Pressing your knee against the neck of a handcuffed human for almost nine minutes as he pleads, “I can’t breathe” is sadism, pure and evil.
“Sadism”—the word stemming from the vicious pleasures documented, perpetrated and imagined by the notorious Marquis de Sade—is a little different from callous or indifferent brutality. It is conscious, very deliberate cruelty that sexually arouses the sadist.
There’s nothing wrong with consensual sadism, which is the basis for BDSM (the “SM” stands for “sadomasochism,” along with “bondage & discipline” and “Dominant/submissive), as long as the sadist is dominating a consenting masochist (someone who is aroused by receiving pain) with care for their safety and well-being.
Obviously, George Floyd was not consenting, and nobody cared for his safety and well-being except the anguished bystanders, whose cries of “Get off of him,” “You’re killing him” and “He’s a human being!” were ignored or even relished by the sadistic cop, one Derek Chauvin.
Interestingly, Chauvin and Floyd both worked as part-time security guards at the same nightclub, El Nuevo Rodeo. It’s hard to say at this point how well they knew each other. According to the club’s former owner, Maya Santamaria, Chauvin (who worked outside) had a tendency to pepper spray unruly patrons, especially on “Urban Nights.” I can just imagine that Officer Chauvin might have been jealous of George Floyd (who worked inside), a popular, tall, dark and handsome “sweetheart” whom “everybody loved.”
In other words, this seems to have been a very personal, very sadistic lynching under color of law.
There’s also a rumor going around that Floyd performed in porn. Some are circulating a clip featuring a guy who looks a lot like George Floyd and calls himself “Floyd the Landlord… from Houston,” trying to shame Floyd and his supporters. This is all too common in our slut-shaming society, even when the porn is produced legally by consenting adults. Others say it’s irrelevant to his murder.
That may be so, but it’s also possible that, since they worked together, Chauvin heard the rumor or watched the clip of Floyd’s porn adventures. Maybe he was jealous or felt cuckolded (in a negative “cucked” way) by his fellow security guard, fueling his sadistic tendencies when fate put Floyd into Chauvin’s hands and under his knee.
The sadistic quality of Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck as he dies, begging for his life and his mother, makes the videos of his death especially vile to most of us.
However, I’m afraid that these virtual snuff films are quite arousing for many sadistic racists, some of whom happen to be fellow cops.
This is one reason why so many are on the streets; because just showing the police brutality that’s caught on our ubiquitous cell phones is not enough to foster change in our society. Not at all.
In fact, for the worst among us, it’s a voyeuristic, sadistic turn-on.
Sadism is usually very personal, like when violent incels take out their jealous rage on victims they feel are getting more out of life than they are. Chauvin wasn’t exactly an incel (involuntary celibate), though the way his wife divorced him so quickly, I doubt they were having much sex even before he murdered Floyd.
The greater problem is that in American police forces, like in the American military (see Abu Ghraib, for starters), sadism is systemic. Sadists like Chauvin often have a history of similar actions because they have a propensity to engage in them, and their colleagues either join in or stay silent. One obvious step our police departments need to take is to fire—and sometimes arrest—bad cops like Chauvin more quickly and easily.
This needs to happen at the lowest and highest levels. One cop that ought to go right now is LAPD Chief Michael Moore who had the despicable gall and/or supreme stupidity to say that George Floyd’s “death is on [protestors’ and looters’] hands, as much as it is on those officers’.” Moore later apologized, but the damage was done. Even the Trumpus couldn’t say something more ignorant.
Then again…
When former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players took a knee to protest the police knees and guns that were and still are killing Americans for nothing but being black, our notoriously racist Presidunce fueled that fire by calling them “sons of bitches.”
Now the quintessentially narcissistic, sadistic Big Bully-in-Chief has his knee on the neck of American democracy. If we don’t somehow push him off of us, he’ll keep on choking us until we die.
