**Warning– again not for the faint of heart or the overly pedantic. This essay discusses mature topics relating heavily to adult sexual behavior and is not pro-ship in any way. Monstrously long, probably longest post ever, because I got well carried away. Mature readers only. Spoilers to the end of Season 6. This is just my way of wiling away the hours until the new season and trying to avoid spoilers.;-)
Introduction
Since I wrote Part I, I’ve discussed S&M online and offline with actual people who have practiced it and explored a few websites. I discovered sadomasochism is not always about inflicting pain; in fact sadomasochism is more about the politics of control as played out by the submissive and dominant roles of the parties than it is actually about the infliction or enjoyment of pain. While S&M may and often does include the infliction of pain and or violence, it does not have to, many real life participants do not engage in the painful acts, they merely anticipate them and get a kick out the idea of enduring them. Some of it is merely psychological – the idea of mentally coping with pain or exploring intense sensations in a safe environment – of course in a horror fantasy show like Btvs the environment is never safe and pain often is the writer’s means of getting to the truth of the matter.
The Masochist and Sadist Relationship
I discussed sadomasochism with a friend who actually experimented with it and she said S&M is partly about projecting your needs or desires onto the other and asserting control over them through the projection of those desires. The masochist projects her desire to feel pain onto the sadist. “I hate myself – beat me up? I’m dirty, I’m bad, I’m eeevil!” The masochist asserts control over the sadist by forcing the sadist to focus their attention on causing them pain. They in effect become the center of attention or the center of the sadist’s attention/focus. A perfect example of this is how Spike manipulates Buffy and asserts control over Buffy by getting her to hit him. As Spike stated in Lover’s Walk, “Dru didn’t even care enough to chop off my head…or torture me.” As long as Buffy hits him, insults him, throws him across the room, and goes to him for that quick beating – he is important. As Buffy states in Crush, “I beat him up a lot, to Spike that’s like third base.” When she comes to beat him up, when she reacts to his comments with a fist in the nose, he feels like the center of her life. Her drug. No matter what she says, her fists or the rough sex they engage in tell him how she truly feels about him and he loses himself in the pleasure of it. The moment she stops – he loses control, he becomes no longer important. By taking the seemingly “masochistic” role in the relationship, he is in effect keeping the relationship going.
Control is an issue for both parties in the S&M relationship. The dominant party or sadist often controls the relationships by withholding pleasure or pain. In Ann Rice’s erotic retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, the Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, the Prince tortures and controls Beauty by inflicting punishment in the form of repeated spankings and withholding pleasure by binding her at night so she cannot pleasure herself nor can anyone else. By doing this he asserts some sort of control over her, meanwhile she asserts control over him by causing him to desire to inflict these punishments upon her. The masochist controls the sadist by being the center of the sadist’s orbit. In order to “get off” sexually – the sadist requires the masochist to torture. The masochist projects his/her desire to be hurt onto the sadist, often encouraging the torture. Likewise the sadist hunts individuals who can stand the torture and are willing to be in the submissive role. This of course is not true in all cases. In some situations, which I hope to examine in this essay, the sadist will torture unwilling parties – justifying his/her actions with the view that the unwilling or willing party as the case may be is not human, just an animal, or in the case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer – evil, demonized.
In Btvs and Ats we have several, I would term “good”, characters who exhibit sadomasochistic tendencies. These tendencies however are not shown so much by the “human” side of their nature as by the demonic. Most of them only exhibit these tendencies with demonic creatures. Buffy does not hurt, slay, or beat to a pulp humans. She does however hurt, slay and beat to a pulp demons. She is after all the Vampire Slayer. She also gets off on it. Willow similarly only tortures those individuals deserving of it. She does not hurt “good” people, well not until she’s been pushed too far. Riley does not beat up on people, only demons, only Spike. OZ is only violent in his werewolf state. As Willow is only sadistic as either VampWillow or DarkWillow. Each of these characters unlike our vampires, has a soul or the moral compass that separates them from demons and animals. They justify their sadistic acts in the same ways that Hitler and other renowned torturers have – the victims were less than human.
1. Werewolves – OZ, Larry, and Veruca – Sexual Hunger (very long section)
Robert Eisler, a contemporary of Havelock Ellis and a scholar on werewolves, in his 1940 speech to the Psychiatric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine stated the Greek word for Werewolf formed from the Greek “lukhos = 'wolf' and authrpspia = 'humanity', for the dread folklore of men converted into 'werewolves' (Germanic wer, the Latin vir, means 'man', 'male'). The name 'lycanthropy' is used also by alienists to denote a particular form of raving madness manifesting itself in the patient's belief that he is a wolf, with lupine teeth, refusing to eat anything but raw, bloody meat, emitting bestial howls and indulging in unrestrained sexual attacks on any victim he can overpower. Ancient medicine would naturally confuse this form of psychosis with contagious canine rabies, communicable to dogs by the bite of wolves and to man by the bite of a dog, which causes man and dog to snap at and bite everything within reach and thus to spread the dread disease.”(Eisler. Man Into Wolf: an Anthropological Interpretation Of Sadism, Masochism, And Lycanthropy. 1940. For more information on Eisler see: website of the University of London. School of Advanced Study, The Warburg Institute Archive of degrees in doctor of Philosophy.)
Unlike most forms of sadism, the werewolf appears to have little control over his sadistic tendencies. The beast takes over. In some cultures the bestial state was sought after, the Ancient Greeks were rumored in literature to undertake Bacchia like rituals involving wine and drugs to build themselves to a state where they would literally be out of their heads, rending the arms and limbs off of animals. This was their way perhaps of returning to that ancestral memory. By surrendering to the needs of the beast within, they felt a release. The blood-lust was appeased.
a. OZ and Larry: Sexual Identity
When OZ is first introduced he is the cool guy. He seems almost androgynous in some ways. Boyish. Small. Not powerfully built. Quiet in tone. Seldom aggressive except for his pursuit of Willow, which also seems fairly laid back. When a werewolf is discovered wandering around Sunnydale, the SG assumes it’s Larry, a powerfully built obnoxious student who has wolfish manners. In Halloween he not only threatens Xander, he attempts to rape Innocent 18th century Buffy in an alley. (Halloween Season 2, Btvs) In Phases, Larry appears to be hiding something. Xander assumes he’s the werewolf, since Larry’s tendencies are reminiscent of Xander’s behavior in The Pack, when Xander was possessed by a hyena. (The Pack, Season 1 Btvs and Phases Season 2, Btvs)
The werewolf is an interesting metaphor for deviant sexuality– because the werewolf is created through an infection. Many people believe homosexuality or other sexual practices they don’t understand are infections, contagious. Lycanthropy or becoming a werewolf is an the infection that results in a sexual hunger or deviant practice. Vampires may be an even better metaphor since the act of vamping is in of itself a sexual metaphor. Particularly since to become a vampire you must suck the blood of a vampire and die (dying is an act that is often associated with orgasm – the little death – and may happen after oral sex.) To become a werewolf all that is needed is a bite – not unlike contracting rabies, Aids, herpes or a host of other sexually transmitted diseases.
