Scott Maddix

ENGL 105

July 10, 2000

"Wild Nights -- Wild Nights" is often touted as Emily Dickinson's lone erotic piece, but this is an error. Ironically, this oversight has happened not because critics have set their sights too high -- but too low. Those who think the virgin spinster incapable of so much as a PG-13 thought may argue on and on about whether "Wild Nights" is an erotic poem or not -- but by failing to look at the possibility that dear, sweet, retiring Emily might be even naughtier than they are, they have missed the obvious: Emily Dickinson was an aficionado of what is in modern parlance called S/M: sadomasochism.

In the following pages we shall learn some of the terms and styles of the S/M community, and, by closely reading Dickinson's poetry and letters we shall see a clear tendency toward an S/M lifestyle, whether historically she had opportunity to express this or not.

In Race Bannon's helpful guide Learning the Ropes, S/M is defined as

The abbreviation S/M is derived from the word "sadomasochism," which means the deriving of enjoyment from the infliction and/or receiving of pain. However, the term S/M, as it is now commonly used, has come to encompass a very wide range of erotic activities that do not necessarily involve pain at all. Indeed, it is probably accurate to say that the majority of people into S/M do not enjoy pain, per se. ... The component that seems to be part of all S/M play is ... the fact that there is an exchange of power between the partners. (20)

In her poem "My Life Had Stood -- a Loaded Gun" Dickinson demonstrates this concept of power exchange quite clearly. The First stanza reads, "My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun --/In Corners -- till a Day/The Owner passed -- identified --/And carried Me away" (Dickinson, "My Life"), showing the idea of a person's being owned and used by another, and finding pleasure and self-worth in this. In S/M parlance, the narrator of this poem, who may or may not be Dickinson herself, would be a "bottom," or "someone who enjoys a submissive role in an S/M scene ... the passive partner in a scene" (Bannon 151).

Further evidence of dickinsonian masochism might be found in her private letters -- which include three mysteriously addressed to "Master" (Dickinson "Study" 926). Someone who is addressed as "Master" would obviously be an appropriate counterpart to someone who wishes to be owned and used.

In other of her poems, however, Dickinson shows herself to be what Bannon would call a "switch": someone who can be both Top and Bottom (156). In her poem "I like a Look of Agony" Dickinson says it plainly: She likes the look of agony, finds appeal in the face of a man in pain (Dickinson "Study" 938). This is a common thought in the S/M community, that in some cases true beauty only comes to the surface when in bondage, or being spanked, or whipped. Dickinson says it is the only unfeigned expression a human has. Obviously she is at least conceptually Top as well.

Whether Dickinson ever acted out these fantasies we shall never know. However, "S/M play is in the mind, not the genitals. Sex may, or may not, be part of a scene. ... That means that the two people sitting next to you in a restaurant might be in the middle of an S/M scene and you wouldn't know it" (Bannon, 29). Dickinson, though a purported virgin, might still have been an active S/M player, then. Based on her poetry we may conclude that it was in her blood, and she was in attitude and in her heart both a dominant and a submissive S/M player.

This double nature within her fantasy life was also expressed quite succinctly in her poetry:

I felt a Cleaving in my Mind --

As if my Brain had split --

I tried to match it -- Seam by Seam --

But could not make them fit.

 

The thought behind, I strove to join

Unto the thought before --

But Sequence raveled out of Sound

Like Balls -- upon a Floor.

(Dickinson "Study" 950)

Though biographical data (and her poetry) suggests that she lived her life vicariously through her writing, it is clear that Emily Dickinson had S/M in her heart. Had she the resources of the modern kinky woman, she could have had a much more fulfilling erotic life, though we may be sure her fantasy life never suffered.

The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

(Dickinson "The Heart)

Bannon, Race. Learning The Ropes. San Francisco: Daedalus Publishing Co, 1992

Dickinson, Emily et al. "A Study of Three Poets: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes" in The Bedford Introduction to literature, ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.

Dickinson, Emily. "My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun" <http://www.taube-online.de/gun.html> found 7/09/00 through <http://userweb.interactive.net/~krisxlee/emily/poemsOnline.html>.

Dickinson, Emily. "The heart asks pleasure First." 7/09/00 <http://userweb.interactive.net/~krisxlee/emily/poemsOnline.html>.