The Type Who Craves Punishment

It has recently been suggested to me by a woman I first met on a Greyhound bus that I am the type of person who craves punishment. She offered this indictment as a possible way to explain the motivation behind my helping her move into a new apartment on what (I suppose) qualifies as our second date. I did not confirm her suspicion, choosing instead to stammer something about believing in acts of generosity and not caring much about the NFL playoff games on this particular Saturday (which did not include my favorite team, the Green Bay Packers). It's a quirky experience, lugging dozens of garbage bags stuffed with clothes, boxes heavy with possessions, and bulky furniture pieces on behalf of someone whose phone number you've only known for a week. But it's also quirky to ask for the phone number of a girl you sat next to and chatted with on a Greyhound bus ride, and so I figured I was merely adhering to the general flow of the relationship.

My body is not exactly built for heavy lifting; no, it's more the type of body that could incite a million Youtube hits should anyone capture footage of me being grabbed by the belt and collar by a burly bouncer and launched halfway down a back alley littered with condom wrappers and shattered glass. In truth, the word “punishment” did invade my mind while supporting what felt like a 900-pound dresser through a living room, then an entryway, down a flight of stairs slick with snow, and finally hoisting it in exhausted tandem with a much stronger man into the bed of a pickup truck. In my effort to please this woman—a borderline stranger—I exerted more physical energy into moving her possessions (and the possessions of her new roommate) than I did in her bed the night before. (To my credit—and I am pathologically bashful about sharing this sort of thing—at the bar Friday night she did complain that the salt she licked prior to a shot of tequila stung her lower lip, which had been cut after a very long time of blissful smooching. My boastful comments about sex always seem to be only slightly more scintillating than a bawdy quip from a character on “Saved by the Bell.” Second base is where it gets too personal for me to share.)

In my defense, the punishment I experienced during this unlikely transport of someone else's belongings was more of a consequence than a desire—the consequence that all-too-often accompanies a good deed.

I'm a bit irked by the suggestion that I pursue punishment—primarily because there is a degree of truth in the accusation. Men who desire punishment are automatically associated with sadomasochists who cum in their adult diapers when getting booted in the taint by a dominatrix in ten-inch leather heels while they scrub the tiles behind the toilet with a toothbrush. I can think of at least ten things more erotically satisfying than the perverse substitute for intimacy described in the previous sentence. I once spent ten days in a mental hospital, and yet I don't feel like a hypocrite in my disdain for men who pay a lot of money to enact their humiliating S & M fantasies. I think these men are psychologically damaged, deeply troubled deviants. Self-hating, pathetic, and craven lunatics. There's a chance I'm being too critical of this sort of abhorrent consensual “sex,” and if that's the case, the very least I can say on the matter is that sadomasochism just isn't my cup of tea.

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Like what you've read so far? I hope so. Listed below is the link to buy a copy of the book in which this essay makes an appearance.

www.xlibris.com/NickOlig.html