Fetish World Follow

The rich are different from you and me. They drive nicer cars. They live in bigger homes. And when they’re struck by a fetish for fascist-themed sadomasochistic sex-play, they can afford to surround themselves with a phalanx of upscale call girls decked out with riding crops and German-style ensembles. I refer, of course, to 68-year-old Monegascan racing magnate Max Mosley, the fabulously wealthy president of Formula One’s governing body. Earlier this year, a London sex worker used a bosom-cam to record Mosley starring in his own one-man, five-woman S&M orgy. Contrary to reports in Britain’s News of The World — which baited and financed the honey trap — the romp featured no overt Nazi imagery. But it came dangerously close. At one point, Mosley counted off his strokes with a guttural German inflection as he spanked one of the call girls. At another point, a woman pretended to inspect Mosley’s hair for lice. Exacerbating the scandal (which, given the intersecting, tabloid-friendly themes of sex, power, fetishism and sports, has attracted surprisingly little attention on this side of the Atlantic) is Mosley’s bloodline: The man is the son of the late Sir Oswald Mosley, disgraced leader of Britain’s 1930s-era Union of Fascists. As members of the press have repeated often, Adolf Hitler was a guest of honour at Oswald’s 1936 wedding. And Max himself dabbled in some of his father’s (more respectable) post-war projects before reinventing himself as a race-car driver. Was the News of The World footage evidence that Max has always been a closet fascist? It’s possible, I suppose. But I doubt it. During the ongoing legal dispute between the newspaper and Mosley, in fact, my sympathy has always been with the Formula One president, not the ink-stained jackals who outed him as an S&M practitioner. And it was emotionally satisfying to see him vindicated in an English High Court decision last Thursday, putting the newspaper on the hook for as much as £500,000 (even if, as a matter of legal precedent, the decision also went too far in restricting press coverage of celebrities). A few months ago, I wrote a column about Who’s Been Sleeping In Your Head? The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies, a brilliant survey by British psychotherapist Brett Kahr. One of the themes that jumped out of the book is that perfectly “normal” people often have fantasies that are violent and even ghoulish. Many of the case studies described by the author, including a few with Nazi overtones, make Mosley’s sexual antics seem completely tame by comparison. Such fantasies can be repressed, of course, in the manner that Catholic priests try to snuff out their sex urge (with, shall we say, mixed results). But they cannot be expunged, or even modified, through force of will. During his court proceedings, Mosley shocked the public by disclosing that he has regularly gone in for sadomasochistic spankings for 45 years. I doubt Kahr, or any sex specialist, would find that detail in any way surprising. Psychotherapists would no doubt have a field day with Mosley. As a young child, he traveled the Mediterranean on his father’s yacht, being entertained at ports of call by the likes of Francisco Franco. Perhaps he began associating fascism with his father’s affection — and then, eventually, with love and self-worth more generally. Or perhaps he hated his parents, and aimed every S&M baton blow at their departed souls. Who knows? And who — except for Mosley’s own family — should really care? Even the most grotesque sex fantasies reflect on a person’s true character in only the most indirect way. They may betray one’s childhood insecurities and anxieties — but they certainly say nothing about political attitudes in adult life. They also — one needs hardly mention — say nothing about professional competence. Perhaps the saddest thing about the Mosley sex scandal is that it has distracted attention from all that he has done for Formula One, and motor sport in general. At the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna died on the same weekend — making them, respectively, the 43rd and 44th drivers to perish behind the wheel of a Formula One car. In response to this double tragedy, Mosley and the sport’s governing body pushed through radical measures to improve safety, including better crash-testing. In a sport that once killed drivers at the rate of one per year, not a single driver has died on the track in the last 14. Even before this sex scandal, Mosley was rumoured to be near retirement. When he does step down, one hopes that his real-world accomplishments, not anything that transpired in the psychosexual make-believe world of his own mind, is what the man is remembered for. jkay@nationalpost.com