I'm not a young man, though I'm not yet middle-aged either. So it feels a bit odd to think of myself as "closeted," as someone who keeps his sexual paraphilias under wraps for fear of being seen as a monster.

Which is funny, because monsters have everything to do with this.

My account name is, of course, based on a character from a fairly obscure 80s cartoon, Inhumanoids. As a wee lad, I caught the end of a sequence where DCompose, a giant undead reptile, snatched up brave heroine Sandra Shore and, with a touch, mutated her into a monstrous, demonic creature before the cut to commercial. Sadly, my uncle changed the channel before I could see the aftermath.

Years later, long after my TF fetish had matured, and thanks to wonders of the Internet, I saw the rest. Subtextually, that episode, Primal Passions, is a hotbed of complex psycho-sexual signifiers that served to illustrate my conflicting feelings about my fetish. As someone whose politics are very liberal and is a feminist sympathizer, how the hell could I reconcile my "Primal Passions" with my politics?

But is anything black or white? Here's what I see:

-Rape/abiuse- DCompose's transformation of Sandra is essentially, a G-rated rape fantasy. She flees the monster, knowing the fate that awaits her (this isn't the first time). That the two creatures are dancing (G-rated sex) a scene later takes the fantasy from "no" to "no means yes," a fairly common subgenre of rape fantasies. Sandra is utterly in his power;, he's remade her in his image. It's a bit disturbing to think about--it's abuse-- yet I find this"relationship" alluring while a thematically similar relationship, that of Jessica Jones and Killgrave to be utterly repellant. Why is that?

- Control - Oddly, the idea of controlling someone (or being controlled) outside of a sexual context is among my least favorite ideas, yet the idea of forcing someone to do what I say is diametrically opposed to who I am. That's not me covering my ass; I literally loathe it. That's what I see when I watch Killgrave do his thing. So what's the difference? But sexually, control has as much to do with letting go as it does getting your way.

-Apotheosis - DCompose mutates a number of people, but usually it's a fairly basic giant, rotting zombie transformation. Sandra, however, has a unique look which we see both times she's mutated. It's far more horrifying, more inhuman, from her horns, to her claws, and even her inexplicably three-toed, heel-spurred feet. One could say that this is just the look he prefers for his reluctant paramour, but one is forced to wonder if this "thing" is lurking somewhere inside her, contained only by the culture that's socialized Sandra to be a reserved, "good" person. By contrast, this thing is all appetite, wild and dangerous. This is the monster she hides away, one that is drawn to another monster even while her conscious mind rebels against the idea. When she's aroused (transformed) she forgets about who she should be and instead revels in the hedonism her form allows. That doesn't make it consensual, but it does make it complicated, in the way that we can be powerfully attracted to people who aren't necessarily good for us. Interestingly, I've only come fully clean about my fetish to one of my partners, one who happened to be very bad for me (and probably I for her). Is it a coincidence that dragging Sandra back out into the light, exposing her monstrous nature, forces her back into her reserved, human state. She has her "agency" back, but one can't help but think about how naturally the "dance," violence and depravity came to her. Maybe the beast can't possibly comprehend what she's saying when she calls her tormentor "my love," but yet she's unable to utter those words to anyone as a human.

The heart is a strange passenger.