For Whom is it Strange?

This is Niya. Reading through Daniel Bergner’s The Other Side of Desire: Four Journeys into the Far Realms of Lust and Longing is like reading the deeply private entries in someone’s diary. The words, transcribed through Bergner give the reader details that popular media would hardly ever show. Throughout the varying stories, the one word that seems to appear in each case: “strange”. Given the title, and topic of the book you would assume this word comes in the context of outsider’s description. But in fact, many of the individuals Bergner follows uses the term to describe themselves.

This led me to question: what is strange? The Merriam Webster Free Dictionary describes it as something “not before known, heard, or seen”. If this is true, why then would these sexual desires be considered strange? In each of the four realms, foot fetishism, sadomasochism, pedophilia, and the fetishism of amputees, it seems there was some source of comfort available. For some, this comfort was found in within groups of similarly attracted people with whom they could bond.

These focus groups did however range in intention. For Jacob and Ron, two men seemingly tortured by their erotic attraction to feet were both able to seek guidance in talking to a psychiatrist who could “stare into his soul” (27). While Ron was able to find a sense of pride in his desire, it seemed Jacob was never fully able to accept and feel comfortable in his own mind. For men with yearning for domination The Baroness of the East Village provides ample amounts of satisfaction. In the case of Roy, the professional man who made frequent sexual advances to his wife’s prepubescent daughter, his community was within court sanctioned group therapy for similar offenders. And finally for Ron, his zealous passion for women with missing limbs has caused him a great deal of grief. While Ron also employed a therapist to talk through his lust, Bergner also makes clear reference to a vast world of pornography designed for these physical desires.

          How then can each of these sexual fantasies be considered "not before known"? It seems more accurate way to describe them as their own forms of sexual preferences then to title them foreign. Many of the men seemed in common agreement that these desires began long before they could formally verbalize them. For whom then can it be deemed strange? One would think that each of these people, having found some person(s) whom they could identity would help eliminate stigma. Instead, this has done nothing but further their negatives self-views and lessen the chance for “change”. This heightened self-stigma placed by the each instance, effectively made societies stigmas the lesser of two evils.