Kinky Torah: Parashat Mikeitz

Joseph: The Paradigmatic Switch

42:6 And Joseph was the governor over the land; he it was that sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down to him with their faces to the earth. 42:7 And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spoke roughly with them...

No character has as much narrative in Genesis as Joseph, not even Abraham; so it should not come as too much of a surprise that we get to see this man in many roles. Nevertheless, it has always amazed me just how easily Joseph transitions from being in shackles to being second in command of all Egypt.

When Joseph is thrown into the pit by his brothers, he is silent. When he is sold into slavery, he is silent. As he wallows in prison, he is silent. There is a classic Jewish tradition that suggests that it is out of Joseph's extreme piety that he is able to silently submit in each of these occasions. He believes so strongly in the divine plan for him, that he can and will endure anything in order to be the instrument that God has ordained him to be. Now I ask you, is this or is this not the way of the true submissive? For the sake of the Masters will/plan/enjoyment, the submissive endures--or even welcomes--all that befalls him or her.

Yet, as we can see from this weeks parasha, as soon as Joseph is given the opportunity to play Dom, he jumps at it. He takes on a domineering Egyptian name, Zaphenet Panei-ach: the one appointed by the god to provide life. He dons the clothing of wealth and power. He marries the daughter of a priestess. He reduces the entire Egyptian populace to a serfdom beholden to Pharaoh, the only man greater than he. And when his brothers arrive, he plays out his ultimate D/s scene; he makes them grovel before him.

Before anyone gets soft on me and brings up how he cries at their reunion; his tears do not fall until after Benjamin comes with the rest of the brothers on their second trip and, even then, not until he sets them all up to see if they will discard little Benny as easily as they discarded him, so many years ago.

On the contrary, as our text clearly states, Joseph has the brothers prostrate themselves before him as he spoke "roughly" to them. At this moment, he steps completely into the roll of the Dominant, eager to bend those before him to submit fully to His will.

Perhaps this is merely Joseph's evolution of power and control: from the depths to the heights, from subjugation to authority, from submissive to Dominant. On the other hand, for any individual to be able to truly embody from one end of the spectrum to the other within a single lifetime, maybe, just maybe this is the ultimate switch.

Finally, what is Joseph's secret to switching? How is it that he can both submit and Dominate fully with absolute surety in his role? 1. Joseph lives in the moment (well, in the moment that was 3500 years ago.) When not confronted by dreams, whether they be his own or others, Joseph accepts the moment before him ordained by God and he rolls with it. 2. Joseph doesn't merely like power and control, he truly understands it. Therefore when it wielded against him, either by God or by his brothers or by Potiphar, he is aware enough to submit to it; yet when power and control are placed squarely in his hands, He is perfectly capable and comfortable wielding it Himself.

And here I had thought switches were merely folks who could not make up their minds!

Nature vs. Nurture: The Personal Saga

Recently I told a close friend of mine about my proclivities. At first she simply listened with intrigue in her voice, but a few days later she called me up--she was worried about me. She was worried that I could be putting myself in danger; she was worried that I was unhealthy in my desires. She wanted to know why I felt a need to be submissive--why I enjoyed being pushed to my limits. She wanted to know if there was anything in my past, my childhood, that could be the source of my kinks.

I loved the fact that she asked me tons of questions and pushed me to explain myself. I love the fact that she made me think about the origins of my personality. I love the fact that she gave me a venue to talk about what I had been thinking about for a while:

Nothing made me this way,
I have always been submissive
I have always enjoyed aggressive romance.

When I was a child one of my teddy bears dominated one of my other bears into sex. I had fantasies of being forced to have sex from the time I had any notion towards sex. Throughout high school, I was thought of as a good girl, but in truth I could be cajoled to do almost anything...almost--as long as a boy had an aura of command about him. As soon as I became romantic with a boy, I would become exceedingly demure. My friends and I loved to play with handcuffs and once I found myself cuffed to my boyfriends bed just as the rest of our friends were clearing out. I cannot even begin to describe how disappointed I was when he uncuffed me.

Then, a handful of years ago I had a boyfriend who gave me a wee swat on the bum while we were fooling around. I gasped in an over dramatic way and he loved it. And I loved the fact that he loved it. It never went any further than that but it certainly planted a seed within me. I asked my next boyfriend if he would spank me. He said no. And then I was with a man who was a dirty, dirty boy--it both scared and titillated me. And yet another dirty, dirty boy--this one very dominant. I was entranced by his demeanor and the excitement of it all. That summer I moved, but before I did, I bought a book of spanking stories. Randomly, I opened the book to a story about a woman who was utterly beaten while hanging on a St. Andrew's cross. When I had finished the story my first reaction was, "Wow! I don;t think I could ever take that. I am so impressed." Sure, it occurred to me that most people would have found the story upsettingly violent--I found it to be something to strive for.

I have since had the opportunity to play with a few people. I currently have two amazing partners, including Spiritually Playful. I have had my limits pushed to places I never thought possible. I have been blessed with chances to truly bask in sub-space.

And I have come to see that nothing made me this way. I have always been submissive. I have always fantasized about aggressive romance.

Just How Hard Wired are We?

At what point does a person know that he is submissive? or Dominant? At what point does a person know that she likes to be tied up? or likes to spank bad boys and girls? Are sexual proclivities hard wired into us or do we learn them from our parents, siblings, friends, lovers? Is BDSM nature or nurture?

On the one hand, there are so many fetishes that, by their very nature, must be the product of nurture, such as electro shock based fetishes, Hello Kitty fetishes, or car fetishes--none of these could have existed until such time as we invented (or in the case of electricity, harnessed) them. In the scope of human existence, they are flashes in the pan--and flashes do not imprint themselves upon our DNA...our psyche, absolutely, but not our very genome.

So, while the particulars of a fetish may rely on the world/culture/family we grow up in, what about the archetype of the fetish? Could a person, theoretically, have an inherent fetish for shock type stimuli, totems, or big powerful inanimate objects--things that have always been present throughout human existence? Could a person be born submissive? Dominant? Masochistic? Sadistic? Could a person have in hers or his genetic make-up a need to serve? A need to portray an animal? A need to humiliate another?

As is generally true of any nature vs. nurture argument, I imagine the answer will be neither one nor the other, but rather...both.

We come into this world with aspects of our dispositions already hard wired; I, for example, failed my first Apgar test because, no matter what the doctor did to me, I didn't cry (anyone here see a future stubborn masochist?) Nevertheless, how my hard wired disposition blossomed into the happy sub who writes this today has everything to do with how I have been nurtured, for better or for worse, throughout my life.

So, why this question right now? I have a teenage kid who I am watching express her overwhelming desire to be dominated (sans any of the language of the BDSM culture). I cannot help but wonder is this desire imprinted upon her DNA or is it the result of events in her life that have left her feeling distrustful of her own ability to make decisions?

Once I opened my eyes to my true self, I knew that so much of this had been with me from the very beginning. But is that necessarily true for everyone else?

What about your fetish, nature or nurture?