Foreword
Only in this current decade of the new sexual revolution, have we become aware that the male experiences a climacteric in his own way as compelling and altering as the female menopause. Years ago, one would say pityingly of a man in his late forties or fifties who had suddenly shown an obsessive interest in either very young girls or gaudy chorus girls and night-club hostesses that he was "in his dotage" or "getting senile with age." The honest truth is, of course, that the male is not, and never has been, a monogamous animal; however society has channeled him into accepting the conventions of a monogamous marriage, it cannot control the basic and primal sexual urges which arise within him. To be sure, he may condition himself to control them, but they exist nevertheless. And given certain circumstances, they may overwhelm him and direct his motivations.
Perhaps the most notoriously famous example is that of the Congressman in his late sixties who fell madly in love with a stripper. What is to be commended, however, is his honesty in admitting his being attracted to her and his not attempting to apologize for it. Moreover, whether all of us are ready to admit it or not, increasing age makes us almost desperately perceptive of the allure and temptation of budding youth. By associating ourselves with it, we rationalize that we are able to shut away the gloomy thoughts of eventual death and the ending of all sexual activity.
Many noted psychiatrists have termed this kind of spiritual incest, thus explaining the desire of a mature or elderly man for a young girl just out of puberty. Even though the laws concerning sexual behavior have been greatly modified during the past decade, there still exists society's taboo against the liaison of an adult male with an under-age female. The tenets of statutory rape provide that even with the consent of such a female, her yielding to sexual relations with a mature male render him liable to criminal prosecution.
As late as fifteen years ago, the case of a man who had had sexual relations with his sixteen-year-old stepdaughter was tried in the high courts of California. The girl's mother had died two years earlier, and her daughter had fallen in love with her stepfather. Though there was no degree of consanguinity (blood ties) between the girl and her stepfather, he was sent to prison because she was under age. Even the girl's testimony that she intended to marry him as soon as she came of age did not keep him from going to prison.
In the backwoods areas of the South, child brides and related cases of incest have always been prevalent, although studies of incest indicate that this forbidden sexual union is to be found in not only strongly ethnic communities but also among middle-income and well-to-do family structures. One recalls the classic film, "Child Bride," produced over a generation ago, which tells the story of a Northern teacher's engagement at a rural Southern school among the clannish mountaineers and her severe punishment by the outraged mountain folk for trying to prevent the marriage of an eleven-year-old girl to a man in his mid-thirties.
Mark Conroy, in his latest novel, "Spanking Stepdaughter," has drawn a graphic portrait from an actual case history. Barbara, just turned fifteen, discovers that her widowed stepfather expects her to take her mother's place in his bed. Shocked at first by his lustful demands, she finds herself coerced by threats and infliction of corporal punishment. Gradually, as he maintains his erotic domination over her, she discovers that her body responds despite all her moral strictures and her own fear of him.
His sexual exploitation of her, through the means of having his girl friend watch and participate in her degradation and sexual slavery, and finally his compelling her to yield to his acquaintances and to the sadistic county sheriff, motivate her to escape. There she meets a sexually imaginative young bohemian artist and photographer, who, sensing her innate masochism, guides her into an exciting new relationship whereby she can give vent to all her submissive tendencies and enjoy furiously passionate fulfillment, the difference being that she falls in love with him.
This novel underlines the powerful allure of erotic masochism and sadism, showing us how these two extremes are often blended into a unique compulsory force by which the participants achieve extraordinarily rewarding fulfillment of their desires. Mark Conroy shows that the traits of submission and humiliation and the discomfort of mild corporal chastisement combine to unleash long pentup desires, the release of which permits communicatively honest sexual expression. It is another proof of how this generation is at last coming of age in the sexual revolution in which there is no place for hypocrisy, prudery or deceit.