Guilt. Loathing. Anger. Shame. Sickness.

I enjoy getting annoyed at an article or book occasionally. Gesticulating in the direction of the screen and muttering “What the fuck is this guy thinking?” can be cathartic. Fortunately for me, thanks to the Internet, there’s an inexhaustible supply of such articles close at hand.

The latest one to trigger my WTF reaction was one in GQ on hard core pornography and the authors reaction to it. The post title gives a little hint as to what that reaction might be. Or maybe this little snippet, when he’s talking about Max Hardcore.

I needed to know we were different. I needed to know I wasn’t him. I needed to know that whatever the hell was wrong with me was not as bad as whatever the hell was wrong with him.

A couple of thousand miles, I decided, wasn’t too far to go to find someone I hated more than myself.

….[ then immediately after talking to Max ]….

It had been over two hours. I didn’t hate him nearly enough. And it made me hate myself even more.

As far as cathartic emotions goes, this article was pretty successful. I managed to get annoyed, bemused, puzzled and incredulous all in the space of four pages.

I read a wide variety of kink and sex blogs, with all sorts of wild behavior in them. There are people getting whipped, trampled, cuckolded, spanked, diapered, caged, stabbed, burnt and pissed on. Yet somehow they all seem more emotionally healthy than this ‘normal’ guy. Guilt and self-loathing must be horrible emotions to have to live with.

For an accompanying image I tried to find something that I felt guilty about liking. It wasn’t easy. There’s all sorts of freaky stuff I like, but I don’t feel guilty about any of it. Finally I settled on this image. It’s completely ridiculous. There’s a cliched classroom setting, a pastiche of a school mistress outfit in latex and a woman posing as a student in latex underwear. But for some reason I think it’s kind of cute.

Image is from the Captive Culture site.