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Sunday, October 12, 2008
Nazi Fetish, or Politically Incorrect Fantasies
I've never quite understood how someone's fantasies could be deemed offensive. Fantasies and unacted-upon fetishes seem to be the last place where you can be yourself, where you don't have to worry about offending anybody, about conforming to societal mores, or being, Lord help us, politically correct. But as Behind Kink puts up a new, lengthy video explaining all the intricacies of their proposed rape fantasy site Midnight Takedown (read: a pre-emptive defense against an expected onslaught of criticism and controversy), I started thinking about my own politically incorrect fantasies.
Quite recently, I've shocked myself by a completely out-of-the-blue fetish for . . . Nazi fetishwear and roleplay. I suppose if I wanted to hide it, shade it a little, I'd say it was a uniform fetish, but it's not. It isn't just uniforms. It's one uniform in particular- a powerful aesthetic that, whether updated in latex and BDSM paraphenalia or as classic as the historical version it was modeled upon, evokes power, precision, fear, rules, and a healthy dose of taboo.I'm not quite sure where this fetish came from, or if it will slink back away to the recesses of my mind, but it's nonetheless fascinating at the moment- causing all my BDSM fantasies to be tinged with a
barking German accent, a derisive sneer, and a crisp, trim jacket and cap. It goes without saying, I hope, that I of course do not fetishize Nazi's themselves- or fascism, Hitler, the Holocaust, or anything remotely related to such. I'd rather the costumes not have swastikas, and I don't really want to see one-armed salutes; I'm not getting off on the Nazism. I'm getting off on taking it in, repackaging it in my mind, and finding sexual gratification in the meaning I have imbued it with. Or, as one person commented on a forum, "Atrocities aside, the Nazis had the best military uniforms of anyone in the modern world." Mix the fashion with the mere connotation of 'Nazi'- strict, powerful, foreign, cruel, and revolutionary- and all of the sudden, it becomes very, very sexy and provocative. No wonder punk fashion co-opted the look to make kinda-political-but-mostly-just-shocking statements.
And then, we can't forget, I think, that Nazi's have been sexualized in a lot of ways. I wonder how much "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" may have influenced my youthful self. The beautiful, femme fatale Elsa turned out to be a Nazi villainess. And yet even after her evilness is revealed, she is nonetheless still portrayed sexually- perhaps even moreso!- biting and sucking at a bound Indiana Jones' lip like an artful dominatrix. As a youngster who adored Indy, I must have sucked up that imagery like a sponge. And such imagery has come before and after that- from the highly controversial Italian film "The Night Porter" (above), to LeeLee Sobieski dancing around in joyful roleplay in her SS dress in "Walk All Over Me" (below). And that's not even counting all the Nazi exploitation cinema.
I'm not the only one who finds it hard to be immune to such symbolism. Max Mosley denied his Nazi sex scandal with Mistress Abi (pictured here in Nazi-ish regalia), but general consensus is a resounding "Yup, he did it.". And then there are the open fetishists who indulge in these thoughts: Facist Femmes, Uniformfetish, among others (leaving out those which make me uncomfortable with their explicit focus not only on fantasy, but on the actual Nazi movement, both historical and neo-Nazi modern).I must admit some trepidation in even pushing "Publish Post" for this blog. Undoubtedly there is someone out there who will insist I am evil and depraved for this little fetish. But I hope that this doesn't turn into a Nazi debate. I hope instead that it goes show that whatever your politically incorrect fantasies- age play, rape, incest, racial subjugation, you name it- they are just that: fantasies.
I think I'll let this odd, meandering blog close with one of my favorite quotes:
My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror. ~W. Somerset Maugham
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