Hollywood Goes to Fetishland

A scene from Californication, Season One Episode Three


If you're planning on watching the first season of Californication, I think this post counts as containing spoilers, though nothing you couldn't have figured out on your own. There. You've been warned.

Having referenced this scene in the post below, I figured I might as well put it up here too, especially after Miss Tori asked about it. I'm conflicted about the scene and the storyline concerning these two characters because, on the one hand, it's spanking, yay! On the other hand, we are presented not with a scene of personal discovery or eroticism, but with a sexual grotesquerie in the style of David Mamet's Oleanna or Francine Prose's Blue Angel.

The premise of the scene is an unexpected example of bottoming from the top. Throughout this blog, I've made reference to my own feelings about the idea of topping from the bottom, the act of getting the scene I want despite my role as the submissive. Some believe it's unacceptable behavior; I think it's simply akin to a consenting adult presenting her desires and parameters by guiding a scene without dominating the dominant partner. Bottoming from the top, however, seems more devious, at least as it plays out in the scene above.

I'm trying to imagine Mr. W asking me to spank him. It wouldn't be power exchange, it wouldn't be exploration. We both know ourselves too well, which is why I say trying to imagine. This request will never be forthcoming. For the sake of argument, though, we'll pretend this could happen. The only reason he would want me to "top" him would be to prove my willingness to submit to his every command, even the irrational ones. Trying to figure how to go about the task would be embarrasing and awkward for me, which of course would be satisfying to him. Even if I managed and ended up enjoying myself, the meaning of the scene would still be clear: his control is irrefutable.

This Californication scene represents the same dichotomy. The young woman, Dani (Rachel Miner), is the assistant of Charlie (Evan Handler), a married man and talent agent. Hapless Charlie, who makes any number of terrible decisions in his own right, doesn't realize that Dani is merely climbing the corporate ladder by climbing over his lap. She's not topping from the bottom as a spankophile presenting her bare behind and saying "Spank me please." She's bottoming from the top, commandeering the situation for her own gain. Naturally, threats of litigation and dramatic conjugal hi jinks ensue.

Still, what is refreshing about the plotline is that Dani is devious for trapping Charlie, not for engaging in acts of fetishism. Charlie, likewise, is devious for cheating on his wife (and yes, in the microcosm of the show, what he is doing in this scene and others counts as cheating, intercourse or no) but is not deviant for being curious about spanking and BDSM. It may not end in everyone living happily ever after in Fetishland, but they weren't wrong for taking a vacation there. They were just wrong for going on vacation with the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. Fetishland, meanwhile, gains a place on Hollywood's map of normal sexual behaviors, right next to Blowjobtown and up the street from Lookingatpornville.

In other words, it's all good. Just don't do it behind your wife's back or to get a promotion. Otherwise, spank away, characters. Spank away.