Carina Stopenski
Queer love is one that lives at the margins, and the power dynamic relationship, more commonly known as the BDSM relationship, is no exception. To be sexually abject, cast out to the margins of society, is typical in narratives of queer identity. When a power relationship is introduced, it adds an extra layer of complication. In Eric LaRocca’s 2021 extreme horror novella Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, the text beckons the reader to think about the ways in which kink and horror are inextricably linked: terror and bodily manipulation, ultimate submission and domination, themes that teeter on the borders of consent. Consenting to torture and terror becomes meta—readers of extreme sexual horror are giving permission to be tormented as well, therefore challenging the notion that reading is solely for pleasure, even advocating for a painful reading experience. LaRocca forces the reader to consider pain both inside and outside of the text and think about what causes them more fear, the subject matter or the physical response.
To undergo pain is an abject existence, one that casts out the victim. When the pain inflicted is by choice, compulsion, or another voluntary reason, we enter a more tenuous territory. Causing ourselves harm or begging for others to harm us makes us deviant in the eyes of the general public. KJ Ceranowski waxes poetic on the experience of intentional pain:
“An immanent psychosis. An imminent compulsion. What a horror. How uncanny. How ugly. How beautiful. How abject. How animal. How monstrous. What a way to be. What a way to be with and for each other, for oneself” (230).
LaRocca’s literature bridges the repulsion of a desiccated body with the beauty of the literary fiction genre, casting the power dynamic, as a consensual interaction, taboo and forbidden. If “pain is commonly socially constructed as an unwanted, aversive sensation” and “normatively considered a disgusting object,” Things adds another layer of horror: repulsion (Sheppard 60). Written text is unable to convey the jumpscare in the same way that a visual medium like film can, but the prolonged grotesquerie that body horror brings to a text is more repulsive than scary. We tend to think of horror as something that scares, when in actuality the majority of extreme horror like LaRocca’s relies on disgust.
The chatroom format of Things also manifests a sense of unease in the reader. We see the urgency with which the characters message each other, their growing union marked by the intensity of their exchanges. Rather than through jumpscares, we experience discomfort via the narrative’s speed. There is no room for breath between the characters, therefore no room for the reader to process what is happening. For our two characters, Zoe and Agnes, time does not stand still between segments. Everything is a direct chain of contact, unbroken by exposition as a wholly expository text. We witness the deterioration of Agnes’ psyche in real time, notice Zoe’s apprehensions and second-guesses via the gaps between her messages. It is disorienting in a way that we do not think to consider, as we are preoccupied with the vulgarity of the text instead. The earlier IMs show the women responding to one another in a matter of seconds, with Zoe sending multiple messages in a row expressing the things she wants to do to Agnes (LaRocca 38-43). Later on, though, the reader can see that Zoe is more apprehensive about Agnes’ desires. When Agnes sends the email at 10:09am on 08/01/2000 asking to have a baby with Zoe, Zoe does not respond until 5:12pm, stating:
“I’ve been thinking, too–thinking of easy we can both get what we want. I think I’ve come up with a solution, but I’m apprehensive to share my idea over email. I was hoping we could chat on Instant Messenger again tonight so I can share with you my idea. Don’t worry, my love. The agony of uncertainty won’t last for long” (LaRocca 74-75).
The pair do not use IM until much later, at around 10:30pm, and the conversation between them surrounding pregnancy and tapeworms is punctuated with doubt by both parties. Still, they maintain a sexual dialogue amidst the repulsive subject of conversation. Moving it to an IM service from email makes the dialogue feel more casual, and the minutiae of disturbance in the text is completely outweighed by subversive sex and violence.
Horror and pornography are both body genres, alongside melodramas or “weepies,” as posited by Linda Williams in her 1991 essay “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.” Body genres, as stated in their name, are intended to evoke a physical response from the reader. Both pornography and horror rely on bodily excess, perversion, and a suspended temporality of fantasy, despite the physical reactions that they elicit- discomfort versus arousal- being very different. When coupled with LaRocca’s literary approach and honest depiction of lesbian codependency, the separation between “high” and “low” media becomes muddier. What is hyperbolic and “low” in nature becomes “high” with the elements of ornate prose, what started out having pornographic foundations veers into hardcore horror. The fantasy is never released from suspension, at least for Agnes, who is deluded the further she sinks into the union with Zoe:
“Things have gotten worse since we last spoke. I think there’s something wrong. It hurts me to even think it, but something’s not right with our child. I feel this intense pain all the time, as if someone were sliding a razor blade along my guts. I don’t know if I can bear it anymore. I feel like taking a pair of shears and slicing myself open. Would you come then? Would that get your attention?” (LaRocca 100).
The text being so poetic, one would not know that Agnes, the sub in our story, is talking about passing a tapeworm that she developed by eating rotten raw meat, as per the instructions of her Domme, Zoe, before assumedly gouging her eyes out with the heirloom apple peeler that first brought the two women together. The novella takes place in the year 2000, but the way the characters write to one another is nearly archaic, an odd affectation that generates more unease. As outlined in “Film Bodies,” Things does not necessarily follow the orthodoxy of the horror template alone, as sex cannot be extricated from the violence of the narrative.
Williams states that in sadomasochistic media, the female subject is created to “achieve a modicum of power and pleasure within the given limits of patriarchal constraints on women” (Williams 8). But what about that when the Dom/sub relationship involves two non-men, those suppressed by the patriarchy? Agnes and Zoe’s relationship is textbook sadomasochistic, as demonstrated by Zoe’s drafting of the Sponsor/Drudge contract and Agnes’ diligence in following it at its inception. Agnes relinquishes full control in order to both please Zoe and pleasure herself, but in this relationship, Zoe absorbs patriarchal responsibility as the Domme. If “by implication (…) SM lesbians are encouraging the kind of activity that occurs in lesbian domestic violence,” Agnes and Zoe endorse an even more craven sexuality, as their entire relationship takes place through a computer screen (Hopkins 122). A relationship that devolves into madness- without physical touch ever occurring- is the pinnacle of abject love.
