Medieval Mystics and Modern Masochists: Explorations of Violence, Eros, and Self

The question of how to interpret the rhetoric and imagery of violence and eroticism seen in the words of women medieval mystics has been the center of scholarly analysis for many decades, and, not surprisingly, we are still asking this question. After Caroline Bynum’s persuasive argument in the 1990s that the seeming erotic enjoyment of violence found in medieval women’s mystical representations should not be read as pathological or masochistic but instead as empowering and life-affirming, the question seemed all but fully answered, at least within feminist circles. I contend, however, that there is more to discuss, in particular our scholarly and cultural assumptions of what masochism is, what it does, and what should be done with it, if anything. Hence, as one small aspect of the larger cultural discourse, it is only if we scholars admit to the pleasure of erotically violent imagery in medieval women’s mystical writing that we will be able to address how it may be affecting our theological, cultural, spiritual, ethical, and sexually practices today.

In my paper, I will briefly review the history of scholarly analysis of medieval women’s mystical experience in relation to masochism starting from Simone de Beauvoir, moving to traditional (male) scholarly analysis, and finally ending with the Bynum-school of interpretation. De Beauvoir argues we should dismiss outright the idea that masochism is defined as the enjoyment of the intertwining of pain and sexual pleasure because, she argues, ‘everybody knows’ that pain and erotic pleasure just naturally go together, so masochism must be something different. Traditional male scholars such as Donald Weinstein and Derrick Bell interpreted these violently erotic mystical experiences as revealing a profound self-loathing, body-hatred, guilt and shame. I will then turn to more fully explore Bynum’s thesis that seemingly masochistic mystical experiences of medieval women mystics were actually body-affirming, empowering and life-giving, thereby the total opposite of traditional understandings of masochism.  Bynum can assert her claims, however, only because she indeed separates “the injury, pain, and mortification found in mystical texts from the concept or category of violence.” (CFP) Or perhaps more fairly, she does not separate them but rather significantly downplays their role in the experience. Indeed, she also separates the erotic elements in these representations from the seemingly violent ones.

It appears then, that two broad approaches toward interpreting the violent, painful, wounding, passionate, blissful, erotic rhetoric of mystics exist. The first follows the “early” approach which deems anyone, mystic or otherwise, finding erotic pleasure in violent acts as masochistic, understood pathologically as the hatred of self and debasement of the body.  The second approach tends to admit to the violent eroticism but interprets it by downplaying it, focusing instead on the positive, seeing mystics as being empowered, demonstrating the communion between body and soul, allowing the expression of erotic emotions and desires, and attunement with one’s body, etc. The painful wounding, the bodily distortions, the piercing cries of rapture speak to the mystic’s union of body and soul, not their separation. They speak to the rapturous  intensity of God’s love and the pain one must necessarily embrace in any love relationship.  

What I intend to show in this paper is that there is another way to interpret such mystical experiences as they are represented in these writings. And, this interpretation need neither dismiss the violent erotic rhetoric as inherently pathological nor must it ignore or seriously downplay its existence. Rather, by taking seriously the interpretations of sexual masochism and its positive attributes as discussed by people who actually practice it today, we can make an argument that yes, indeed, medieval women mystics were masochistic and as such, they reflected the very characteristics of body-soul unity, empowerment, healing, and agency that practitioners say are positive results of their experiences and which Bynum claims for these mystics.

While this might seem a small step to take within the long and broad literature of scholarship on mysticism, by admitting to the erotically charged violent rhetoric in mystical literature, we may open a space for us to examine the cultural and theological reasons why masochism is still prevalent today in the cultural imagination, if not in most of our sexual and religious practices. While the Bynum-esque reconstructions of medieval women’s mystical experiences are quite similar to the motivations and experiences of contemporary SM practitioners, we must ask if these reconstructions of medieval women’s mystical experiences which downplay or ignore the erotically violent aspects of it may serve to valorize violence and to further entrench the prevalent cultural and religious belief that violence can be highly erotic and therefore, benign, or more problematically, the height of sexual bliss and ecstasy. One might ask if utilizing my understanding of masochism is any better than this, since admitting to the erotically violent rhetoric and the actual positive experiences that result from them might be seen to support notions of masochism in society more than would downplaying or ignoring these characteristics of masochism. I believe the answer is no. Denying, ignoring, downplaying, etc. do not make the issue disappear, as we all know. It is only by examining an issue head-on that we will even begin to be able to learn about and begin to change what needs to be changed to continue building a culture where “everybody knows” that _non-consensual_ violent sex is neither erotic nor empowering, no matter how much such consensual sex may be.