Superfreaks: An Interview on Kink, Power, and Poetry with Arielle Greenberg
Poets C. E. Janecek and Arielle Greenberg discuss the complexity of kink, the language of desire, and Greenberg's new book SUPERFREAKS: KINK, PLEASURE, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
I will tell you the dirtiest secret: all this ‘play’ / is just a way to make the bright red strings / of invisible power // that matrix through our everyday doings / visible.
— Arielle Greenberg, I Live in the Country & Other Dirty Poems
As a sophomore in college, I met my first professional dominatrix while she was teaching a rope bondage workshop at my small liberal arts school. It was “Sex Week” on campus, and I felt both jittery and burningly curious about this type of workshop taking place in a city steeped in Mormon culture. While I don’t remember much about the construction of the knots themselves, I left with a new appreciation for rope artistry, consent practices, and the necessity of seatbelt cutters in everyday life.
In graduate school, I discovered my love of ecopoetics, and when my advisor gave me a poetry collection by fetishist and educator Arielle Greenberg, I was ready to be tangled up in the undergrowth of ecoerotics too. How could I resist: “Nothing I contain is flat. / All around my bared and sun-warmed body, / snails are fucking each other, / brown and slick and slow in their sandy little homes.”
Greenberg sows her poems into the fertile ground of the nature poets before her—a genre that many wouldn’t remember as being particularly erotic in high school English classes, but one that goes back centuries. The violet as a symbol of lesbian love stems from Sappho’s verses, rife with images of violets and deep purple fabrics: “Many wreaths of violets . . . you made with me and wore, // and many garlands, coiled / around tender necks” (Wind—Mountain—Oak: The Poems of Sappho, trans. Dan Beachy-Quick).1 A coterie of gay poets lusted after Walt Whitman’s “beard full of butterflies, / your corduroy shoulders worn thin by the moon, / your chaste Apollonia thighs,” in the early 20th century (“Ode to Walt Whitman,” Federico García Lorca). Further east, Vladimir Mayakovsky’s lusty, surrealistic poetry married the industrial landscape with the vast natural spaces of Russia.
The river is lust, trickling away with saliva.
Having cast off its underwear down to the last twig,
the garden is shamelessly basking in the summer.
— Vladimir Mayakovsky, Listen! Early Poems 1913-1918
Arielle Greenberg is a ripe, contemporary addition to the cult of ecoerotics. Her poems investigate animality, duality, and power exchange. She dissects and rearranges common understandings of masculinity and femininity, submission and dominance, illuminating the ways in which kink is both fundamentally wild and deeply intellectual. Multi-faceted and psychologically complex, it strips down our minds while stripping us down to our animal nature. More than a sexual practice, kink is a descent, an exploration, and for some, a transcendent experience.
When I heard about her newest nonfiction book, Superfreaks: Kink, Pleasure, and the Pursuit of Happiness, I knew I wanted to talk to her about the process behind bringing kink history and practice to both kinksters and vanilla readers alike. Fittingly, our conversation took place over Zoom at my alma mater—the first place I met a dominatrix and thought, If only everyone could have their curiosity sated this way.
C. E. Janecek: How would you introduce your newest book, Superfreaks, to vanilla readers versus to experienced kinksters? How did you consider audience when writing and pitching to publishers?
Arielle Greenberg: Most books about kink are written either on a very one-on-one level or assume a lot of insider knowledge that can be quite intimidating. I really wanted to bridge that gap and write a book that’s open to all levels—to have information out there that’s both interesting and useful to folks who are just starting out, as well as to people who may have already read every book on the subject. I wanted there to still be new information for experienced kinksters, and the conceit of this book is that it’s an accessible deep dive into the material. My editor and I ultimately arrived at the form of an extended think piece on the widest possible range of kink, including many styles that aren’t covered in books or conversations about BDSM.2
Leading into the second question, I luckily didn’t have to query the book because I was approached by my editor who had recently pitched a sexuality imprint at Beacon. She found me through the Rumpus series I’d edited, (K)ink: Writing While Deviant. I can’t tell you how honored I am to be on the same list as James Baldwin and Audre Lord at Beacon. I really take that seriously and I had in mind the kind of public intellectual approach many of Beacon’s writers take—widely interdisciplinary but also able to go deep into a subject.
