The Other Side of Desire by Daniel Bergner

“The beating here … goes so deep,” says a masochist quoted in Daniel Bergner’s new book, The Other Side of Desire. “I want to receive. It takes me from a high head space, down through all the levels, down to someplace at my core…This is where I learn the whole.”

The Other Side of Desire profiles four erotically unusual people: “a devoted husband burdened by an insatiable foot fetish, a clothing designer who finds ecstasy in the pain of others, a man smitten with his young stepdaughter, and an advertising director who casts traditionally beautiful models but is attracted only to amputees.”

From one perspective, some of those editorial choices might seem questionable. Bergner’s decision to present pedophilia alongside three sexual identities that can be consensually enacted made many alternative sexuality activists wince. It’s also worth noting that The Baroness—the BDSM practitioner profiled in this book—is very extreme and unsafe in her practices. For instance, Bergner chronicles an encounter in which The Baroness leaves one of her submissives tied up alone overnight. People die from being left tied up alone for long periods, yet Bergner doesn’t even append a warning.

Ultimately, however, The Other Side of Desire is best seen as a sensitive portrayal of human erotic desire. Some of its subjects are in loving, well-negotiated sexual relationships, but not all are experiencing desire in the healthiest way. Nor do they all deal with it in the safest or most reasonable ways. The link among these subjects is that their deep erotic desires are greatly stigmatized—and arguably, the judgment and repression they experience is just a stronger version of the stigma surrounding all sexuality in America. Everyone can learn from these portraits because they are parables—positive and negative—for how to deal with sexuality in a healthy, understanding, consensual way.

Bergner didn’t just talk to the four main characters of his book. He interviewed a host of erotically unusual folks, as well as many therapists and laboratory scientists seeking to make sense of human sexuality. The wide array of medical viewpoints is illuminating, starting with a therapist who seeks to treat alternatively sexual patients by medicating away their sex drive. “He spoke about ‘freeing up the mind from sex. When we’re young, eliminating sex may be inconceivable, but when we’re older we may find that it’s more peaceful.’” This gentleman is contrasted with two other therapists who “felt that with a unusual sexual desire that was harmless, their primary role was to listen. Cure—in the form of a transformation of desire—might never be possible, but a measure of peace could be reached. To treat their patients meant trying to lift the shame.”

Thus does Bergner ask: Is it better for unusually erotic people to seek escape from our desires, or accept them? How can medical professionals best deal with alternative sexuality? Framed in the first chapter, that’s just the beginning of the questions at the heart of The Other Side of Desire, with every subsequent interview adding layers. It’s all written in language both beautiful and highly accessible, and the book is short—a complex yet easy read.

But there are serious gaps in the material. The book doesn’t even begin to describe the ways in which a good alternative sexuality community will educate and support its members. For instance, a latent or repressed or closeted BDSM-identified person would not come away from this book understanding the resources that the BDSM community can offer: the workshops, the emphasis on safety and respect, the all-important welcome and understanding.

Nor does The Other Side of Desire cover alternative sexuality activism. For instance, Bergner never mentions the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, the biggest nonprofit advocacy group working towards alternative sexuality acceptance. By covering medical and scientific viewpoints without discussing advocacy or communities, he privileges current medical perspectives over political ones by default.

It’s nice to know that there’s a major book out there approaching alternative sexuality in a serious, sensitive, personal way. The Other Side of Desire is doing a lot to mainstream conversations about how we negotiate our desires, and about what alternative sexuality means. Any person seeking to seriously research these issues—in particular, any person negotiating their own “deviant” desires, or any person interested in the politics surrounding sexuality—will need to read far beyond The Other Side of Desire. If you know little or nothing about that subject, then this is a good place to start reading—as long as you go into it knowing what’s missing.

But I’m glad to see a national discussion starting, and I’m glad to see it framed with such warmth and care.

Reviewed by Clarisse Thorn

The Other Side of Desire by Daniel Bergner
Ecco, 2009
Cloth, 224 pp, $24.99
ISBN-10: 0060885564