The Misfits

1. The Outsider's Quest: Seeking Intensity Beyond Boredom

Boredom is basically a feeling of narrowness, and surely a narrow vision is bound to be less true than a broad one?

Life's fundamental paradox. The author's lifelong obsession stems from moments of intense vitality ("absurd good news") contrasted with the usual dullness of life. This "Outsider" problem questions which state is more real – the expansive vision or the feeling of narrow boredom. The core issue is man's struggle against the perceived meaninglessness and triviality of everyday existence.

Imagination as escape. Faced with a reality that often fails to deliver the promised ecstasy (especially in sex), individuals turn to imagination. This is seen in early examples like the musician preferring schoolgirls or the hero of Barbusse's Hell using a spy-hole. Imagination offers a way to enhance reality or create a more satisfying substitute, particularly when reality feels limited or frustrating.

Beyond conventional norms. The search for intensity often pushes individuals outside societal norms. This can manifest in various ways, from artistic rebellion to sexual deviation. The author initially explored this through literature and philosophy, but later recognized the profound sexual implications of this quest for a broader, more meaningful experience of life.

2. Charlotte Bach's Secret: Bisexuality, Evolution, and a Hidden Identity

But it is precisely this instability that makes human beings so creative and has led to the amazing growth of human culture and civilisation.

Evolutionary driving force. Charlotte Bach, a Hungarian psychologist, proposed a radical theory: human evolution is driven by an inherent bisexuality, a powerful pull towards the opposite sex within each individual. This inner tension creates instability, which, when not resisted, can manifest as sexual perversions like transvestism.

Eight sexual types. Bach classified individuals into eight types based on their anatomical sex, psychological sex, and whether they deny or affirm their opposite-sex component. She argued that "normal" types (like transvestites and butch lesbians) accept this duality, while "abnormal" types (like homosexuals) resist it, leading to instability that can fuel creativity.

• Male positive denialist (normal man)
• Female positive denialist (normal woman)
• Male positive asseverationist (transvestite)
• Female positive asseverationist (butch lesbian)
• Male negative denialist (psychologically female, denies femininity)
• Female negative denialist (psychologically male, denies masculinity)
• Male negative asseverationist (psychologically female, asserts pseudo-maleness)
• Female negative asseverationist (psychologically male, asserts femininity - femme lesbian)

A life of secrets. Despite her theory classifying transvestites as stable and non-creative, Charlotte Bach herself was a male transvestite named Carl Hajdu. His life, marked by a powerful sexual impulse, Don Juanism, criminal tendencies (kleptomania), and a severe breakdown, ultimately led him to embrace his female persona and develop his evolutionary theory, ironically contradicting his own classification of transvestites.

3. De Sade's Anarchy: The Will to Power and the Failure of Imagination

To understand why de Sade became the worst ‘mental criminal’ of all time is to understand something fundamental about human nature and the sexual impulse.

Incarnation of wickedness. The Marquis de Sade, despite his horrific writings filled with rape, torture, and murder, was personally liked and never committed the crimes he described. His philosophy, born from a spoiled childhood and hatred of authority/religion, centered on the "right to absolute selfishness" and the idea that nature is indifferent to morality, justifying any act for personal pleasure.

Sex as will to power. De Sade saw sexual excitement rooted in the sense of "forbiddenness" and the male's desire to possess and dominate. He believed intensifying pleasure required increasingly forbidden acts. His characters are wooden, serving only to enact his fantasies, revealing a curious lack of realism and imagination. He needed extreme acts to "jar" his senses into receptivity.

The central fallacy. De Sade's argument that total selfishness is the natural law fails because it ignores social sensitivity and the reality that a society based on his principles would collapse. His life, marked by acts of kindness (saving his in-laws) and personal struggles (imprisonment, poverty), also contradicted his own philosophy. His work ultimately serves as a case study in the absurdity of pursuing pleasure through escalating "forbiddenness."

4. Romanticism's Legacy: Imagination, the Forbidden, and the Rise of Perversion

The answer is that human beings learned to use the imagination far more than in previous centuries.

