I think this phenomenon suggests another possibility: that the series may be an incitement to would-be predators who
masochistically desire to participate in the show's spectacle of crime and punishment.
The dispute between the narrator and Alice--their differend, to borrow Lyotard's term, over the shared space of newsprint--is very much a one-sided dispute (Alice's lips remained very much sealed in this moment of the narrative), staging, as Hawthorn reads it, the performance of "male heterosexual desire" as "linked sadistically and
masochistically to pain, fear and humiliation" (Hawthorn, 85).
Fantasy owners, though, don't have to
masochistically sit around and accept that type of damage on their team.
Consider their criticism of the phallic fantasy, which they say "embodies the thrill of power, but here it is power either
masochistically or sadistically experienced." (69) They continue, "[t]his is a sexual fantasy found in hierarchically arranged relationships." (70) They thus associate the sexual practice of sadomasochism with inequitable relationships.
Some of Halevi's ahavot vividly individualize the abandoned beloved and endow her with an erotic psychology, representing her, for example, as
masochistically reveling in her suffering and humiliation because, coming as they do from her lover, they alone give meaning to her life.
And her slavery to such form grotesquely continues even after her death: still complying,
masochistically, with the dictates of their role, she and other deceased women regularly come out of their tombs at night to polish their headstones and to exchange cleaning tips.
I had ordered it because,
masochistically, I was convinced the flesh would be dried out.
Or very nearly so, as I
masochistically kept an eye on the Buffalo Bills, and my wife and daughter chose a favorite show each season (most recently, "The Office").
Oddly,
masochistically, he continues to love Alice, although he claims the list of her infidelities over twenty years could extend three times around the earth if laid end to end.
He takes a beating three times: 'I've no resentment, no thoughts of revenge' (223) he exclaims after one nasty incident, and after another he
masochistically claims an attack 'seems to have cleared the mind a bit.
The other act of punctual submission occurs when Jaffeir is persuaded by Belvidera to betray the conspiracy "Anon at Twelve" (3.2.206), and describes his submission to her in terms of
masochistically pleasurable sacrifice.
(41) Perhaps had she followed her subjects into their promised lands she might have discovered them constructing communities of a different sort, and probably
masochistically retaining loyalty to the Tigers.