The famous novel “Venus in Furs” by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was published 150 years ago, is about fetish addictions and his most well-known and at the same time most controversial work, strongly inspired by his own life. Nowadays, Sacher-Masoch is seen as a pioneer of the new erotic literature, because he stood up against prejudice with his texts and was one of the first to write so openly about a taboo subject and thus probably hit a nerve of his time. The term “masochism” is derived from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s surname in 1890 and created by Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing. The neuropsychiatrist, who was a pioneering student of sexual psychopathology, lived in Graz from 1873 until his death in 1902 and knew the writer personally. The unwilling eponym did not appreciate this honor, on the contrary. Sacher-Masoch felt reduced to his sexual preferences, fell into disrepute and suffered from this stigma all his life. Krafft-Ebing was accused of having unnecessarily destroyed the reputation of an important writer.
Following is the second part of the excerpts from Sacher-Masoch’s novel, which I rewrote into a homoerotic narrative and shortened to the essential diary entries. Wanda becomes Ivan, fur becomes leather and thus Venus in Furs becomes Eros in Leather. Otherwise the text has been left in its original form in order to illustrate and summarize this classic:
Suddenly a young man on a lithe black horse dashes up at full speed. As soon as he sees Ivan, he stops his horse and makes it walk. When he is quite close, he stops entirely and lets him pass. And he too sees him – two lions. Their eyes meet. He madly drives past him, but Ivan cannot tear himself free from the magic power of his look, and he turns his head after him. My heart stops when I see the half-surprised, half-enraptured look with which he devours him, but he is worthy of it. For he is, indeed, a magnificent specimen of man, No, rather, he is a man whose like I have never yet seen among the living. He is in the Belvedere, graven in marble, with the same slender, yet steely musculature, with the same face and the same waving curls. What makes him particularly beautiful is that he is beardless. If his hips were less narrow, one might take him for a woman in disguise. The curious expression about the mouth, the lion’s lip which slightly discloses the teeth beneath, lends a flashing tinge of cruelty to the beautiful face – Apollo flaying Marsyas. He wears high black boots, closely fitting breeches of white leather, short fur coat of black cloth, of the kind worn by Italian cavalry officers, trimmed with astrakhan and many rich loops; on his black locks is a red fez. I now understand the masculine Eros, and I marvel at Socrates for having remained virtuous in view of an Alcibiades like this.
I have never seen my lion so excited. His cheeks flamed when he left from the carriage at his villa. He hurried upstairs, and with an imperious gesture ordered me to follow. Walking up and down his room with long strides, he began to talk so rapidly, that I was frightened. “You are to find out who the man in the Cascine was, immediately – Oh, what a man! Did you see him? What do you think of him? Tell me.” “The man is beautiful,” I replied dully. “He is so beautiful,” he paused, supporting himself on the arm of a chair, “that he has taken my breath away.” “I can understand the impression he has made on you,” I replied, my imagination carrying me away in a mad whirl. “I am quite lost in admiration myself, and I can imagine – ” “You may imagine,” Ivan laughed aloud, “that this man is my lover, and that he will apply the lash to you, and that you will enjoy being punished by him. But now go, go.” Before evening fell, I had the desired information. “What is his name?” he asked, uncanny calm. “Alexis Papadopolis.” “A Greek, then.” I nodded.
“The way you are treating me,” I broke out, “what would you call it?” “I might punish you,” he replied ironically, “but I prefer this time to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to accuse me. Haven’t I always been honest with you? Haven’t I warned you more than once? Didn’t I love you with all my heart, even passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before me, and that I want to be dominated? But you wished to be my plaything, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling the foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel man. What do you want now? Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the first to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you, abusing you, it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and now you are even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me.” “Yes, I am guilty,” I said, “but haven’t I suffered because of it? Let us put an end now to the cruel game.”