When Xander confronts Larry, believing he’s the werewolf, he discovers that Larry’s not hiding a double-life as werewolf, he’s gay. Homosexuality to Xander is almost worse than the werewolf identity. (Phases, Season 2, Btvs) But Larry becomes a better person once he accepts his homosexuality. His wolfish tendencies recede. He is no longer a sexual predator as portrayed in Halloween or even in the beginning of Phases where he obnoxiously asks OZ how Willow is in bed. After Xander confronts Larry, he is nicer to everyone. Even stoops to help someone pick up their books and as Buffy comments does not take the time to look up her skirt. He becomes the opposite of the wolf. By accepting his sexual desires, he loses his wolf like traits. Becomes less of the beast.
b. OZ, Willow, and Veruca: Devouring the Lover
It’s ironic that OZ becomes a werewolf due to the bite of an innocent little boy. Someone who has no sexual experience infects OZ. (Phases, Season 2 Btvs). When OZ changes into the werewolf – he becomes a danger to everyone around him. He is the complete opposite of himself. No longer contained. Aggressive. Brutal. Cannibalistic. Willow discovers him in Phases with chains. Her reaction is the obvious one – is my boyfriend into something slightly kinky? He attempts to get her to leave, but ends up changing before she does so. She eventually is the one who shoots him with the tranquilizer dart and in subsequent episodes locks him in the cage in the library, reading to him as one might to a child. (Beauty and the Beasts, Season 3 Btvs.) She has regained the power in the relationship. Before Oz was the pursuer but had control – he could see her when he wished and moved the relationship along at his speed. By Season 3, Willow appears to be in more control, locking him in the cage, monitoring the phases of the moon.
In one episode in Season 3, Dopplegangerland, Willow briefly is seen as the monster. Unlike OZ, Willow’s monster is the dominant one – in control. She takes over the Bronze. While OZ in his werewolf persona merely wrecked it. VampWillow actually changes the lives of two humans – turning one, Sandy, into a monster, and frightening Percy into doing his homework. Her clothing and attitude is the epitome of the dominatrix image. So much so that the real Willow makes a joke regarding how OZ and her are engaged in S&M. An image that unsettles her friends. “Did anyone else just go to a weird place?” Xander asks.
Metaphorically their relationship is a tad S&M when OZ becomes the wolf. Willow locks him in the cage and treats him like a pet wild dog. A fantasy that is right out of Little Red Riding Hood – which Angela Carter in her retelling of the tale in Company of Wolves points out was far more sexual in its earliest incarnations. Cannibalism underlies both the werewolf metaphor and the Little Red Riding Hood tale. In Carter’s tale – the wolf is a werewolf. In Btvs – when OZ becomes a wolf he desires to devour the humans he encounters. We see him eat one of the dead boys in The Zeppo.
Dolcette is an artist who specializes in female fantasies relating to cannibalism. In Dolcette’s art – women volunteer for the love of their man to be slowly cooked alive. There is no force or coercion in this. They volunteer. It reminds me a little of Hansel & Gretal and Little Red Riding Hood. It also makes me think of the werewolf and the idea of sodomy or oral sex. The idea of being devoured by the lover can be traced back to some of our grimmest tales (Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretal, to name a few) and possibly further to creation myths of the Mother Goddess devouring her lovers. In nature, several insects and arachnids devour their mates after or during sex. (Teacher’s Pet, Season 1, Btvs).
Cannibalistic S&M metaphors aren’t limited to Werewolves in Btvs. Intervention – the Buffybot asks Spike to “devour her”. She tells him that she wants to be bitten. Also we have the scene where Angel bites and drinks from Buffy in Graduation Day Part II. (Both characters appear to enjoy this act and Buffy literally sacrifices herself for Angel not unlike Dolcett’s women.) VampWillow treats biting Sandy and possibly Willow as well as a sensual act. Licking their necks with her tongue. (Dopplegangerland). And when Veruca shows up and runs into OZ in her wolf form – they make violent love, biting and scratching and attempting to devour one another. Veruca even comments on how she is closer to OZ than Willow because of the experience, she can appreciate OZ in his wolf form. Willow on the other hand has domesticated him. Placed him in a cage. Veruca suggests that the cage can’t keep him, the wolf is always inside, a part of his nature, perhaps his sexuality as well. (Wild at Heart, season 4 Btvs.) When Veruca goes after Willow, OZ lets loose and does kill her and almost kills Willow as well. The danger inherent in Veruca and OZ’s sexual habit comes to the forefront and OZ takes off.
c. Oz and Willow : Power and Control
What I find interesting about OZ and Willow, is when OZ returns, the wolf apparently contained, Willow has moved on to Tara, a homosexual relationship. Tara is the antithesis of OZ. Submissive. Uncertain of herself. Anti-cool. Stuttering. Not popular. Female. Her energy unlike OZ’s is female. When OZ discovers Willow’s scent on Tara, he loses control – the wolf breaks out and we discover that anger or hostility causes the beast inside OZ to surface. Only a tranquilizer gun can stop him. (New Moon Rising, Season 4 Btvs.) Willow chooses Tara, the female energy, the soft, submissive partner over OZ who she has no control over. Willow has control over Tara. In the previous episode, Tara tells her : “I am you know. Yours.” Tara unlike Oz has made Willow the center of her universe. OZ has always had other friends and activities outside of Willow – a band, classes, the werewolf. In fact Veruca and OZ first met due to his involvement in his band. Willow feels cool because she is dating a guy in a band. (Wild at Heart, Doomed, Btvs Season 4, Dopplegangerland, Beauty and the Beasts Btvs Season 3) Tara feels cool because she is dating Willow and Willow is a powerful witch like her mother. (Hush, This Year’s Girl, Who Are You, New Moon Rising.) With Tara – Willow has control, she senses that Tara will always come back to her, always stay, not suddenly leave like OZ.
For awhile in the Willow/OZ relationship it appears Willow is in control – it’s clear from his fling with Veruca that Willow truly isn’t. Veruca makes it even more clear when she suggests that Willow has tried to domesticate OZ, but he can’t be domesticated, he is the wolf inside. His dark sexuality cannot be harnessed by Willow, he must be the one to control it. Does OZ get off in being free and violent with Veruca – yes. But by the same token he likes to be reigned in by Willow. He breaks free from this pattern of having someone else control his urges, some outside party cage the beast, by leaving and hunting a way to control himself.
2. The Witches: Willow and Tara – Submissive and Dominant Roles
Up until Tara, Willow often was placed in the submissive role in her relationships. Giles bossed her around the library, Buffy told her when she could help, and Xander asked her for homework advice (Season 1 – Dopplegangerland Season 3, Btvs). Is it any wonder she went a little nuts in Dopplegangerland? Tired of being everyone’s doormat. Magic was her way out. It gave her a sense of power. A sense of control.
In the Hush commentary on the Season 4 DVD’s, Joss Whedon states how in casting Tara they were hunting someone who would come across as weaker than Willow. Willow had become confident now. So in order to build a romantic relationship they wanted a character that would look up to Willow, would lean on Willow, and be shyer than Willow. Enter Tara. Tara is developed as a stuttering, shy, uncertain, yet incredibly warm character. In comparison to Willow in Seasons 4-5, Tara is uncertain of herself and where she stands with people. The writers explain this attitude of Tara’s with the introduction of the Maclay family, a group of “rednecks” who treat women as “slaves”. They justify their enslavement of the women in their family by stating they are “demons”. Demonizing someone makes it okay. As Spike states, “Oh I see, this whole demon thing was a way to keep your women in line.” (Family, season 5, Btvs.) Up until Family, Tara is concerned about Willow rejecting her, seeing her as a demon. Tara acts in the submissive role.
The submissive role in Btvs is the role of the party who is worried about being left. Spike takes the role in the B/S relationship. He is worried about being left. He will do anything to keep the relationship. In the beginning of Willow and Tara’s relationship, Tara is in the submissive role. She tells Willow continuously that she is hers. She follows Willow around. She does the spells Willow wants to do. She lets Willow decide when to introduce her to the gang or when to reveal their relationship. Tara does not attempt to control the relationship in any way, she does not try to wrest the power away from Willow. Not until Willow forces her hand in Season 6.
