by Dr. Susan Block Freedom is the greatest aphrodisiac, but restraint is a close second. It’s one of the many ironies of sex that some of the freest people get off on giving up their freedom—consensually, of course. They may be turned on by being “forced” to experience things that they really want but don’t feel free to receive unless they’re restrained. They may be aroused by struggling against the restraints or surrendering as they enter “sub space.” This is one of the bedrock principles of BDSM. Another principle is theater. BDSM (Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission, Sado-Masochism) is dramatic, and I don’t mean Fifty Shades of Holy Crap drama; I mean the living theater of intimate power exchange, the potent poetry of mixing pleasure with pain as you play—with an audience. This show’s guests of honor are masters of BDSM play. So it’s natural that they’re now creating “plays,” i.e., theatrical entertainments spotlighting the drama of BDSM, engaging in themes of passion (the latin passio means “to suffer”), intimacy, discovery, healing, consensuality and control.

Two mass murders in quick succession got me wondering—yet again—why America is so murderously violent, both abroad and at home. Obviously, there is a rich and tangled tapestry of reasons, one being our sheer number of citizens (statistically, we’re likely to have more mass murders than other countries). Another is the relative convenience with which Americans can acquire automatic weapons; in some states, like Alabama, it’s easier to buy a gun than a sex toy. Speaking of sex, another reason for all the all-American violence might be that the American Brain leans more toward the “Might Makes Right” than the “Make Love, Not War” school of thought. This is partly an American tradition; our nation was founded by Puritans who came to a new land, brimming with religiously inspired, passionately anti-sex fervor, and essentially mass-murdered most of the natives so they could live in “peace.” That tradition is carried on by an American media and ratings system that consistently rewards violent programming packed with shootings, stabbings and bombings with G or PG ratings, but smacks an X or NC-17 on any film that shows a simple nipple. Shooting someone in the breast is considered PG, as long as that breast is clothed. What does it mean to grow up under the influence of the consistent American media message that gun shots are “cleaner” and more acceptable than cum shots? At the very least, it’s one more reason that a deeply frustrated, psychotic individual might grab a semiautomatic weapon and mow down his neighbors, rather than just shooting the gun between his legs and taking a nap. As my favorite developmental neuropsychologist, Dr. James Prescott, found through lab tests with animals and cross-cultural analyses of human societies: “Pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship, that is, the presence of one inhibits the other… A raging, violent animal will abruptly calm down when electrodes stimulate the pleasure centers of its brain. Likewise, stimulating the violence centers in the brain can terminate the animal’s sensual pleasure and peaceful behavior. When the brain’s pleasure circuits are ‘on,’ the violence circuits are ‘off,’ and vice versa…As either violence or pleasure goes up, the other goes down.” Our kissing cousins, the bonobos, show us the way. Whereas common chimps tend to control sex through violence, bonobos control violence with sex. We humans, being about as equally close to bonobos as we are to common chimps, have our erotic bonobo side and our more violent and authoritarian (and Republican?) common chimp side. Personally, I’m rooting for our bonobo side to take over before we blow each other up. I don’t believe in censorship, except the kind that stops folks from yelling “fire!” in the proverbial crowded theater. So I gathered together a congregation of pundits, publishers, porn stars and puppets (amazing marionettes created by the Team America: World Police “Puppet Man”, actually, but more on that in a minute) to address these sex, life and death issues in the Womb Room broadcast studio. In terms of the issues, my guests agree to disagree on some points (like the Second Amendment), but we all love the beautiful, naked bodies and the hot, passionate sex that emerges, as it fortunately does in so many glorious editions of The Dr. Susan Block Show. The night climaxes with a cum shot, not a gun shot, in the after-party. So in the Sex vs. Violence competition, sex wins! At least here in BonoboVille, sex wins.

Length: 108:02 minutes Date: 08/11/2012 Two mass murders in quick succession got me wondering—yet again—why America is so murderously violent, both abroad and at home. Obviously, there is a rich and tangled tapestry of reasons, one being our sheer number of citizens (statistically, we’re likely to have more mass murders than other countries). Another is the relative convenience with which Americans can acquire automatic weapons; in some states, like Alabama, it’s easier to buy a gun than a sex toy. Speaking of sex, another reason for all the all-American violence might be that the American Brain leans more toward the “Might Makes Right” than the “Make Love, Not War” school of thought. This is partly an American tradition; our nation was founded by Puritans who came to a new land, brimming with religiously inspired, passionately anti-sex fervor, and essentially mass-murdered most of the natives so they could live in “peace.” That tradition is carried on by an American media and ratings system that consistently rewards violent programming packed with shootings, stabbings and bombings with G or PG ratings, but smacks an X or NC-17 on any film that shows a simple nipple. Shooting someone in the breast is considered PG, as long as that breast is clothed. What does it mean to grow up under the influence of the consistent American media message that gun shots are “cleaner” and more acceptable than cum shots? At the very least, it’s one more reason that a deeply frustrated, psychotic individual might grab a semiautomatic weapon and mow down his neighbors, rather than just shooting the gun between his legs and taking a nap. As my favorite developmental neuropsychologist, Dr. James Prescott, found through lab tests with animals and cross-cultural analyses of human societies: “Pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship, that is, the presence of one inhibits the other… A raging, violent animal will abruptly calm down when electrodes stimulate the pleasure centers of its brain. Likewise, stimulating the violence centers in the brain can terminate the animal’s sensual pleasure and peaceful behavior. When the brain’s pleasure circuits are ‘on,’ the violence circuits are ‘off,’ and vice versa…As either violence or pleasure goes up, the other goes down.” Our kissing cousins, the bonobos, show us the way. Whereas common chimps tend to control sex through violence, bonobos control violence with sex. We humans, being about as equally close to bonobos as we are to common chimps, have our erotic bonobo side and our more violent and authoritarian (and Republican?) common chimp side. Personally, I’m rooting for our bonobo side to take over before we blow each other up. I don’t believe in censorship, except the kind that stops folks from yelling “fire!” in the proverbial crowded theater. So I gathered together a congregation of pundits, publishers, porn stars and puppets (amazing marionettes created by the Team America: World Police “Puppet Man”, actually, but more on that in a minute) to address these sex, life and death issues in the Womb Room broadcast studio.