Venus in Furs and Selected Stories

This is probably one of the best books I've ever read. I devoured it. A lot of people compare Leopold Von Sacher-Mosoch to The Marquis de Sade, but this novel was tragically romantic. I would compare it to something like Wuthering Heights.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch manages to illustrate a deep sexual fantasy and moralize at the same time. The author artfully shows the reader the pain endured by Severin, the main character, and the twisted pleasure obtained from it. The obsession over furs is just one aspect of his pain-pleasure complex. It seems that von Sacher-Masoch, like Sade,oversimplifies complex feelings through autobiographical characters. However, unlike Sade's de Franval, the main character seems open to the possibility that this "deviant behavior" isn't perfection, but the manifestation of a personal problem dealt with in an unhealthy way. He seems to have enough of an open mind to "learn." I highly recommend this novella and think any reader interested in Erotica at all will enjoy it.

Female Domination is a common lifestyle in the year 2005 but back in 1869 when Sacher-Masoch wrote this book, it was considered a perversion. In fact, the word "Masochist" comes from the name Sacher-Masoch when the German neurologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing classified Sacher-Masoch's sexual desire in his "Psychopathia Sexualis" in 1886. Much more has been learned about the male desire to be in submission to women over the past century and a half and Female Domination is now practiced by couples all over the world. Elise Sutton in her book "Female Domination" draws a parallel to the increase of this male fantasy with the societal liberation of women. Now women are powerful and independent and more and more men are desiring to be the servants of women, both sexually and domestically. I wonder what Krafft-Ebing would think today if he saw the thousands of Internet sites dedicated to Female Domination? I found "Venus in Furs" to be romantic, erotic and very well-written. It is a literary classic that will speak to men with masochistic and submissive desires for centuries to come. Wanda struggled with being in the dominant role (both the character in the book and the real life Wanda, Leopold's wife) in the latter half of the nineteenth century. But today in the twenty-first century, more women are accustomed to being in charge so the prospects of men with submissive desires are much better.

Venus in Furs is one of the most spritual works of erotica I've ever read. Much has been made of its "perversity", to the extent that the name of its author is also the name of a psycho-sexual disfunction. However, I feel that this is a grossly unfair way to treat a book that deals so beautifully with the descent and return of a man through his psyche. Sevrin's tale is one of submission, slavery, and redemption. It is through the experience of being a woman's slave that he realizes his own worth. To treat this as an epic of laciviousness is puritanism of the lowest kind. Venus in Furs also reminds us that the difference between hammer and anvil may not be so clear cut. It is Severin who brings out the whip in his lover. He then reaps the whirlwind, and can only ride it out. This book is recommended for people who can see though the drivel that has been dripped upon it since its creation.

This books rings strangely true. If you allow for the fact that it was written so long ago and in a different culture, it still seems like a plausible account of how a Mistress/slave relationship might have evolved at the time. There is even a negotiaion and a contract. This is the same thing you see in many similar real life, female dominant relationships today. ....