Introduction
Marcel D'Orly wrote his extremely bizarre novel of sensual debauchery and sexual perversion "Bastinado" while residing in the Soho district in London. Known for its haunts of off-beat and queer practitioners of both sexes, this fascinating study of psycho-sexuals in action may very well be a thinly-disguised recounting of the author's actual experiences in Soho. The book was promptly banned in London and D'Orly was expelled from London University where he had been attending classes. When it appeared on the Paris bookstalls, the censors there made short work of it as well. "Bastinado" is nevertheless considered a classic of its type and survived as a collector's item of modern avant garde literary erotica.
Although the behavior of some of the characters may seem shocking, the following observations of the famed analyst Dr. S. Scymanski may enlighten the reader on the cause of various psycho-sexual abberations :
"The following is another case of apparently inexplicable behavior. This concerned a man who was recognized as a sophisticated and fastidious man of the world by his friends - an aesthete in every sense of the word. He merged into periodic attacks during which he was depressed and agitated because of being- troubled by bad taste in his mouth and by peculiar odors. Oral surgeons and nose and throat specialists could find nothing to account for his symptoms, yet they persisted for weeks.
"I found upon deep analysis that this man had a compulsive mode of thinking ever since childhood upon anal and reetal matters. It further developed that since the age of sixteen he had developed the habit of sticking his finger in his rectum, then smelling and tasting it. At the age of twenty-one he began to go out with girls, struggled against this habit, and finally succeeded in stopping his auto-erotic manipulation of his own rectum. But even though he stopped his physical habit, the psychological symptoms of bad taste and bad odor recurred whenever he was under stress of any kind.
"This man broke off treatment suddenly and I learned later that he had entered into a homosexual affair with a younger man . . . Apparently he was now gratifying his lifelong subconscious wishes."
In the light of the foregoing analysis, the reader may develop a greater self-understanding after finishing this unusual tale of sensual indulgence. In any event he will do well to remember that all schools of psychology recommend self-discipline to the individual faced with temptation to do what he knows is morally wrong.
Continental Classics brings this version of "Bastinado" in its complete and unexpurgated form. It is recommended only for the graduate student or mature adult.
Herbert Ross. M.A. March, 1968 New York City