…you don’t enjoy cuckolding. At least that’s according to this article on it over at the Daily Beast (thanks to Suzanne for the link). It’s an interesting article, but based on what seems to be a flawed premise. Its primary contention is that cuckolding is S&M for smart people. A type of psychological torture that is ideal suited to kinky members of Mensa.
In this respect, cuckolding attracts “the very highly educated,” Paul says, adding that it’s “truly intellectual in its enterprise because it replaces sexual touch with humiliation and emotional pain, both of which are psychological. Most of what gives me physical pleasure has to go on in my brain. I’m totally being classist, but this isn’t like people in redneck bars asking each other, ‘You wanna fuck my wife?’ It’s much more complex. It’s pleasure on a different level.”
Dr Paul Pines
Given the focus on intelligence, it’s ironic that the article itself comes across as so dumb. For one thing the conflation of intelligence with emotional masochism seems incredibly simplistic. Yes, they’re both something to do with the brain. But so is pretty much anything we experience, including physical pain. Any kind of D/s is about power dynamics and relationships, which are an intellectual construct. I’m also not a fan of the presumably corollary, that if emotional masochism is for smart people then physical masochism must be better suited for the hairy knuckle crowd. As someone who enjoys a carefully delivered beating, me no happy bout that type of finkin.
I guess one argument they could be making is that you need to be smart to deal with the jealousy and emotional risks of cuckolding. That would presuppose that smart people are more emotionally mature. That supposition doesn’t correspond with anything I’ve observed in reality. I work in the software industry with a lot of scarily smart people. I have friends working in places like Google, Microsoft and Facebook on some of their most complex products. PhD’s are as common as expense cellphones, badly fitting T-shirts and intellectual arrogance. When I think about these people, emotional maturity is not a description that leaps to mind. Nor does it hop, saunter or nervously peer round the door into mind. These are the kind of people who can become emotionally unhinged arguing over indent styles. God knows what they’d make of someone treating their significant other as a shared resource and playing with her ACL’s (sorry, geek humor) *.
For an accompanying image I thought I’d go with something I found on the Felm Cyber tumblr. I like it for the distorted perspective, exaggerated bodies and weird decor. They give it a jangly off-kilter feel, which is a good match for the emotions involved. I’m afraid I couldn’t track down an artist attribution.
* Note that I’m not saying that smart people can’t be emotional mature. Or that computer geeks can’t be into cuckolding. Just that the correlation between PhD smart and the ability to deal with an emotionally fraught situation is very much unproven.
Even though it doesn’t seem to be too appealing, I’d rather be a redneck. I’m not into cuckolding now, nor do I see much chance I’ll ever be. Admittedly you never know, but I just can’t imagine. Unless it was more of a “pussyolding”, if mistress wants to play with another pussy, who am I to say no.
Well maybe I am a Redneck because it doesn’t turn me on.