It occurred to me today that BDSM is rather like absinthe.

Which is one of those sentences that pops out of your mouth as soon as it is properly precipitated in your brain; usually in a room full of other people who you then find staring at you waiting for an elaboration because they arn’t listening to the voices in your head.

I’ll start at the beginning, it came to me because of a quote from an anti-absinthe book circa 1890 (Wormwood, if you’re interested) it says this on the meaning of being an absinthe drinker- ‘it means brutality, cruelty, apathy, sensuality and mania!’

This made me pause. Apathy and sensuality in the same sentence describing the same thing? That can’t be right, isn’t the author aware she’s shot herself in the foot? Is it possible to be sensual and apathetic at the same time?

So because I should be practicing a speech instead, I started trawling through my thesaurus. That might not follow as clearly to you as it does to me but I’m aware that there’s sometimes a schism between the meaning of words and phrases in my head and in the world outside it. For example sensuality, is an ox-blood, steaming, fiery kind of word, a word for fur coats and roaring fires in the winter, for women shaped like hour glasses with Peggy Lee voices and hyena smiles, for foxy men in velvet. Apathy is a grey kind of word, a word for black-dog-days, tiredness, and the world losing all its shine, for numbness.

So I looked up sensual and was a little surprised. There are all the good curvy carnal words I was expecting, and others, which refer to the same thing twisted over to make it sound wrong. Lewd, lecherous, unchaste, unspiritual, debauched. And debauched of course leads to words like depraved, degenerate, deviant, perverted.

This is how it ties together you see, absinthe and BSDM, people have used similar words to describe them. People somehow see them both as similar vices. (It’s also interesting that while sadistic is in my thesaurus, barbarous, perverse, brutal, ruthless, masochistic isn’t.)

They’re also tied together in my head because I can’t imagine either as apathetic, ever. Because absinthe is sensual, it’s a drink that tastes volatile, flammable, over-poweringly of plant and soil. Because a true sadist needs an acute sense of empathy, without the recognition the person below you is in pain where’s the pleasure?

Because they are both intense, intoxicating, mind-blowing. Because they are both very distinct tastes. Because they can both be dangerous, but only if you ignore the principals of Safe Sane and Consensual. Because they are both transforming. Because they both bring out people’s creative sides. Because they both have their rituals.

Which brings me neatly to three points.

I wonder how many leather-men have Mari Mayan in their drinks-cabinets?

Absinthe has no place in the bedroom or the playroom.

I wonder if I could have got that leather jacket in green?