“It was you who inoculated me with selfishness, pride, and cruelty, and you shall be their first victim. I now literally enjoy having a human being that thinks and feels and desires like myself in my power; I love to abuse a man who is stronger in intelligence and body than I, especially a man who loves me. Do you still love me?” “Even to madness,” I exclaimed. “So much the better,” he replied, “and so much the more will you enjoy what I am about to do with you now.” “What is the matter with you?” I asked. “I don’t understand you, there is a gleam of real cruelty in your eyes today, and you are strangely beautiful—completely Eros in Leather.” Without replying Ivan placed his arms around my neck and kissed me. I was again seized by my fanatical passion. “Where is the whip?” I asked. Ivan laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps. “You really insist upon being punished?” he exclaimed, proudly tossing back his head. “Yes.” Suddenly Ivan’s face was completely transformed. It was as if disfigured by rage; for a moment he seemed even ugly to me.
“Very well, then you whip him!” he called loudly. At the same instant the beautiful Greek stuck his head of black curls through the curtains of the four-poster bed. At first, I was speechless, petrified. There was a horribly comic element in the situation. I would have laughed aloud, had not my position been at the same time so terribly cruel and humiliating. It went beyond anything I had imagined. A cold shudder ran down my back, when my rival stepped from the bed in his riding boots, his tight-fitting white breeches, and his short velvet jacket, and I saw his athletic limbs. “You are indeed cruel,” he said, turning to Ivan. “Only inordinately fond of pleasure,” he replied with a wild sort of humor. “Pleasure alone lends value to existence; whoever enjoys does not easily part from life, whoever suffers or is needy meets death like a friend. But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the sense of the ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at the expense of others; he must never feel pity; he must be ready to harness others to his carriage or his plough as though they were animals. He must know how to make slaves of men who feel and would enjoy as he does, and use them for his service and pleasure without remorse. It is not his affair whether they like it, or whether they go to rack and ruin. He must always remember this, that if they had him in their power, as he has them, they would act in exactly the same way, and he would have to pay for their pleasure with his sweat and blood and soul. That was the world of the ancients: pleasure and cruelty, liberty and slavery went hand in hand. People who want to live like the gods of Olympus must of necessity have slaves whom they can toss into their fish-ponds, and gladiators who will do battle, the while they banquet, and they must not mind if by chance a bit of blood bespatters them.”
His words brought back my complete self-possession. “Unloosen me!” I exclaimed angrily. “Aren’t you my slave, my property?” replied Ivan. “Do you want me to show you the agreement?” “Untie me!” I threatened, “otherwise—” I tugged at the ropes. “Can he tear himself free?” he asked. “He has threatened to kill me.” “Be entirely at ease,” said the Greek, testing my fetters. “I shall call for help,” I began again. “No one will hear you,” replied Ivan, “and no one will hinder me from abusing your most sacred emotions or playing a frivolous game with you,” he continued, repeating with satanic mockery phrases from my letter to him. “Do you think I am at this moment merely cruel and merciless, or am I also about to become cheap? What? Do you still love me, or do you already hate and despise me? Here is the whip” – he handed it to the Greek who quickly stepped closer. “Don’t you dare!” I exclaimed, trembling with indignation, “I won’t permit it -” “May I really whip him?” he asked. “Do with him what you please,” replied Ivan. “Beast!” I exclaimed, utterly revolted. The Greek fixed his cold tigerish look upon me and tried out the whip. His muscles swelled when he drew back his arms and made the whip hiss through the air. I was bound like Marsyas while Apollo was getting ready to flay me.
For a moment I thought of taking vengeance, of killing him, but I was bound by the abominable agreement. So nothing was left for me to do except to keep my pledged word and grit my teeth.
At present we have only the choice of being hammer or anvil, and I was the kind of donkey who let a man make a slave of him, do you understand? The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped. The blows, as you see, have agreed with me; the roseate supersensual mist has dissolved, and no one can ever make me believe again that these ‘sacred apes of Benares’ or Plato’s rooster are the image of God.”
Not before Wanda / Ivan betrays Severin and leaves the sadistic Greek lover whip him, he comes to his senses. Severin returns to the father’s estate and his previous life. He sees himself as “cured” because sadomasochism was classified as a disease at the time of “Venus in Furs”. Here in Graz, the coffeehouse Erzherzog Johann sells the Sacher-Masoch-Torte (not to be confused with the Wiener Sacher-Torte) and the associated hotel offers its guests the opportunity to stay overnight in the Wanda Sacher-Masoch room. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch has often been forgotten, although his name in connection with his sexual orientation is known to everyone nowadays and is part of the term BDSM.