Sauna conversations 1
The scholar with the belly tattoo and the masochists
The sauna is the crucible of shite-talk. The truth is taken very liberally and the only thing that matters is eliciting a response from the others boiling in there with you like; ‘Did he fuck?’ or ‘Jaysus is that true?’ to which you reply, ‘true as god’. It’s the cradle of rumours, conspiracies, facts and all things in between. In this edition of sauna conversations, I want to tell you about law scholar with the belly tattoos who told me about the masochists and the sadomasochists.
When I first saw this lad, I thought he was a thug but whenever he spoke, he talked in the manner of a gentleman. He definitely had a spotted past as he was plastered in large gothic tattoos and was only beginning first year in uni despite being in his mid-twenties. He told me he was studying law, so I asked him if he had come across any interesting cases.
He had.
He told me of one case in the UK between a group of masochists and sadomasochists.
For those who don’t know masochists are people who derive sexual pleasure from experiencing pain and the sadomasochists derive sexual pleasure from administering pain. A match made in heaven. There two groups of men would meet up and carry out intense sexual and violent acts. This was all well and good until one day, one of the masochists ended up in hospital with a broken face. Whenever the nurse enquired what happened, the man responded nonchalantly along the lines of ‘we were having some fun and things got a bit out of hand with a baseball bat’. The nurse was appalled and enquired further and afterwards alerted the authorities.
Their sex den was raided, and all manner of things were found. Baseball bats, fishhooks, gimp suits, men in cages. Pure pulp fiction stuff. The group ended up in court for assault and their defence was ‘how could it be assault if consent was given’? The court did not agree, and the men were sentenced to jail.
What do you think? Should it be legal? Consent was given but great harm was caused. Is it societies place to put safeguards in place to protect the health of people with these intense desires or should people be free to do what they choose even if it means injury, or worse death?
As I heard this story in the sauna it was a shite-talk retelling. What I think the gentleman in the sauna was trying to recall is this trial from the 80s in the UK. The video below has much more information and is a lot more thought provoking. Too refined for the sauna!