CEJ: How serendipitous to be one of the first authors in a new series! While reading Superfreaks, I really appreciated your attention to detail, considering that both newcomers and experienced kinksters often conflate commonly used terms in the community. For example, you note that BDSM is often used as an umbrella term for kink, when it only covers a fraction of kink and fetish practices—not to mention emphasizing the difference between “kink” and “fetish” in your new book.
AG: Absolutely. I think my whole approach to the book is informed by the fact that I am a literary writer. I didn’t come to this project as a sex educator or as someone with a PhD in sexuality studies, but as someone with an MFA in creative writing who also works as an editor. Semantics really matter to me and it totally drives me crazy when I hear smart folks giving good information about kink or BDSM in books and podcasts, but they’re either misusing terms, or in some cases, no good term for what they’re describing exists, but no one’s bothering to come up with one.
“Language matters in material ways because all good sexual activity is predicated upon consent and communication. Language is also a kind of code those of us in the kink world use to find each other and figure ourselves out.”
I’m a language person and that might not be to everyone’s taste, but a lot of people in the writing and kink communities care deeply about language. Language matters in material ways because all good sexual activity is predicated upon consent and communication. Language is also a kind of code those of us in the kink world use to find each other and figure ourselves out. We have a good understanding of why coding—language is just one form of code—is so powerful.
CEJ: Yes, especially when you think about the role of language in queer communities and other marginalized groups. I’m thinking of self-identification versus the medicalization of identities. Or the ways the medical industry or our country’s psychiatric history interpolates us—names us—in various ways. Judith Butler, for instance, has us thinking deeply about what we call ourselves versus what others call us. What’s in the power dynamic of naming a group of people as Other?
AG: Exactly. This comes up so much in Superfreaks, especially when discussing how sadism and masochism got their names. They’re both named after individual people, which is problematic in and of itself. What those people represent is fraught, especially in the example of the Marquis de Sade who was, you know, a really complicated figure. He was a criminal, frankly, there’s just no other way to say that. But he’s been so glorified within some aspects of the kink community without people knowing the criminal, predatory consent violations he committed not just in his work, but in real life. He wasn’t imprisoned for just being an iconoclastic, radical writer, but for criminal, inhumane behavior.
And then there’s Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who really didn’t want his name used as the root of masochism—a term that was coined in his own lifetime—which is another kind of consent violation. At the time, his surname was being used to name a pathology, albeit by a very kink-positive psychologist. But from what we know historically, it was still very hard for him.
Sadism and masochism were both terms developed by psychologists interested in sexuality and were actually quite empathetic to kink. But today, folks are also using these words to describe non-erotic and non-consensual activity, which I think is problematic because within the BDSM community, sadism and masochism are fundamentally consensual and erotic. People will say, I didn’t have coffee this morning, I’m such a masochist, or That dentist is sadistic, and folks only understand these terms as anything to do with pain or pleasure. From a language perspective, it feels sloppy, because it just diffuses the meaning of actually describing sadism and masochism. They’re very real desires and dynamics within consensual erotic activity. Instead, we get popular culture deeply misrepresenting these terms and enforcing social taboo.
“Whips and chains, it’s all just stuff. Some of the deepest exchanges occur when you’re enacting a roleplay with zero props and maybe zero impact play—but it’s not going to look like much to anyone else.”
CEJ: As someone who’s spent time in the kink community, how did this affect your research process for Superfreaks? Did any research change your perspective on a topic that you felt you had a firm grasp on already?
AG: I certainly drew on my own experiences, but also things I’ve witnessed at kink events, workshops, or discussed with kinky friends. There’s also research that I did specifically for the book. Overall, I hope this book explores the things that you can’t see happen—even in a dungeon—because it’s the psychological aspect of kink.
I’m not really a toy or gear person, for obvious capitalist reasons. But it is easier to do pickup play that’s gear-focused with a stranger because it’s about a particular kind of sensation you’re playing with, rather than creating a psychological dynamic which you haven’t had time to establish. It can happen, but it’s much more challenging.
