wood recognized this sadistic tendency within himself. In this article, he actually gets a little preachy on the topic. Or a lot preachy. "Western civilization ought to be ashamed of itself when it comes to the matter of cruelty," he declares. "The whole of mankind has been responsible for atrocities of the first magnitude; but what makes it even more horrendous is the fact that thousands of people took real pleasure in administering the torture or being on the receiving end." Was he conscious of the fact that he was administering pain? Perhaps he felt his cruelty toward Kathy was excusable because he did not do it for his own pleasure or gratification.
Next: "Interview with a Sadist and a Masochist" (1972)