The imaginative revolution. The period between de Sade (born 1740) and Krafft-Ebing (born 1840) saw a dramatic increase in documented sexual perversions. This shift is linked to the rise of the novel, particularly works by Richardson (Pamela, Clarissa) and Rousseau (Julie), which taught readers to engage in detailed daydreams and emotional identification. This "magic-carpet trick" of fiction amplified imagination.

Imagination and the forbidden. As imagination became a more powerful tool, it was increasingly applied to sex. The "forbidden" nature of sex in civilized society, combined with sexual frustration, led to the imagination creating new channels for desire. This is seen in fetishism, where objects associated with the desired person or the idea of sex become stimulants, often more potent than the reality.

Birth of pornography. Samuel Richardson, despite his moralizing tone, is seen as a father of pornography because his detailed descriptions of attempted seduction titillated readers and taught them to "day-dream on paper." John Cleland's Fanny Hill took this further with explicit anatomical detail. This new genre amplified sexual emotions and created "superheated sex" by focusing on the forbidden and using language to intensify imaginative experience.

5. The Byronic Hero: Sin, Satiety, and the Flight from Reality

In Byron, we can see the essence of ‘sexual perversion’ with extraordinary clarity.

The idol of the age. Lord Byron became an overnight celebrity with Childe Harold, embodying the romantic ideal of a sated voluptuary burdened by secret sin. His life mirrored his heroes: marked by aristocratic privilege, early sexual experiences (including possible pederasty and incest), boredom, and a restless search for intensity and meaning.

The quest for the forbidden. Byron's sexual pursuits were driven by the "Coolidge effect" and a need for novelty and "forbiddenness" to stimulate his imagination and "reality function." Affairs with women like Caroline Lamb and Lady Oxford, and incest with his half-sister Augusta, provided temporary intensity. However, these dissolved into domesticity or scandal, leaving him disillusioned and fleeing across Europe.

Flight from boredom. Byron's core problem was a lack of purpose and an inability to tolerate boredom or solitude. His romantic posturing and pursuit of forbidden acts were attempts to escape this inner void and feel intensely alive. His life illustrates how the search for heightened experience through sex can become a futile cycle when not grounded in a deeper sense of purpose or a robust "reality function."

6. Imagination's Perils: From Daydreams to Sex Crime

But from the vantage point of the twentieth century, we can also see that it is simply a development of romanticism.

Romanticism's dark side. The intense cultivation of imagination by the Romantics, while leading to artistic breakthroughs, also had dangerous side effects. Figures like Gogol, despite his superficial realism, were deeply self-divided and trapped in dream worlds, struggling with sexual frustration and a sense of insignificance. His morbid and grotesque elements reflect this inner turmoil.

Pornography's evolution. Victorian pornography, a direct descendant of Romanticism's imaginative focus, became increasingly obsessed with the "forbidden" (flogging, child sex, incest) to create "superheated sex." Unlike earlier bawdy works, Victorian pornographers lost sight of sex as a natural part of life, treating it as a dreamlike activity detached from reality, fueled by prudery and guilt.

The rise of sex crime. While not directly caused by pornography, the same cultural shift that produced Victorian perversion and pornography also saw the emergence of modern sex crime. Cases like Andrew Bichel, Frederick Baker, Eusebius Pieydagnelle, Vincent Verzeni, and Jesse Pomeroy in the 19th century demonstrate a new phenomenon: individuals driven to violence and mutilation for sexual satisfaction, a manifestation of imagination's darker, uncontrolled aspects.

7. Victorian Misfits: Cultivating the Forbidden and Superheated Sex

The century between Tom Jones and David Copperfield had produced a powerful sexual obsession, a morbid fascination with sin.

Sadism and masochism. Algernon Charles Swinburne, a key figure of Victorian rebellion, embodied the era's morbid fascination with sadism and masochism, particularly flagellation. His aristocratic background and Etonian experiences likely contributed, but his obsession went beyond mere habit, becoming a central theme in his scandalous poetry.

The lure of the forbidden. Swinburne, like many Victorians, was drawn to the "forbidden" as a source of sexual excitement. His friendship with pornography collector Richard Monckton Milnes and his visits to brothels catering to flagellation fantasies highlight this. However, his adult self often recoiled from the absurdity or exploitation involved, revealing a self-division between the "childish" desire for forbidden thrills and adult reason.