Writing about fetishes like objectophilia specifically was very interesting for me. How much of a grasp on it did I have going in? I don’t know. I had a pretty solid understanding of what it is, just because my own fetishistic nature means I feel a lot of empathy and kinship with parallel fetishists, and objectophilia is a kind of fetishism. On that level, I get it, but I hadn’t ever gotten deep into that fetish because there’s no easy way to practice it at an event or even in kink community spaces.
Objectophiles probably feel pretty marginalized most of the time because, first of all, it’s not an encounter with another human being, so other humans are probably not going to be super interested. There’s also so much stigma around it; to my mind it’s one of the more stigmatized kinks out there and the least discussed. I was grateful to learn about objectophilia more as part of my research, as a lot of Superfreaks focuses on these types of under-the-radar kinks.
CEJ: I get what you mean about the ease of capitalizing on gear and how the public conception of kink tends to focus on what people can actually see happening. Most people, when they hear BDSM, will think of bondage gear, paddles, collars, etc. that they see in the media. I agree that it’s much more interesting to appreciate the psychological aspects of play—scenes created through embodying roles, using mindfulness in a kink context, or using power dynamics.
AG: Yes, as you know, there is that sense of BDSM providing a spectacle to onlookers, especially in film, music videos, etc. Whips and chains, it’s all just stuff. Some of the deepest exchanges occur when you’re enacting a roleplay with zero props and maybe zero impact play—but it’s not going to look like much to anyone else. I think that the most complex, rich, interesting fodder is hearing about people’s really specific dynamics that they’ve negotiated, because that’s where the creativity comes in.
In fact, there’s a huge conception in the vanilla world that being a dominant means to be served and being a submissive means to serve. Of course, we know within the kink world that you can be a service top or dom or bottom or sub or any other combination of self-identifiers. My dom partner, for example, loves to be served, but not in the traditional sense. He wants to be pampered, spoiled, taken care of, and some in the vanilla world might ask, Well, how is that a dom then? Well, first of all, he’s asking for it. Second, it’s not just asking for it but accepting it. It’s so hard for many people in our culture to accept service or just to accept being taken care of. There’s a risk to being on the receiving end of care and that can be part of stepping into power, dominance, and authority—to just say, Yes, take care of me.
“It’s so hard for many people in our culture to accept service or just to accept being taken care of. There’s a risk to being on the receiving end of care and that can be part of stepping into power, dominance, and authority—to just say, Yes, take care of me.”
I think ultimately, any good sexual partner is most turned on by their partner being super turned on. That’s just the ideal, enthusiastic consent feedback loop of desire and arousal. Connection is what we are all striving for. It doesn’t matter if a certain kink isn’t my “role.” If my partner is in thrall to it, I’m interested as a curious, sexual being. I’m eternally interested in people’s sources of pleasure, whether or not I’m involved or if they have anything to do with me.
CEJ: Speaking of power and roles—in the introduction to Superfreaks, you address the roles of power, identity, and privilege when it comes to varying levels of persecution risks in being open about one’s social and sexual deviances. Can you speak more on some of the internal and external challenges that come up when writing about kink?
AG: I’m really aware of the many layers of privilege that allow me to be out in the ways that I am. I’m a cis person in a heterosexual marriage. I already had an established career before I began really writing about these subjects. I’m middle class, white, and live in a pretty progressive place. Because of these aspects of my identity, I’m afforded relative security in terms of persecution, but the riskiest factor that still exists for me is that someone could call the Department of Child Services because I’m open about my life as a fetishist and have children.
Actually, I have had one enormous privilege compared to most people. I made it to sexual self-actualization free from the baggage of shame. I come from a pretty sex-positive family background and have never suffered any kind of abuse or trauma (knock on wood). I think that’s an unusual experience for a cis woman to have, not to mention all the people who have multiple intersecting identities that put up enormous barriers to accessing that kind of understanding of their sexual selves. Through no fault of their own, most people don’t even make it to the age of consent without some kind of negative experience or acculturation that they have to work through. I feel like my privilege gives me a sort of responsibility to help others feel less shame and a little more access. But, of course, I have to acknowledge the systemic barriers in our patriarchal rape culture influenced by racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and so many other -isms that prevent people from understanding their deepest desires or their ability to act on them. At the same time, I want to believe in the possibility of inclusive pleasure for all as a utopian ideal.