The writers use magic as a means of demonstrating the sexual relationship between these two women. Often in the spells – we see Willow falling to the ground while Tara is supporting her. Or they are holding hands to control a rose. The idea of support is present here. Very important in a dominant/submissive or any relationship. One party must support the other when they go into the ether or lose control. To contrast this – look at Buffy’s relationships with our vampires – with Angel – Buffy has no support. She has an orgasmic experience, loses her virginity, he becomes evil. With Spike, she also has limited support, she can’t totally lose herself in him without the fear that he could bite her or destroy her. His constant comments that she should join him in the dark lend credence to this fear as does the attempted rape.
Willow and Tara’s relationship works up to a point, but Willow’s need for control and power causes the relationship to break down. Tara acknowledges this need as far back as Tough Love, but is rendered briefly incapable of doing anything about it. When Willow brings Tara back, Tara is far too traumatized to realize that Willow is becoming more and more attached to the dominant role in their relationship and to some degree has taken full control of it. Tara lost her voice in the relationship the moment Glory sucked her mind and was never quite able to regain it.
By the time we reach Season 6, Tara has fallen into the supportive role. She even supports Willow when she probably shouldn’t – the spell in Bargaining Part I, comes to mind. When pushed by Xander and Anya, Tara admits that the spell to bring Buffy back goes against the forces of nature, but she allows there are special circumstances. Buffy was taken by mystical forces not natural ones. Willow, for her part, barely hears Tara’s misgivings. Tara’s job is to support Willow in all things. When Tara stops supporting Willow, Willow gets angry.
In All The Way, we begin to see the dark edge of Willow. ME starts to show us a little of Willow’s sadism. Now before people get huffy, I’m not saying Willow is a heartless sadist. (Honestly, there are times in which I wonder if I’m analyzing a fictional character or the member of someone’s family.) I’m saying she has sadistic tendencies. We all do. I do. You do. Your next door neighbor does. Most of us just choose not to go there. Every day we make a conscious or unconscious choice not to. Think about it. How many times have you fantasized about torturing that nasty boss or ripping a fingernail down the arm of that girl who tormented you in school? Willow was horribly teased in school. Treated like a loser. Inside she feels like a loser. Some sadists (not all) can display a tendency towards self-hatred. When they hurt something – they are often projecting their pain on to someone else. In Willow’s case – she is attempting to control others views.
The first sign we see of this – is in the Bronze where she attempts to find Dawn by shifting people into Alternate Realities. Horrified Tara attempts to stop her and Willow in order to more affectively argue with Tara magically lowers the volume, interfering with everyone’s reality to suit her own purposes, which horrifies Tara more.
Realizing she can’t appease her lover or receive comfort sex, and possibly just a little afraid Tara will leave her, Willow erases Tara’s memories of the events. Is this a sadistic act? Not really. Willow isn’t interested in harming Tara. Harming or causing pain is not her intent. (See Tabula Rasa) She intends on controlling Tara. Their relationship appears to be more D&S than S&M– dominant and submissive and largely unconscious. And these roles do not stay stagnant, they shift back and forth. One party being dominant, the other submissive and vice versa.
When Tara discovers that Willow is using magic to literally control her mind, she leaves. By leaving she regains control of her life and the relationship. She becomes the dominant party. Willow is at her mercy. It is telling that Willow does not use magic to get Tara back. No love spells are cast. (Tabula Rasa, Season 6, Btvs.). Willow does however take out her grief briefly on others. She goes to the Bronze and meddles with people’s reality again. Reminiscent of her behavior in Something Blue, where she attempts a spell to diffuse her pain and instead will’s chaos on her friends, disrupting their realities. (SB, Season 4 Btvs) Her acts in the Bronze with Amy may seem amusing on the surface but in reality are quite sadistic. And are in response to threatened male violence. Actually most of Willow’s acts seem to result from male violence. In Smashed, she magically places two men in cages after they insult her and attempt to manhandle Amy. In Wrecked she conjures a demon after being magically molested by Rack. Willow’s sadistic use of magic is usually a direct result of abuse she has suffered at someone else’s hands. (Wrecked and Smashed, Season 6, Btvs).
The events of Wrecked, Smashed, and to a degree Tough Love (where Willow tortures a hell-god to avenge a violation on her lover) foreshadow the depths of Willow’s sadistic capabilities. Magic appears to allow her to do these things. Without magic, I seriously doubt Willow would have been able to wreck the havoc she does in Season 6. Magic provides her with the power necessary to inflict her own pain on others. Her own low self-esteem is reflected by the pain she inflicts. For the first time, her friends get a peek at who Willow thinks she is. A loser. A nerd. Not worthy. An ordinary boring no-account girl. (Wrecked, Villians, Two-to-Go and Grave). Willow’s actions remind me a great deal of Faith who also tended to react in a self-destructive manner because of self-hatred. (more on Faith in section 5.)
Perhaps Willow’s most sadistic act was torturing Warren. Her rape of Warren with a bullet, sealing his lips shut, then ripping off of his skin and final combustion was grisly and caused numerous debates on the internet. (Villains, Season 6). This scene disturbed me, because to be honest? I wanted Warren ripped asunder. I hated him with a passion. His blasé manner towards women, his idiotic escapades, everything about him made me ill. He scared me because I’ve met him. I know him. And believe me if you meet him on the street? Run. Warren populates films like Neil LaBute’s classic In The Company of Men (where two men plot to bed, seduce, romance and brutally dump a handicapped woman.) Warren is the serial killer Ted Bundy. The kids at Columbine. He is real. (It’s hard to hate vampires – I know they aren’t real and I don’t take them seriously.) So what disturbed me most about Willow’s sadistic torture of Warren, was part of me enjoyed it, although I could have done without the skin ripping scene. As I said, we all have a little sadist inside us.
Admitting our own sadistic tendencies is hard. I honestly don’t think Willow knew she was capable of these things. That’s what distinguishes her from Buffy. As Buffy states in Villains – Willow doesn’t understand these forces, she doesn’t understand that you can’t do these things. Buffy also says something else, which made me pause, and rewind, several times – it’s a quick throw-away line – “killing someone, it changes you, believe me, I know.” Buffy knows that she is capable of these things. It’s why she adheres to certain strict moral codes. Buffy chooses not to go there. She chooses not to kill or torture for pleasure and it is always a struggle. (See section 5 for more on this.)
Willow doesn’t know what she’s capable of, she blames the magic, she blames others. Willow is so busy hiding, so busy protecting herself from rejection and pain, that she can’t see herself. And remember what she says in Choices before she loses control of a spinning pencil (Season 3 Btvs)? It’s important to have emotional control when dealing with magic. How can you handle the powerful forces of magic when you have no idea what you yourself are capable of? When you haven’t acknowledged your own darkness? We think she has in Dopplegangerland, but has she? Really? It takes several months before she realizes she’s gay. No, I think Willow like most of us is terribly afraid to look into that dark mirror and see her dark self. To realize her own sadistic tendencies. Tendencies that scared Tara way back in Tough Love. Tendencies that probably scare Willow now.
