[...] I have moved out of the US to the EU. In this area, there seems to be zero interest in medfet - and in my conversations about it (to see if I can spot any interest) the idea has been met with complete indifference and disinterest. It seems that here, at least, there is less anxiety about nudity, medical exams, etc. and so the medfet seems out. Am I misunderstanding the culture I am in? Is it possible that medfet is associated with a culture that fears its nakedness?
I know there is a large contingent of us that enjoy the "what's going to happen," the "am I going to have to ...", and the ubiquitous "follow the orders of my strict doctor" - and that is NOT culturally defined - but perhaps there is something to be thought about - the differences in the cultural understanding of the medfet. [...]
Excellent observations, Dr Nash. Medfet - or related - 'perversions'/displacements do seem to occur more often in puritanical cultures, I'd say. Thus much of English culture and religion - despite Henry VIII's historical breakaway from the established Church - seems to have produced various repressions that have become culturally ingrained. I recall a well-known figure describing his boyhood in a lower middle-class English family last century, a household where sex was never mentioned, and was a topic to be shied away from. (He grew up gay, and inhibited.) That reminded me of my own parents, and a similar household, in Australia, which nominally, at least, was of the Anglican faith. (Note: I, too, grew up gay and inhibited.) I vividly recall the day my Dad almost exploded when he heard me innocently use the word 'bugger' which I'd picked up at school. Of course, outstanding English cultural figures (e.g., Shakespeare) have been recognised as great for precisely their surmounting of such small- and narrow-mindedness. I've heard Shakespeare described as 'a sort of universal counsel for the defence'. Similarly, 20C novelist D.H. Lawrence despised what he called 'sex in the head', meaning sex should be done - not fantasised about, invariably in some perverted or displaced way. 😞
India is a strange case. It has a fine, uninhibited erotic tradition. Think of the wise Kama Sutra, say. On the other hand, until recently at least, it was absolutely taboo in Indian cinema to show even kissing onscreen. I strongly suspect that it was England's imperialist legacy in India that helped make for that sort of outlook. Moreover, the English class outlook probably merged comfortably with the Indian class system. (Thought: are there any Indian Zity-ers? Very few, if any, I think. What does that suggest?)
Dr Nash, you refer to the mechanism whereby a medfet play-doctor issuing orders to his play-patient to 'obey' is a very arousing thing, but the mechanism isn't culturally-determined. That may well be true - although I can imagine it works better where the play-patient is coming from a repressed or inhibited upbringing and now senses that taboos, which have conditioned him, are about to be broken - and he'll have the thrill of both the 'forbidden' and the 'liberation'. What could be more erotic?!
- Ken