Can an Unconventional Tie Really Bind Couples?

In the opening scene of the recently released film “Secretary,” the heroine, Lee Holloway (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) has just been released from a mental institution. For reasons that are unclear, she seeks relief from life’s stresses and disappointments by cutting herself. As part of her rehabilitation, she attends a secretarial school after which she lands a job with a lawyer, E. Edward Grey (James Spader). He is verbally abusive, puts her in a yoke to carry out her secretarial duties, tells her precisely what to eat for lunch and spanks her over secretarial errors. Though their erotic roles fit like a lock and key, Mr. Grey, in particular, experiences self-loathing after his sadistic forays.

Over the course of the movie, the protagonists experience a profound transformation. By revealing themselves to one another as troubled people with destructive, unconventional sexual fixations, the film implies, Lee and Mr. Grey find happiness and are able to overcome their self-destructive impulses.

The movie raises an interesting question: Is it possible to have a sadomasochistic relationship that is healthy, perhaps even therapeutic? No psychologists or mental health professionals interviewed for this story thought that two people with self-destructive erotic fixations could “heal” one another and transcend their sexual impulses by falling in love. Judy Kuriansky, a New York psychologist who saw the film, said she found the subject so difficult for a general audience that there “ought to be a seminar after to explain it.”

A lot of sadomasochism is like a sexual drama where partners invert their public and private roles, so that, for instance, a high-powered professional who has to be in control at work all the time gives up control to a partner, said Paul Abramson, a professor of psychology at UCLA and co-author with psychologist Steven D. Pinkerton of “With Pleasure: Thoughts on the Nature of Human Sexuality” (Oxford University Press, 2002). “The roles are clearly defined and the focus or intent is to provide additional erotic stimulus,” said Abramson. “What the masochist gets is giving up control in a world where he or she often always has to be in control. The sadist is often someone who always wants to be in control but is not in control in real life, which is why there is often a gender reversal, with women playing the sadist.”

“For perversion to be erotically exciting, the person has to feel like he or she is committing a sin,” Diane Ackerman writes in her 1995 book, “A Natural History of Love.” “Some moral code has to be transgressed, someone has to be hurt or humiliated, physically abused or degraded, or reduced to an inanimate object.” A crucial ingredient that produces excitement is risk, or pretending to be at risk, writes Ackerman, quoting the work of psychoanalyst Robert Stoller, who studied unconventional sexual behavior.

This is part of what makes playing at sadomasochism exciting for couples who are otherwise quite conventional. Lonnie Barbach, a San Francisco-based clinical psychologist, said she sees couples in her practice who engage in non-abusive sadomasochism because it is fun and playful but also because it requires emotional risk-taking, which builds intimacy. “Most S&M; relationships can only happen where two people feel vulnerable and safe,” said Barbach. “No one is going to criticize or judge you. The trust is a really important aspect of it. To be really vulnerable, you have to know your lover will stop on a dime. Often, it is the masochist who is really in control. The sadist can only go as far as the masochist will go.”

Sadomasochism can be part of a loving relationship, said Beverly Palmer, a professor of psychology at Cal State Dominguez Hills, as long as there is mutual respect for each others’ bodies and desires and the behavior is “a fleeting variation of one’s sexual script” rather than a compulsion.

“The two people have to relate to each other as people, not objects,” said Palmer, who has a private practice in Torrance. “If people are engaging in S&M; in the service of distorted needs, a need to hurt or be hurt, or a need to be shamed or to shame, it generally is not part of a loving relationship.”

Kuriansky, a clinical psychologist for 30 years, said that in cases where conventional couples have battles over control, she sometimes assigns what she calls “ ‘Who’s the Boss’ homework.” “One night she gets to order him around and he gets to do her bidding, and then it is his turn,” said Kuriansky, author of “The Complete Idiots Guide to a Healthy Relationship,” (Alpha Books; 2001). “We always ask that they be polite. A therapist has to be very, very precise because the homework can be misinterpreted and get out of control.”

The role-playing is meant to allow partners to experience what it feels like to be in charge, then to switch roles, and experience what it feels like to be ordered around. Partners may experience a range of feelings from empowerment to submissiveness, and associated emotions ranging from satisfaction and sexual thrill to anger and shame. The need to have power over one another and the underlying deeper need for love is unleashed. Couples become more cooperative and intimate, she said. Or at least that is the goal.

“Couples start thinking about who is telling who what to do, and the words become different,” said Kuriansky. “They become less defensive and less aggressive and the relationship becomes more equal.”

Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington sociologist, said that this kind of erotic play for many couples is not necessarily a symptom of oppression and depression in the rest of the relationship. “Sexual fantasies of being spanked, being taken by six cowboys or being treated badly are common,” said Schwartz. “We just don’t talk about them because we as society still have a white picket fence around sexuality. What S&M; is usually about is people who want to explore sexual fantasies in a safe place with someone they respect and love. For others, S&M; is their main arousal modus operandi, and they can’t put it away. If two people, who are not going to get their sexual needs met by the most of the rest of the general population, find each other and make each other happy, why not?”

At one time or another, say some experts, everyone in a long-term relationship is sadistic and/or masochistic. We all torture our spouses or partners “while feigning unawareness,” writes David Schnarch, a sex therapist and author of “Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships” (Owl Books, 1997). “Normal marital sadism,” writes Schnarch, who runs the Marriage and Family Health Center in Evergreen, Colo., is withholding sex and intimacy while pretending to want to please a partner, or not giving a mate the emotional gratification that they crave. Normal marital sadism and its requisite deceit, writes Schnarch, “perverts our sexual potential.”

Perhaps if the filmmakers were to write a sequel to “Secretary,” the less titillating subject of marital sadism could be explored.

Lee and Mr. Grey could torture each other in the many ways other married couples do. She could wear fetching pajamas, but when he tried to initiate sex, she could have a headache. He, in turn, could pretend not to hear her when she asks him to take out the trash for the third time.

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Kathleen Kelleher can be reached at kathykelleher@adelphia.net.