“But I’m able to tell my poetry MFA students, Congratulations! You are operating in a genre within a culture where there is no market for what you’re doing. It’s liberating—write what excites you, what challenges you, what you feel is necessary and urgent. What are you going to do otherwise, write toward the poetry market? There is no such thing.”
CEJ: What advice would you give to those who are beginning to write about their kinks on broader platforms?
AG: One thing that really helped me while writing Superfreaks was that I was writing it during the pandemic, so it felt very private. I was under the illusion that no one would ever read it, because that’s basically what it felt like with my very intimate, autobiographical, sexual poetry collection I Live in the Country. I was excited and scared for its publication, and then it was literally published the week the pandemic started. It was supposed to be launched at AWP in Texas and that year, so many people cancelled last minute. I didn’t even go to San Antonio and just went to Austin and stayed in an AirBnB instead. This was a book I’d hoped and feared would have a big audience, but that never happened. There was not a review of that book at the time because people were understandably busy with other news.
But I’m able to tell my poetry MFA students, Congratulations! You are operating in a genre within a culture where there is no market for what you’re doing. It’s liberating—write what excites you, what challenges you, what you feel is necessary and urgent. What are you going to do otherwise, write toward the poetry market? There is no such thing. When I first tell that to students they’re like, Oh my God, that’s terrifying. But no, it’s genuinely a good thing for an artist.
I’m glad I’m someone who’s quite comfortable being in an educator and mentor role, just personality-wise. There are lots of writers who prefer to be more private. But for myself, when I wrote about stillbirth, I had people wanting to share their own experiences with me. I am usually honored and welcome people to engage; I’m grateful to connect with people who’ve had experiences like mine. Same with ethical non-monogamy—I would literally just be in public spaces like writing conferences and people knew who I was. I’ve been on podcasts talking about non-monogamy and people later would come up to me to talk about their marriage problems. I’m like, Tell me more! I want to know everything and help you wherever I can. I love hearing other people’s stories. I treasure that and love giving advice. It’s a comfortable role for me, but that’s not true for everyone, which is understandable. Just because some people write about really intimate topics doesn’t mean they want to be approached or to talk about them with strangers, which is a boundary everyone can set for themselves.
CEJ: Finally, and we’ve touched on this idea throughout the interview, what do you want your readers to take away from Superfreaks?
AG: I just hope that by reading this book, people will feel less alone and more seen, understood, and excited about the erotic potential in their own lives and imaginations. Just the other day, I received a DM on Instagram from someone who’d heard about the book through a podcast I was on. They told me about how they’re accepting and supportive of their partner’s pretty unusual fetish, and that they’ve never talked to anyone about it. They said that listening to the podcast made a space for them to feel less ashamed and for their partner to feel like they’re part of a community. That is exactly the goal of this book, and hopefully this couple will read it and think, There’s others out there like us. It’s okay to be who we are. It’s okay to love what we love and desire what we desire. And that’s beautiful, actually.
C. E. Janecek is a Czech American writer and freelance editor with an MFA in poetry from Colorado State University. Janecek’s writing has appeared in Poetry, Sugar House Review, Gulf Coast, Booth, and elsewhere. Find them at www.cewritespoems.com.
Arielle Greenberg speaks about kink and ethical non-monogamy at universities and on podcasts such as Dear Sugar, Why Are People into That?!, and Sex Out Loud. She is the author of several books of poetry and creative nonfiction. A former tenured professor in English at Columbia College Chicago, she has spent over 20 years as a scholar and academic, writing about cultural studies and literature and teaching undergraduate and graduate students, as well as in the community. She identifies as a lifelong sexual fetishist. Keep up with Arielle on Instagram and on her website, ariellegreenberg.net.
I decided to choose a poem from Dan Beachy-Quick’s translation of Sappho rather than the more classic Carman or Carson translations, because 1) more fragments have been discovered since the 1990s and he includes them, and 2) his translation of Sappho’s work is sophisticated and thrillingly sexy, with the intent to capture her spirit as much as possible, rather than just being completely literal to the Ancient Greek.
An umbrella term that encapsulates the sub-practices of Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/submission, and Sadism/Masochism.