The "Saint of Sex". The anonymous author of My Secret Life, "Walter," represents an extreme case of this Victorian obsession. Driven by an almost pathological craving for sexual variety and "superheated sex," he pursued countless encounters, often focusing on the "forbidden" (voyeurism, child sex, sodomy). His detailed, coarse descriptions reveal a mind constantly trying to intensify experience and achieve self-awareness through sex, treating it as a mystical vision rather than a simple biological act.

8. The Sexologists: Classifying Deviation and Challenging Prudery

More than any other single event, it signalled the end of the Victorian era.

Unveiling the unconscious. Sigmund Freud, influenced by Charcot's work on hysteria and hypnosis, revolutionized psychiatry by positing the unconscious mind and its powerful influence on behavior. His controversial "sexual theory," suggesting sex as the root of neurosis and exploring infantile sexuality and the Oedipus complex, shocked prudish Vienna but forced a public confrontation with sexuality.

Mapping sexual diversity. Pioneers like Krafft-Ebing (coining "sadism," "masochism"), Havelock Ellis (studying auto-eroticism, urolagnia, homosexuality), and Magnus Hirschfeld (studying transvestism, homosexuality as a "Third Sex") began to classify and analyze sexual deviations scientifically. They moved away from purely moralistic or hereditary explanations, recognizing the role of psychological factors and energy flow.

Challenging legal and social norms. The work of sexologists, particularly Ellis and Hirschfeld, directly challenged prevailing laws and social attitudes towards homosexuality and other deviations. The trials of Oscar Wilde and George Bedborough highlighted the harshness of the legal system, while Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science aimed to treat sexual "misfits" with sympathy and understanding, advocating for sexual reform and destigmatization.

9. 20th Century Rebels: Subjectivity, Guilt, and the Anti-Intellectual Cul-de-Sac

Their refusal to have any truck with intellect leaves them all in a hopelessly contradictory position—hence the pessimism and despair.

Subjective reality. 20th-century literary figures like Proust, Joyce, Lawrence, and Miller continued the Romantic tradition of focusing on subjective experience. Proust's detailed exploration of memory and sensation, Joyce's stream-of-consciousness and focus on bodily functions, Lawrence's "religion of the blood," and Miller's egoistic monologues all prioritize inner reality over external objectivity.

Guilt and deviation. Many of these figures grappled with personal guilt and sexual deviations, which fueled their work. Proust's sadism and masochism, Joyce's masochism and fetishism, Lawrence's exploration of sodomy and sadism, and Miller's relentless pursuit of casual sex reflect a continued struggle with the "forbidden" and a search for intensity through transgressive desires.

The anti-intellectual trap. A common thread among these rebels was a distrust of the intellect, prioritizing intuition and "blood" wisdom. This anti-intellectual stance, while intended to liberate, often led to philosophical contradictions, pessimism, and a sense of futility. Their focus on subjective experience, while artistically innovative, sometimes resulted in works that were self-referential and lacked the broader human connection found in earlier literature.

10. Misfits or Mystics?: Perversion as a Search for Vitality

Regarded in this light, all sexual perversion may be seen as having a ‘mystical’ aspect.

Beyond mere pleasure. The author argues that sexual perversion is not just about physical gratification but represents a search for a higher level of vitality and consciousness. Figures like Percy Grainger (sadism/masochism linked to Dionysian energy and Nordic mysticism), John Cowper Powys (sadism linked to nature mysticism), and Yukio Mishima (sadism/homosexuality linked to samurai tradition and emperor worship) illustrate how deviant desires can be intertwined with a quest for intense, even mystical, experience.

Cultivating the child. Perversions often involve a deliberate cultivation of a "childish" aspect of the personality, seeking the thrill of the "forbidden" and resisting adult individuation and control. This self-division provides a source of energy and intensity, but can also lead to guilt, self-destruction, and a failure to integrate the personality.

The drive against triviality. Ultimately, sexual deviation, like other forms of intense pursuit (asceticism, extreme sports, artistic obsession), can be seen as a manifestation of the universal human compulsion to escape boredom and triviality. It is a flawed attempt to access higher levels of drive and purpose, using the powerful engine of sexual imagination to achieve a sense of meaning and vitality in a world that often feels meaningless.

Last updated: May 29, 2025