I think part of the reason Willow was able to go as far as she did with Warren was that she decided he was less than human. His violence towards Tara and Katrina and Buffy dehumanized him in Willow’s eyes. He became her own personal demon. What’s interesting is if he was a demon – Buffy would have killed him. If it had been Spike who shot Tara and Buffy – he would have been dust. But because Warren is human, has a soul, he can’t be hurt, or beaten, or destroyed. So this raises another question – is it okay to torture things that aren’t human? Are the demons truly worse than the Warren’s of the world? I guess it depends on your point of view or whether you’re on Btvs or Ats.
3. The Demon-Hunters: Riley & The Initiative – Torturing Demons
Did you know in 17th century, “scientists and philosophers administered beatings to dogs with perfect indifference and made fun of (people) who believed the creatures felt pain and therefore pitied them. They insisted that the animals were like clocks; that the cries they emitted when struck were only the noises of some little spring that had been triggered by the blow, but that the animal itself has absolutely no feeling” (p. 149 from Jean de la Fontaine’s journalistic account of experiments.)
Think about this: How many torturers in our history have justified their actions by stating that the object of the torture either deserved it or was “less-than” human? In Nazi Germany, the Nazi regimen believed Jews, Homosexuals, and Gypsies were not human. They were animals. This was the propaganda at the time. If they were animals, mere machines, their bodies just a “commodity” then it was okay for the Nazis to do whatever they wished.
Riley isn’t so much involved in the torturing of these creatures as he is in their capture and imprisonment. He knows that the torture and experiments take place, but does not question them overly much, since he believes they are justified. He is not all that different than a solider who has been ordered to take out an opponent’s military base and kill all the occupants. The Initiative and Maggie Walsh on the other hand – are willfully torturing these creatures with the goal of creating their own army of super-soliders. They justify their acts with the view that these are just animals, subterrestials that deserve to die.
The Initiative’s sadistic practices on Spike and the other creatures remind me a little of the recent sodomy and rape of Abner Louima, the prisoner in NYC by three cops. In this still unsettled case (it’s been going on for three years now), the cops took the prisoner into a bathroom and sodomized him brutally. They felt justified in their actions because in their heads, the prisoner wasn’t human, he was an animal. This can happen in jails, prisons and in our justice system, when someone commits a horrible crime, we handle it by demonizing them. The horrible crimes of Peter Stubbe in 1591 Germany were attributed to a werewolf. People could not attribute these things to a man. Same with Charles Manson. If we can demonize the criminal, we can torture him, kill him, destroy him and not feel any remorse.
In Riley’s case – he has no problem punishing, torturing or killing the demons. As he tells Buffy in New Moon Rising – there’s no difference, all demons are bad. So we kill them. Buffy of course knows there are graduations of evil and not all evil is worthy of the death penalty. She also realizes that going down that road makes her no better than the demons she fights. Professor Walsh doesn’t see this, but then Prof Walsh takes the mad scientist view that if it’s in the name of science and discovery, it’s okay and she certainly doesn’t stop with demons.
Therein lies the danger. If we treat animals this way – how long until we start to treat humans in the same manner? Justifying our actions based on the stature of the person we are torturing? In our collective history we have justified torturing slaves, prisoners of war, and deformed individuals based on the fact that they looked different or appeared different from us. (Holocaust, Slavery in US and elsewhere are just a few examples.) Professor Walsh demonstrates how this may occur in her experiments on Riley and the other soliders of the Initiative without their knowledge. She justifies her actions on the view that a) their bodies belong to her, their bodies are commodities and b) she is improving them physically. Improving on nature by experimentation – a common scientific justification.
It’s not until OZ is captured and Riley realizes that he is more than just a beast, just an animal, that Riley sacrifices everything to save OZ and goes AWOL. For Riley the last straw is not the fact that the Initiative drugged him or the fact that they are experimenting and torturing demons – the last straw is when he discovers that one of those demons is actually an infected human. Not a complete monster. And someone he is acquainted with. Up until that realization – Riley just wants to kill him, doesn’t even see the point in playing around with him. When he realizes it, he changes his tune and breaks with everything he knows. (New Moon Rising, Season 4, Btvs).
I guess this is why As You Were (Season 6, Btvs) and Into the Woods (Season 5, Btvs where Riley goes off to join the military again, leaving Buffy with an ultimatium) bothered me so much. Riley had left the military behind, had begun to follow a new path. Granted this appeared to be Buffy’s path, but as Buffy states in This Year’s Girl – he doesn’t have to be a solider, he can leave the military, be a demon fighter, hunt his own path just as she did when she fired the Watcher’s Council the year before. Take the initiative and become his own man. So Riley leaves the military, the Initiative and for a while is no longer just following orders. But clearly that doesn’t work for him – he needs some one to give him a mission, rules and boundaries. (Into the Woods). And by the time he returns in As You Were? Riley is right back where he started. Fighting demons with someone else issuing the orders, the guidelines. In AYW he appears the same way he did in The I in Team, Doomed, Goodbye Iowa, and Hush. A self-righteous solider, towing the company line. Are his actions sadistic? Not really. Does he enjoy killing those demons? I believe so. Actually I got the feeling the Sam and Riley didn’t just enjoy tracking and killing those demons, they loved it. What better way to get rid of those aggressions? Than to tear apart some demons. And hey you’re justified since after all they killed half a village. Exterminating them is a necessity, particularly if other governments are using them as weapons. (We don’t know if the US in the Buffyverse is or not, but if we use the Initiative as an example of what the Buffyverse government is capable of? Well I wouldn’t put it past them.)
4. The Vampire Hunters : Justine & Holtz – Pleasure in Punishment
Last night, twisting and turning in bed, it came to me how similar Justine and Holtz’s (The big bad’s of season 3 Ats) relationship is to Season 2, Btvs’ Buffy and Angel. They are a dark Buffy and Angel. Holtz is the dark older man from another age watching a young blond woman fighting vampires. He takes her under his wing like a father figure and in the end she must kill him. Okay, even I admit I may have gone out on a limb on that one. The twisted father/daughter relationship between Justine and Holtz makes Angel and Buffy seem like the perfect couple.
Also unlike Buffy and Angel, Justine and Holtz don’t just dust their vampire prey – they torture them. They live by the doctrine mentioned by Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, the only way to destroy the enemy is to become like them. Something Buffy and Angel try very hard to avoid. And J/T appear to get a sadistic enjoyment out of doing it. Their capture and torture of the vampires for training purposes is very different from the Initiative and Maggie Walsh. While the Initiative is sterile, scientific, devoid of feeling, Holtz and Justine’s chamber is dirty, raw, and their acts are filled with passion. They come across as dark versions of the demon hunters: Sam & Riley or the Champions: Cordy and Angel, or the Slayer and her Watcher: Buffy & Giles. And of all the characters, I’ve analyzed their relationship seems to be the most clearly based in S&M metaphor.
In Marquis De Sade’s novella Justine – a woman seeks out pain and torture partly due to her own horrible feelings about herself. She wishes to be punished – so finds someone willing to do it and half falls in love with him in the process.
Justin in Atvs Season 3, may or may not be patterned after Sade’s heroine, but she certainly pursues a similar behavior pattern. When Holtz first discovers her, she is angry and wants nothing to do with him. Apparently vampires killed her twin sister, Julia and Justine has fallen into a spiral of pain and misery. She spends her nights dusting vamps in cemeteries. Holtz offers her a way out – train and become a vampire hunter. (DAD, Ats Season 3) (Juliette by the way was the name of the companion piece to Sade’s Justine. Juliette is Justine’s sister and gets off on torturing people. So maybe this isn’t such a coincidence after all.)