Agnes and Zoe’s relationship in Things disturbs the power dynamic relationship explained in BDSM scholarship, as it devolves into something far more sinister for both parties. Rather than “using their hierarchies of oppression (…) and attaching them to the practice of SM sex – thereby ‘proving’ how dangerous, disgusting and politically incorrect SM is,” both women revel in their repulsiveness. Agnes goes so far as to lose her job and subject herself to a near-death experience to honor their relationship (Ardill and O’Sullivan 112). In modern BDSM discussion, “there is greater emphasis on situating BDSM as power play and consensual power exchange rather than situating it as consensual use of pain or violence,” positioning Things at the crux of taboo by using both (Sheppard 57). Such archetypes like the harsh daddy Dom and her precious sub are to be expected in these types of narratives, but the more terrifying, painful elements of Things are mostly unrelated to the power dynamic relationship: the vivid description of a rabbit eating its young (65-66), Agnes consuming maggot-ridden rotten beef (85-86), and the birth of a monstrous tapeworm (100-102). While these instances are effects of the power dynamic relationship, the sadomasochism itself is not the most grotesque or abject element. Power dynamic relationships involve two consenting adults, and while Agnes initially accepts the contract, the way it devolves is nowhere typical of the pain involved in a Master/slave dynamic.
Author Eric LaRocca
Who is allowed to explore certain queer terrors is also a central component in Things, both in the text itself and what it represents in the real world. As Zoe asks, “what have you done today to deserve your eyes,” we are left to question it ourselves: there exists entitlement in the way the text has been received by lesbian audiences (LaRocca 49). It is no secret that LaRocca’s writing is extreme and polarizing, as demonstrated in his other works, but Things’ depiction of a lesbian power dynamic relationship is more complicated than the explicit sex and violence of LaRocca’s other works. As LaRocca is a masculine of center person, some readers may view them as an unsuitable person to write sadomasochism between two women. In our world, Things has split readers right down the middle, garnering a 3.02 out of 5 star rating on Goodreads and plenty of scathing reviews, with many readers critiquing LaRocca’s writing as “trauma porn,” “edgy,” and “fetishy,” with several reviewers starting off their comments with “what the fuck did I just read?” (Goodreads). It is no secret that LaRocca aims to be depraved in their writing, but people view LaRocca’s intentions with Things to be sadistic and fetishizing beyond the text.
However, we need to understand that this is a horror story, not a kink story. Readers of extreme fiction “agree to something they might not desire, opening themselves to the possibility of reading a depiction of violation that they cannot unthink, that can, in its own way, be violating,” which creates tension between the consumer and the author (Ioanes 184). The unofficial tagline of BDSM practice—safe, sane, and consensual—is in direct opposition to this sort of boundary pushing, and while both are subversive acts, they exist in two different realms of horror, one abject and one violent. Anna Ioanes states that depictions of female pain in literature create “an aesthetic of shock that [stand] as a counterpoint to the ostensibly stable relationship between the symbolic violence of pornography and real-world violence against women,” which therefore serves as an explanation for audiences’ detestation for LaRocca’s work (175). Even though readers enter the text expecting to be nauseated and terrified, the abject constant of the sadomasochistic lesbian body makes it more difficult for us to stomach. The level of kink in the novel is atypical of more mainstream horror fiction and therefore may already isolate some audiences, but to add lesbianism into the equation others the text even further. Some claim that LaRocca is not entitled to write a story like Things, but by this logic, is anyone?
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke tackles the delicate border between perversion and cruelty via its power dynamic relationship, but the real taboo stems from the way it is received by its audiences: if you enjoy this book, are you a sexual pervert, a violent deviant, or perhaps simply a connoisseur of terrifying texts? We must not equate an author’s depiction of suspended sadomasochistic fantasy as an actual desire to harm women. The power dynamic in this book is mutated, the shared psychosis of the characters delineating the story from the porngraphic, and is in no way a true depiction of a healthy, loving BDSM practice. Rather, it is one that satirizes fear surrounding queer sexualities, a manifestation of all of the most accessible perversions. By blurring the line between love and obsession, sex and violence, death and rebirth, Eric LaRocca encourages the reader to consider what they themselves have done today to deserve their eyes, and whether what they see under the surface grants them the gift of understanding it.
Works Cited
Ardill, Susan and Sue O’Sullivan. “Upsetting an Applecart: Difference, Desire and Lesbian Sadomasochism.” Feminist Review, no. 80, 2005, pp. 98-126.
Cerankowski, KJ. “Love Leaks and Strange(r) Intimacies.” Suture: Trauma and Trans Becoming, Punctum Books, 2021, pp. 173–206.
Hopkins, Patrick D. “Rethinking Sadomasochism: Feminism, Interpretation, and Simulation.” Hypatia, vol. 9, no. 1, 1994, pp. 116-141.
Ioanes, Anna. “Shock and Consent in a Feminist Avant-Garde.” Signs, vol. 42, no. 1, 2016, pp. 175-197.
LaRocca, Eric. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. Weirdpunk Books, 2021.
Sheppard, Emma. “using pain, living with pain.” Feminist Review, no. 120, 2018, pp. 54-69.
“Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.” Goodreads
Williams, Linda. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genres, and Excess.” Film Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 4, 1991, pp. 2-13.
