Venus In Furs

It may seem odd to many people that TGS HiddenMysteries would bring to print a book such as this. Yet, true to our goal of exploring and publishing those manuscripts that investigate 'Hidden Mysteries' into our planet and our race, this book covers a topic that indeed remains a mystery for most people.

Human sexuality, with all its intrigue and variants is a mystery that has confounded us since time began for mankind. The author of this book describes one variant of sexuality and has an entire sex culture named after him. Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, though his writings are misunderstood and misapplied by the societal culture named after him, is the root for our word 'masochism.'

We have included a few drawings from this same time period to give a bit of visual enhancement to the theme. There were no images in our original copy of this book. Sacher-Masoch takes the slave concept to the extreme, yet there are many different levels in this culture, and masochism is based on basic trust between the partners involved. That kind of trust is a pure form of sexual-trust.

While this lifestyle or sex-style may not be something you would enjoy, you must realize there are millions of people that do enjoy some degree of masochism. Recently 'Pravda,' a newspaper in Russia, reported how scientists discovered that 'spanking' (a form of masochism) actually released a chemical into the body that reduced or eliminated stress.

Even the Bible says that God created sin, for without sin how would we know good from evil. The same is true, for millions of people, the bit of pain endured only magnifies the pleasures to come. It's the ying and the yang of physical feelings. The two extremes, pain and pleasure -- like a Sweet Tart candy -- sour and sweet at the same time.

So with this hidden, but human, mystery we are best not to condemn that which we may not understand, and probably have not indulged. You may think this is a psychological problem of these people, that would enjoy pain, but the person with the psychological problem might be yourself, since they openly enjoy what they enjoy, with honesty and trust with their partner, while you might run from anything out of the ordinary. We, who never venture out into new paths, are probably the psychologically tortured, only doing and acting as other people 'expect' us to.

In the end this book is really about equal rights between the sexes. It also has a moral to the tale -- don't unleash the beast in man or woman, unless you are willing to accept the pain and know fully when the game begins and the game ends. It lets you learn that what is good for the goose is good for the gander too.

For most people that are enjoying these sexual wonders and variants, it is a game, a role-playing game, that allows them to escape the 'real' torture of everyday living in this world of hypocrites, who praise god on Sunday and rape children on Monday.

I've heard that men and women both have 'mental' orgasmic experiences when they anticipate their 'time' to role play in the modern version of masochism.

All this to recommend that you read this book with an open mind, being willing to learn, rather than condemn. Remember this is not spousal or lover abuse, rather these are consenting and 'joining' adults. And as in this book, people are seldom 'forced' into this sex style, but have willingly submitted as consenting adults. Live and let live.

L. Savage
TGS Publishers

From the Preface

Among Sacher-Masoch's works, Venus in Furs is one of the most typical and outstanding. In spite of melodramatic elements and other literary faults, it is unquestionably a sincere work, written without any idea of titillating morbid fancies. One feels that in the hero many subjective elements have been incorporated, which are a disadvantage to the work from the point of view of literature, but on the other hand raise the book beyond the sphere of art, pure and simple, and make it one of those appalling human documents which belong, part to science and part to psychology.

It is the confession of a deeply unhappy man who could not master his personal tragedy of existence, and so sought to unburden his soul in writing down the things he felt and experienced. The reader who will approach the book from this angle and who will honestly put aside moral prejudices and prepossessions will come away from the perusal of this book with a deeper understanding of this poor miserable soul of ours and a light will be cast into dark places that lie latent in all of us.

Sacher-Masoch's works have held an established position in European letters for something like half a century, and the author himself was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French Government in 1883, on the occasion of his literary jubilee. When several years ago cheap reprints were brought out on the Continent and attempts were made by various guardians of morality-they exist in all countries- to have them suppressed, the judicial decisions were invariably against the plaintiff and in favor of the publisher.

Are Americans children that they must be protected from books which any European school-boy can purchase whenever he wishes? However, such seems to be the case, and this translation, which has long been in preparation, consequently appears in a limited edition printed for subscribers only. In another connection Herbert Spencer once used these words: "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools." They have a very pointed application in the case of a work like Venus in Furs.

Excerpt

"What, dear lady?"

"I am beginning to believe the unbelievable and to understand the un- understandable. All of a sudden I understand the Germanic virtue of woman, and German philosophy, and I am no longer surprised that you of the North do not know how to love, haven't even an idea of what love is."

"But, madame," I replied flaring up, "I surely haven't given you any reason."

"Oh, you-" The divinity sneezed for the third time, and shrugged her shoulders with inimitable grace. "That's why I have always been nice to you, and even come to see you now and then, although I catch a cold every time, in spite of all my furs. Do you remember the first time we met?"

"How could I forget it," I said. "You wore your abundant hair in brown curls, and you had brown eyes and a red mouth, but I recognized you immediately by the outline of your face and its marble-like pallor-you always wore a violet-blue velvet jacket edged with squirrel-skin."

"You were really in love with the costume, and awfully docile."

"You have taught me what love is. Your serene form of worship let me forget two thousand years."

"And my faithfulness to you was without equal!"

"Well, as far as faithfulness goes-"

"Ungrateful!"

"I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but nevertheless a woman, and like every woman cruel in love."

"What you call cruel," the goddess of love replied eagerly, "is simply the element of passion and of natural love, which is woman's nature and makes her gi

ve herself where she loves, and makes her love everything, that pleases her." "Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the unfaithfulness of the woman he loves?"

"Indeed!" she replied. "We are faithful as long as we love, but you demand faithfulness of a woman without love, and the giving of herself without enjoyment.

Who is cruel there-woman or man? You of the North in general take love too soberly and seriously. You talk of duties where there should be only a question of pleasure."

"That is why our emotions are honorable and virtuous, and our relations permanent." "And yet a restless, always unsatisfied craving for the nudity of paganism," she interrupted, "but that love, which is the highest joy, which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you children of reflection. It works only evil in you. As soon as you wish to be natural, you become common. To you nature seems something hostile; you have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me a demon. You can only exorcise and curse me, or slay yourselves in bacchantic madness before my altar. And if ever one of you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot pilgrimage to Rome in penitential robes and expects flowers to grow from his withered staff, while under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles spring up every hour, but their fragrance does not agree with you. Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense; let us pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not disinter us. Pompeii was not built for you, nor our villas, our baths, our temples. You do not require gods. We are chilled in your world."