Justine and Holtz’s training montage is reminiscent of Buffy’s montage with her first Watcher in LA shown in flashbacks in Becoming Part I (Btvs. Season 2). Except Holtz is far crueler and tougher on Justine. In one disturbing scene he uses an ice pick (awl) to nail her hand to a table.
Holtz: "We are here to determine whether or not - you - have the commitment necessary for the work at hand."
Justine: "At hand? -That's a joke, right?"
Holtz: "Why are you wasting my time?"
Justine: "What do you want from me?"
Holtz: "I just told you: commitment. Something you must now convince me you have."
The camera pans down from Justine looking up at Holtz to reveal that her left hand is pinned to the desk with an awl. (Provider, Ats. Season 3)
In the above scene Holtz has punished Justine for dusting two vampires instead of walking away as he ordered. Holtz’s initial purpose appears to be to hone her into a vengeance machine. By the time he accomplishes this, he has become a father figure to her. But at this early stage, when he pulls the ice pick out of her hand, she slugs him. So the relationship is certainly not just one way or the other. Both parties are fairly abusive to each other. He hits her, she kicks him. Their battles become interesting exercises in foreplay.
Holtz is an interesting villain – the puritanical demon killer. Moralistic. Commanding. Religious. Dressed in puritanical clothes when we first see him in flashbacks, he comes across as an avenging angel of death that is a perpetual thorn in the sides of Angelus and Darla. A puritan preacher that brings to mind pictures of Cotton Mather or Bram Stoker’s Van Helsin. If Van Helsin’s obsession was Dracula, Holtz’s obsession is Angelus. And like Van Helsin – Holtz uses a girl to get his pray. Justine becomes both Holtz’s surrogate daughter and to some degree lover. While it is never clear whether they’ve engaged in sexual relations – there does appear to be some sort of sexual pleasure derived from their S&M games. First the ice pick in the hand. Later we see them fighting. Practicing maneuvers as Holtz would call it. Compare this to the calm, relatively restrained martial arts training of Cordelia and Angel in his basement. Justine and Holtz are torturing vampires they’ve captured, training others like themselves in battling them while Angel Investigations just dusts them. The vampires remain alive and chained until Holtz literally disappears in a hell dimension and only then does Justine dust them in revenge for Holtz’s abandonment. (Loyalty – Forgiving, Ats Season 3).
When Fred, one of Angel’s friends, meets Justine and confronts her about Holtz, she says perhaps Justine lost more than a father in Holtz. (Forgiving.) Prior to Holtz’s departure, we see several displays of increased affection between Holtz and Justine, all somewhat twisted. First is when he slams into her by accident while they are torturing their vampires and training members of their team. (Loyalty.) The second is when he catches her talking to Wesely on the sly and we realize that he sent her there. He even stalks behind her, whispering seductively in her ear about how much he trusts her. The final one – is when we learn he plans on taking Angel’s son and raising it with Justine. He and Justine will be the kid’s parents. He has set Justine up as both his surrogate son’s mother and sister. (Sleep Tight.)
Justine becomes incredibly attached to Holtz all through this. But not once is he kind to her. Instead he continuously commands her to do his bidding. Often threatening her with violence or torture if she does not comply, perhaps even rewarding her with it? The ice pick through the hand, the slap across the face, the knife held to the throat. These two are bound together in hate – not towards each other – towards the vampires who destroyed their lives.
So why is Justine putting up with Holtz’s torture?
Holtz: "So I've explained why I'm doing this. Why are you?"
Justine: "Let's just say, feeling something - is better than feeling nothing."
Reminds me a little of Buffy and Spike in Season 6, Btvs. Actually Justine strikes me as a dark version of Buffy, a dark much older version, since the actress appears to be in her thirties and far more ravaged by life. Like Buffy, Justine would just like to feel. When her sister died, her life lost all its meaning, became empty. Her sister was a part of her soul, a part of her being, possibly the brighter part. Buffy also has this deep connection with her sister. If Dawn had died instead of Buffy, would Buffy have become like Justine? More embittered towards life instead of merely depressed by it? While the sadomasochism in the Spike/Buffy relationship is subtly alluded to, it was pretty obvious in the Justine/Holtz relationship.
Holtz and Justine fight throughout their scenes with each other. Either with fists, words or mere looks. Yet by Sleep Tight their affection for one another is so apparent, that the viewer can sense Justine’s pain as Holtz’s disappears through the portal to the hell dimension. It is Justine that Holtz trusts to carry out his revenge plot and she does him proud. She becomes a female version of Holtz. By the end of Season 3, Ats, Benediction, Justine has inherited her surrogate father/lover’s role. She is Holtz.
As Holtz states in Dad – his purpose is to change Justine into himself, an instrument for vengeance. “Your life has been ruined. You can't sleep. Instead you wander the streets, making others pay for what happened to your sister. That's where I can help. I see your talent. And I see your hate. And I know that I can shape and hone you into an instrument of vengeance." (DAD, Ats Season 3) Justine somewhat sardonically suggests that this sounds like fun, Holtz insists it won’t be. But it actually is, in a way. They both get off on it. The passion and the pain that they inflict on each other, the others they locate to initiate into their group and the pain they inflict on Angel. It is after all better to feel something, even if it is hate, than nothing at all.
In Benediction, Holtz requests that Justine kill him in the manner Angelus would. Using his old ice pick to make the fang marks. Justine reluctantly sticks the ice pick into Holtz’s neck, forming two holes or bite marks, killing him as a vampire would. It is the same ice pick that Holtz used to nail Justine’s hand to the table. The ice pick seems to connect them in their dance of pain and pleasure and revenge. It is the symbol of Justine’s commitment and Holtz’s willingness to do whatever it takes. Justine resists this at first, but an incredibly aged Holtz prods her, insisting she carry out his last wish. When she does do it, it’s almost as if she is kissing him as each prod goes in and Justine has tears in her eyes as she does it.
Justine slams Holtz up against the side wall of the motel: "Don't make me do it. I can't."Holtz has his hand wrapped around Justine's right hand and the awl she is holding up between them.
Holtz: "We already know you can. You promised. You said you'd do anything for me. Come on, Justine. I'm not asking you to follow me into hell. Just help send me there. (Shakes her) Do it!"
Crying, Justine, her hand still covered by Holtz', stabs him in the side of the neck with the awl. (Holtz slides down the wall, still holding on to Justine)
Holtz to Justine: "Again. Again!" Crying, Justine stabs Holtz neck a second time just below the first puncture. Connor runs through a metal gate and stops as he sees Justine, running her hand over Holtz' head resting in her lap. (Benediction)
Holtz aids Justine in the act. Screaming to do it again. Placing his hand over hers to drive the pike home. And Justine complies reluctantly and in tears. The act is made to look like a vampire’s kiss and in a way it is - caused by both their hands on the weapon and taking them both to hell. Holtz completes Justine’s initiation into his world. Her first act was slicing Wesely’s throat, as Wes had once held a knife to hers (Loyalty and Sleep Tight). But she did not actually kill Wes then. Her second is killing Holtz or rather helping Holtz kill himself. By killing Holtz, Justine has finally crossed the line and become him. The metaphor of the vampire is used in two ways here – first erotically, the idea of being eaten, killed by a bite. Changed. When Connor finds Holtz he assumes Angelus bit him and burns the body to keep him from being turned. But it’s not Holtz who is turned by this act, it is Justine who encourages and persuades Connor to destroy Angel by setting it up to look like Angel killed Holtz, then helping Connor destroy the body. Justine through the ice pick has now become the instrument of violence, of vengeance that Holtz desired. She metaphorically becomes both Holtz and the monster Holtz wants to destroy, Angelus.