His presidency has already killed a lot of us. COVID deaths in America have passed 100,000, and the dead are disproportionately poor people of color (Floyd himself tested positive for COVID in April), many crying, “I can’t breathe” in their final moments.
Of course, sympathy isn’t tRump’s thing. Mr. “Law and Order,” to the chagrin of even the Pentagon and “Mad Dog” Mattis, exhorted governors and police to “dominate” the protestors.
By “dominate,” he doesn’t mean fun furry cuffs and consensual spankings. He means tear gas, mace and rubber bullets. The made-for-TV Dick-tator’s sadism is very nonconsensual.
So, it was appalling but not surprising that his unctuous asslicking attorney Bill Barr (yes, supposedly he’s the U.S. Attorney General, but he might as well be the Orange One’s personal lawyer), had peaceful protestors teargassed so Dear Leader could pose with a Bible for his divisive and absurd “leadership moment” at St. John’s Episcopal Church, aka the Church of the Presidents, whose ministers were outraged by his blatant exploitation of their Church as a backdrop to call for a Christian Crusade against protestors.
Of course, this is the same Presidunce who, instead of uttering the simple but powerful mantra “Black Lives Matter” or anything to try to calm the flames of rage, poured fuel on the fires, quoting evil racist Alabama governor George Wallace who was quoting evil racist Miami police Chief Walter Headley, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Mobilized by this sadistic rhetoric, like teenage boys excited by dirty talk, “riot” police in military gear and National Guard, as well as other professional and amateur ammosexuals all over the country are using clearly excessive force against peaceful protesters.
Of course, not all cops are sadists. Some even appear to be moved by the demonstrations, “taking a knee” along with the protestors. Maybe it’s just for show, but it’s a far better show than tear gas and rubber bullets. Still, there are too many Chauvin-types, ready and armed to “dominate” those they are sworn to “protect and serve” with deadly force. Extra deadly if you’re a “son of a bitch.”
So, the Trumpus Rumpus has got to go! Vote him out, take him out, whip his sickening, incendiary, narcissistic, sadistic rump out of the people’s White House.
But that can’t be the end of our fight for racial justice, equality and the right for to live without deadly, often sadistic police harassment.
It must, in my opinion, be a peaceful fight. That’s the Bonobo Way, not to mention the Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. But it’s a relentless fight. Hopefully, the George Floyd Uprising is taking the fight several steps forward.
It’s not just about firing a few bad cops, though that’s a good start. Police should receive training in how to manage their emotions—including their anger, jealousy, insecurity, sadism and, of course, racism. If they want to express their sadism or sadomasochism, they should learn how to do it in a consensual way (off-duty!), perhaps at DomCon 2020 (where, it happens, I will be Mistress of Ceremonies). There are actually often quite a few off-duty police at these BDSM gatherings; they tend to be the good cops because they know how to separate their sadistic desires from their police work.
Police forces could also start implementing Campaign Zero’s eight policies to decrease police violence, though more radical police reform is needed.
The fires of protest shine a bright light upon ugly truths we’ve been grappling with since White Christian Europeans stole—aka looted—this land from the Native Americans, then got rich through the brutal slavery of Africans.
The looting continues as the Trumpus, Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, etc., steal a trillion dollars from taxpayers during a pandemic that disproportionately afflicts people of color, handing the moneybags over to their billionaire donors, who happen to be disproportionately Caucasian.
This is not to condone stealing anything, but grabbing a pair of panties or a microwave from Target is nothing compared to the corporate and billionaire class looting of working Americans and people all over the world every day.
Dump tRump, to be sure, get his big fat fascist knee off our neck and send him to prison for higher education in nonconsensual sadomasochism.
But America needs much deeper, radical and systemic changes to combat the racist cult of death that has ruled this land since white Europeans began looting it and enslaving their fellow human beings for their personal economic benefit and nonconsensual sadistic pleasure over 500 years ago.
