La donna sovrasensuale. Masochismo, fantasia, teatralità

This essay seeks to outline the features of a peculiar expression of the feminine – the Masochian Venus in Furs – that Gilles Deleuze’s analyses characterize as essentially connected to the maternal element. However, as we shall see, this reference to the maternal is not so much about the psychoanalytic Oedipal notion of the mother but rather about the ritual function of the role of a mother as an impersonal Dionysian principle. In particular, we shall aim to show how, in what we have called a “masochistic theater”, relationships must unfold within a protean framework of phantasy in a peculiar kind of epoché: belief in reality is modified to make way for a consciousness of “phantasy in the flesh”. Such a ritual can bring certain essences to light by elaborating a plastically expressive art through which the sensible becomes stylized so as to allow one to experience a supersensual [übersinnlich] dimension.