The vampire bite is often seen as a phallic symbol, so it is interesting that Holtz forces Justine’s hand with his own. He can’t quite do it himself so he has her do it. But since she is reluctant, he must guide her hand. She is in a sense his puppet, his slave, willing to do whatever he asks. Even if it means killing him. As she does so, he slides down the wall into her embrace. She holds his head in her lap and strokes his hair until his surrogate son Connor discovers them. Penetrated and dead by the hand of a lover yet set up to look like it was done by the teeth of the vampire he hates.
Holtz enables Justine to feel again – she is no longer empty in his presence. His touch inflames her. Justine in return provides Holtz with the ability to enact his final act of vengeance and to finally rest in peace after hundreds of years pursuing this goal.
It is ironic that each of Holtz and Justine’s acts of sadism are first conducted by the very monster they are hunting: Angelus. Angelus has tortured his victims with needles and ice picks. Holtz tortures Justin in this manner. Angelus has chained victims for his own pleasure using blood transfusions to keep them alive. Justine and Holtz torture the vampires like this. And finally Angelus bites and drinks from a victim in an alley. Holtz forces Justine to recreate such a scene in an alley. Do they realize that their sadistic dance of vengeance has turned them into human versions of the very monsters they despise? Except instead of directing their sadism outwards it appears in most if not all cases to be directed towards each other.
5. The Slayers: Faith and Buffy – Power & Control (longest section)
When you watch Buffy and Faith fight, it is like watching mirror images or a fissure of self: Faith is Buffy’s darkness, including all that entails – the uninhibited sexual desires, insecure daddy issues, fears of abandonment, enjoyment of slaying, uses of violence to deal with life. Both girls are similarly built and of similar size and age. One just happens to be dark haired and one blond.
Through Faith we see for the first time the dark side of the slayer, the primal, animal within the girl. From the information on BTVS and Ats (have not read Fray or any Buffy novels so I’m not referencing those), slayers were created to kill vampires and other demons. The First Slayer in both Buffy’s dream (Restless) and in Intervention – seems to tell Buffy two things: It’s about the slay, always about the slay, the kill. That’s all that is important. But at the same time, Love, Forgive, Give, Risk the Pain – it takes you to your gift, which is Death. In Slayer speak = death equals love, equals peace, release. We can also have sexual deaths – the orgasmic release or little death. S&M is about releasing the endorphins that are generated both by pleasure and pain, the sources for which can be stimulated in similar areas on the body. The line between the two possibly narrower than one would expect. If you can control someone’s pleasure as well as their pain, if you can provide them with that release – do you control them? Faith may believe so.
a. Slaying Vampires – Getting off on the job
Season 3, Btvs delved into the dark underbelly of sexuality with Faith. Faith was the bad girl. To Faith – life was take, want, have. Sex was violent. Men were beasts. And love was a fairy tale. You don’t make love in Faith’s world, you have sex. Primal, animalistic, wild sex. Faith got off on killing the demons and accused Buffy of feeling the same way. Some of Faith’s dialogue reminds me a bit of Spike in Seasons 5-6.
Examples:
Bad Girls: Faith: Oh, like you don't dig it.
Buffy: (shrugs) I don't.
Faith: You're a liar. I've *seen* you. Tell me staking a vamp doesn't
get you a little bit juiced. Come on, say it.
Fool for Love:
Buffy: You got off on it. Killing those slayers.
Spike: Like you don’t? How many of us have you killed?
Where Buffy is afraid to go, Faith jumps with both feet. It’s not until Season 6, that we really start to see Buffy delve into this part of herself and the results weren’t pretty, but Buffy never went as far as Faith. She never let herself get off on slaying. As she tells Xander and Dawn in Villains – “Being the slayer doesn’t give me a license to kill.” And she’s always been a little ashamed of herself when she does get off on it. Faith however relishes in it. Faith loves being the slayer, the Chosen One. She loves staking vamps. She gets an orgasmic thrill from it.
Faith: Tell me that if you don't get in a good slaying, after a while, you just start itching for some vamp to show up so you can give him a good (grunts and punches)!
Buffy: Again with the grunting. You realize I'm not comfortable with this.
Faith: Hey, slaying's what we were built for. If you're not enjoying it, you're doing something wrong. (BAD GIRLS, Season 3, Btvs)
When we first meet Faith, in Faith, Hope and Tricks – she has lured a vampire out to an alley. Buffy has followed her convinced that the vampire lured Faith. Turns out Faith is the predator in this scenario, doing something which never occurred to Buffy. Letting a vamp come on to her – so she can stake him. She even flirts a bit before doing it. Later when she tells the gang about her exploits, she enthralls them with a story of her killing a demon naked. The description is so sexual and violent that Xander is visibly turned on.
In the same episode, we see Faith beating up a vampire instead of just dusting it. Her act horrifies Buffy, who pushes her aside and kills the vamp for Faith. The act is partly Faith projecting her fear and pain onto the vamp and it is partly the release. It is an act she repeats later in Enemies,( when she kills the informant), Bad Girls –( when she accidentally kills the Mayor’s assistant, jumping over the line slayers must never cross), and numerous other episodes where she hunts and kills demons. To Faith part of the fun is the kill, the fight, the battle. And up until she takes human life, she is justified in it. No one questions her actions. No one considers her insane or wrong. She’s taking pleasure in it, but who cares, they are vampires. Then when she takes the Mayor’s deputy’s life – people start getting concerned. That concern continues when they realize she killed the demon informant and finally the human professor. But would Faith have been considered out of line if the Mayor’s Deputy had been a demon?
We have somewhat the same reaction to Buffy’s beating of Spike in Seasons 4-6. Poor Spike is literally beaten up by everyone. Most of Season 4, she seems to punch him in the nose or someone does. In Season 5, Riley shoves a pretend stake in his chest and Buffy beats him up for her jollies. If he shows up in the wrong place, argues with her, is pissy, she punches him in the nose. The audience cheers. He is eeevil! And the writers justify it in the DVD Commentary of Primeval – it’s okay to abuse Spike and we can enjoy torturing him because at his core? He’s inherently evil. Apparently it’s okay to enjoy torturing the bad guy. Is Buffy and SG’s actions regarding Spike really all that different than Faith’s? Any more justifiable?
b. Faith, Xander, Riley and Boys – Slaying the male
When Faith decides to have sex with Xander in The Zeppo, she has been fighting a few demons, but she hasn’t killed them. She hasn’t been able to get in her “slay”. For Faith, slaying allows her to take control. She is the one with the power. So when she loses, she feels empty, unfilled. When Xander saves her in The Zeppo, she has rough sex with him. Strips him of his clothes, jumps on top of him, and literally screws him. It’s not romantic. It’s not nice. And when she’s done, she throws him out the door half-naked like a discarded toy. He might have saved her with his car, but she took back the control, she seduced, screwed, and took his virginity. She slayed him.
Xander is fairly submissive in this relationship. Struggling for his own identity he has for some time engaged in a bit of hero-worship regarding Buffy. He lusts after the strong female. The woman who can slay him, throw him down. It’s not until Hells Bells that we begin to understand why. Xander’s mother and father are the reverse of him and Faith. The Father is the Dominant party and the mother is the Submissive, to the point in which you almost want to slap her. And Xander is terrified of becoming his father. So he picks the strong women, women who can browbeat him, who can slay him. For Xander being slayed by Faith was a wonderful experience, a connection. For Faith it was nothing more than a quick role in the hay.
