Pornosophy: Are You Tired of Being Hitched Up to Someone Who's Interested in Anyone But You?

Richard Wagner (photo: Franz Hanfstaengl)

Are you tired of being hitched up to someone who’s interested in everyone but you? A submissive may be just what the doctor ordered? How about having someone who’s strung up, handcuffed and blindfolded and just dying for you to get home already? Talk about attention getting, how about someone who gets down on all fours, calls you master or mistress and hungrily licks your feet? A good submissive has all the faithfulness of the average dog, which in most cases will die for its master, with the exception that he or she is able to carry on a normal conversation. According to a recent article in The Times this is exactly what the Columbia professor and composer Georg Friedrich Haas was looking for when after stating his credentials, he wrote the sex educator and author of the blog “The Perverted Negress,” Mollena Williams, “I would like to tame you.” ("A Composer and His Wife: Creativity Through Kink," NYT, 2/23/16). In the case of Haas and Williams, who became husband and wife, the situation is even more complicated because of the complex issues surrounding what The Times article, in explaining Ms. Williams-Haas' view, described as “a black woman willingly submitting to a white man.” However, this has not stopped the couple from pursuing their unique lifestyle. “To say I can’t play my personal psychodrama out just because I’m black,” Williams-Haas told The Times, “that’s racist.” In the piece Haas admits to enjoying creating pain, but that in itself would not separate him from many composers and performers. Could this explain why so many concerts and theater performances exceed 2 hours? However, on the other side of the coin, perhaps the fact that Professor Haas has been able to freely cause pain to his wife at home explains why his orchestral work has received positive reviews in the press. Or is this just a example of Wagnerian Sturm und Drang?