Faith considers men to be beasts, as she tells Buffy in Beauty and The Beasts (Season 3, Btvs). The ones she dated were losers, they treated her horribly. Her watcher apparently was a woman who was killed by a horrible male vampire, so old it had cloven feet and whom Faith was on the run from. (Faith, Hope and Trick). Faith doesn’t trust men. To Faith men serve two roles – authority figure or something to be slayed. The writers don’t give us much on Faith’s background, so we can only guess. But it does appear Faith has serious “daddy issues”. She also has serious issues with men.
The attempted rape scene between Xander and Faith in Consequences is interesting. It’s part S&M and part rape. At first it appears that Xander is almost willing. He has gone to Faith to help her. He believes that they have a connection. That the sex they had in The Zeppo has elevated him in Faith’s eyes. Buffy tries to tell Xander that Faith places no importance on such things and tosses men aside like toys. But Xander is sure he can reach her. Instead Faith assumes all he wants is sex, like all men, and she thrusts him on the bed and attempts to slay him sexually as she did before, almost killing him in the process. Their sexual scene reminds me of a scene in the book and later movie of the same name Rising Sun by Michael Crichton. In the book, a woman dies in the throes of passion. She is called a gasper. Gasper’s apparently get off sexually by being chocked. They can only have an orgasm on the point of death, when they have been deprived of oxygen – sex and death are closely linked in the Gasper’s head. The person strangling the gasper – gets off in being the one who has the control over life and death - who can deprive the Gasper of life.
Faith: (excitedly) You wanna feel a connection? It's just skin. (opens his shirt) I see... I want... I take. (kisses him hard) I forget. (She keeps moving above him and rubbing his chest and shoulders.)
Xander: (nervously) No. No, wait. It was more than that.
Faith: I could do anything to you right now, and you want me to. I can make you scream. (She licks her tongue over and around his face and returns to his lips, and kisses him forcefully, seizing his lower lip between her teeth and pulling at it.) (breathlessly) I could make you die.
To Faith sex is a power game. It isn’t about “love”. It’s about power. Buffy sees it as “love”. When Faith asks Buffy if she ever did it with Xander in Bad Girls, Buffy is perplexed and states, “I love Xander but I don’t * love * Xander.” To Faith love doesn’t enter into it. Faith can’t imagine love. When she switches with Buffy, literally becomes Buffy in Who Are You, she still considers sex a game of power. She flirts with Spike, plays with him, lets him know she could screw him if she so desired. But doesn’t because “it is wrong” making it clear that Spike has no choice in the matter. Then she goes off to screw Riley, seeing it as nothing more than revenge sex. I’ll screw Buffy’s boys, Faith thinks. And asks Riley if he wants to hurt her. “You want to punish me,” Faith asks. Have I been bad? Riley looks confused and pushes her sex game aside insisting on making traditional love to her. When they finish, he tells her he loves her. And Faith freaks. “Love? Why? What do you want from her?” Faith as Buffy asks. Faith, the dark side, the slayer side of Buffy is suddenly questioning herself. Is it possible she was wrong? Maybe there is love. Maybe it isn’t just a power game. Unable to handle this she takes off. (Who are You, Season 4, Btvs.)
Faith prefers the game. It’s safer. If it becomes more – things get too close. She can get hurt. She’d rather take the physical than the emotional risk. Just as Buffy in Season 6 prefers the physical to the emotional risk. As slayers they take the physical risk all the time, its second nature to them. The emotional risk, letting someone inside their heart as opposed to just inside their body is far more frightening.
But the S&M games Faith plays with Xander and Buffy later plays with Spike are far from safe. As Angel tells Faith in Consequences:
Faith: The thing with Xander; I know what it looked like, but we were just playing.
Angel: (evenly) And he forgot the safety word. (gets up) Is that it? (walks over to her)
Faith: Safety words are for wusses.
Uh no, Faith, without safety words you shouldn’t be playing at all. S&M is all about trust and Faith has none. Without trust, S&M doesn’t work. That is the problem Buffy has with Spike and that is Faith’s problem. Season 6 Buffy can’t trust anyone including herself. Even if Spike was ensouled and the nicest guy on the planet – her relationship with him would have been unhealthy, because Buffy was not in a place in which she could open herself emotionally to someone else. Buffy can’t trust. It’s really not as much about Spike as Spike and the audience think it is. It’s really about what’s going on inside Buffy. And no, I’m not saying she should trust Spike, I’m just saying she isn’t open to it right now – any more than she was with Riley. She could show physical love to Riley but could not emotionally open up to him that’s why he left. It’s also why Buffy really shouldn’t be romantically entangled with anyone right now. She isn’t sure who she is and whether she can trust herself let alone another person. Since her mother died, Buffy has felt like she is losing control, over her life, her body, her self and is desperately trying to regain it.
The Slayer is such a physical force of nature. The previous slayers, Nikki, the Boxer Rebellion Slayer, and The First Slayer seemed to have no voice, to be all about the act. The slay. The First Slayer appeared to be pure primal energy not needing friends, watchers, or the outside world. (Restless, Btvs Season 4) Even Kendra seemed to be emotionally detached. Buffy had to push to get her to open up emotionally. (What’s My Line Part II, Btvs Season 2) These slayers were weapons. They were either all about business or all about moves. They had nothing connecting them to the world outside of their status as slayers – hence the death wish. (See FFL) Death was their reward, their release and slaying the sexual act leading up to it. Both Buffy and Faith succumb briefly to this reward. Faith when she is knocked into a coma by Buffy, temporarily released from her duties. And Buffy when she leaps to her death in the Gift. Both deaths could be seen as a sort of sexual release: Buffy’s falling from the phallic tower, Faith’s falling after being stabbed by her surrogate father’s phallic knife.
When Buffy is resurrected, she returns in an emotionally frozen state. Unable to feel. Requiring some sort of violence to stimulate her. Whether that be screwing a vampire or staking one. But I’d argue that Buffy’s frozen state occurred prior to Bargaining, Buffy was somewhat emotionally frozen after Buffy vs. Dracula, when her mom first got sick, her kid sister appeared, and she had to begin to move past adolescence into adulthood. This frozen state is foreshadowed by Faith and her relationship with Xander. Faith can’t trust Xander. She can’t trust the SG. She can’t trust the Watcher Council, who tries to kidnap and kill her three times. (Consequences, Who Are You, and Sanctuary). The closest Faith comes to trusting someone is the Mayor and later Angel in Sanctuary (Ats Season 1). Both are dark men who have some experience with death and torture. They also both treat her with a semblance of compassion and trust. Sometimes trusting someone is all it takes to obtain trust in return.
c. Faith, Buffy, Angel & Wesely – fun with chains
Faith: Finally decided to tie me up, huh? I always knew you weren't really a one-Slayer guy. (Consequences)
After Angel rescues Xander, he chains Faith up in the Crawford Mansion. The chains connote lack of trust on Angel’s part, but appear to have sexual connotations to Faith. Later in Enemies, Faith and Angelus (Angel pretending to be Angelus) chain up Buffy. Faith lays out some implements and suggests the fun she is going to have torturing her counterpart. She gets off on Angel’s beating of Buffy and Angel’s beating of her. Faith prefers Angelus. Vicious and cruel. To the understanding, compassionate Angel. Buffy of course is the opposite. But Faith calls her on it in Enemies, suggesting that perhaps a part of Buffy got off on Angelus’ attraction to her. Just as a part of Buffy gets off on Spike, even lusts after Spike as is suggested first by Faith in Who Are You and later shown in Smashed through Seeing Red in Season 6. Screwing the bad boy can be a heady experience. He’s dangerous. He’s death. Faith loves it when a fanged Angelus kisses her and then tries to kill her. Slaying makes her horny as hell and she’s not afraid to admit it.
But Faith seems to enjoy the chains less than she enjoys chaining up others. First she chains up Buffy and plays with the torture. Discovering Buffy and Angel played her and that Buffy was never truly chained, Buffy and Faith do battle and when the battle ends and Buffy holds a knife to Faith’s throat, Faith says – “you kill me, you become me and you aren’t ready for that yet”, then kisses her on the forehead. Later in Graduation Day Part I – it is Buffy who has the upper hand and does appear to kill or mortally wound Faith and by doing so, in some way, incorporates part of Faith in herself as is demonstrated by the prophetic dream in both their heads. A part that she incorporates even more after Faith literally trades bodies, forcing Buffy to experience life under her darker sister’s skin. The experience is not one Buffy appreciates, but it is one that changes her. (Who are You, Season 4, Btvs.) Afterwards the fragile trust she had with Riley is never fully re-established. She can’t quite deal with the fact that he slept with Faith while Faith had her body. That he couldn’t tell Faith wasn’t Buffy. And we begin to see Buffy close off a part of herself, a part she closes off a tad more after she finds Angel comforting Faith in Sanctuary Ats Season 1. Buffy had intended to save Angel from Faith, instead she is helping Angel save Faith from the Watchers. Angel’s comforting of Faith and Buffy’s inability to accept it – may be the second to last nail in the coffin of their romance. Angel realizes that if Buffy can’t forgive Faith, she may never be able to completely accept or forgive him. Buffy realizes that she can never fully understand or trust Angel, because of what he is capable of, something Faith shares with him and to her knowledge, she doesn’t. “I’m not part of your murders club.”
The next victim of Faith’s is Wesely, her watcher. With Wesely, Faith goes all out. She tortures him partly for her own pleasure and partly to convince Angel to kill her. It’s all about regaining control.(Five by Five Ats 1) She can’t quite get up the nerve to kill herself, Faith has never been a quitter. But she hates herself as she demonstrates in the pummeling of her body while Buffy still occupies it. (Who are You, Btvs 4.) She has lost control over herself, her world, everything. By capturing Wesely – a former teacher and father figure, the male authority figure who failed her so miserably in Season 3 Btvs when he sent the Watcher Council after her (Consequences), Faith feels she is reasserting her power over the Watchers, over the father that left her, over her world. She tortures Wes brutally and enjoys it. Cutting away his skin cuts away the skin of those that asserted control over her. He symbolizes the SG and the Watchers, and everything about slaying that she hates.
Faith’s torture of Wesely is also interesting in how it echoes Angel’s torture of Giles. Both get off on the torture. Both are accused by the Watchers of doing it for their own pleasure. Wes is furious with Angel for helping Faith because she tortured Wes for her own pleasure. (Sanctuary Ats 1) Giles is furious with Buffy for helping Angel because he tortured Giles for his own pleasure. (Revelations. Btvs 3). Both tortures are barely stopped in time by third parties, Spike in Giles’ case and Angel in Wes’. Both acts are purely sadistic. But they are also all about control. Who has it. When you torture someone, part of the pleasure is the power you have in eliciting a reaction, whether that is a scream, a piece of information, or a curse. Making them do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. Molding them to your will. Sadists often do not feel in control in their ordinary life. They are insecure about their own power so they enjoy the illusion of wresting it from their victims.
In Btvs and Ats it’s interesting how many people get tortured. Angel in Blood Money tortures Merle repeatedly for information. Hanging the poor friendly demon upside down and half drowning him. But as Lorne states in Forgiving while Angel is threatening to torture Linwood, torturing demons is acceptable – humans is not. Even if they are nasty humans. Buffy’s torture of the vampire in When She Was Bad with a crucifix is overlooked. After all Buffy had no other choice. And the girl was a demon. To Buffy’s credit – she never appeared to enjoy it, much. Angel does appear to enjoy it. Both when he tortures Merle and when he tortures Linwood. Faith also enjoys it. Why? Because of all the characters – Faith and Angel have the least control. Angel is cursed with a soul. He gets happy? He loses it and all chance at redemption. He is in the ultimate Catch-22 situation. Faith is one of two slayers – and Buffy already has the primo spot and Faith’s made one too many mistakes, she’s on her way to jail or death by Watchers, she has no control. Torturing Wes – gives her a little of that control back – she is able to get Angel mad enough at her to possibly kill her and put an end to her suffering. Angel doesn’t comply, but hey it was worth a try. It also gets a bit of her own back at the almighty Watchers. Faith ironically doesn’t really take control over her life, until she surrenders to the inevitability of it by surrendering to the police, breaking the cycle.
Buffy in Season 6 is also engaged in some sadistic acts. She’s playing control games with Spike. Whipping him back and forth. First she kisses him. Then she pummels him and tells him he can never have her, he’s evil. (Smashed through AYW) Buffy has lost control. The only control she feels she has is when she is pure slayer, which entails killing demons and slaying Spike. She can’t kill Spike of course. But she can screw him in fifteen different ways. She can screw with his head. Screw with his body. Let him screw with hers. In her relationship with Spike, Buffy does what Faith does – she projects her self-hatred on to the vampire. When she tells him he is an evil soulless thing, that he is wrong, she is venting what she fears most about herself. Someone said that fear and shame are the worst emotions – these are the emotions that Buffy is feeling. Shame at being brought back alive, fear that something is wrong with her. But unlike Faith, Buffy never quite crosses that line. She breaks the cycle before it gets too far out of hand and she destroys herself and what she loves.
Buffy breaks off her relationship with Spike in AYW, acknowledging her friend, William, the man, by doing so. Buffy was screwing and torturing the monster with her sex and mind games and in doing so stripping away at the man underneath. The man she is half afraid to acknowledge and isn’t really sure exists. In AYW and Hell’s Bells, it appears she has acknowledged him to some extent. Prior to these episodes, in Buffy’s head, Spike had no feelings – he was an animal. He didn’t know what feelings were. He couldn’t love her. He didn’t have the capacity for that. Any more than he could feel pain in her mind. He was an intelligent pet she could screw. It took Riley and the events of OAFA to make her begin to realize that she was wrong. That Spike did have feelings and what she was doing was destroying them both.
Buffy does the same thing in Normal Again – saves her friends instead of letting them die. She ironically takes control of her life, by surrendering as well. Letting her friends cure her with the antidote. Instead of ignoring or trying to kill them. She acknowledges that they are real, have feelings, can feel pain. That they aren’t figments of her imagination to be tortured at will or are keeping her in Sunnydale to torture her. As a result – Buffy begins to slowly break from her cycle of self-hate.
In Btvs and Ats, the sadists aren’t in control – if anything they are being controlled by their sadism, by their own fears and insecurities. Torturing someone does not give you control over them – that is an illusion. It’s not until you give up control that you actually appear to have it. Willow gains control of her relationship with Tara when she surrenders it. Just as she regains control of herself, when she lets go of her sadistic rage on the hilltop in Grave. Faith regains control of herself by surrendering herself to the authorities. Holtz and Justine have only condemned themselves to their own hells – hells governed by their desire for vengeance and endless cycles of punishment. They have become the enemy they hate.
Finally, S&M only appears to work when both parties are satisfied, when love and trust are involved. When you have safety words. Without these things, you may get devoured like Veruca or almost strangled like Xander.
Thanks for reading.
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Shadowkat ;-)
