> I understand that "kinky" people flatter themselves with the idea that
> they are radical and free; I understand that the left pats itself on
> the back for being tolerant of consensual kink. I spent a good dozen
> years experimenting with sex -- but, paradoxically, I think I was as
> limited by this practice as the most repressed prude. A difficult
> paradox to explain, to be sure. What it comes down to is that so long
> as the mind dictates what the body may or may not do, the body is not
> free at all and the mind is distinctly not radical.
If you interpret "body" as "instinct" then the domination of willing by body rather than mind isn't "freedom" from the perspective underpinning Kovel's review article. That connected a psychoanalytic understanding of sadism to Hegel's ethics which retain Kant's idea that the fully free will is the "autonomous" will, the actualization of a "will proper" and a "universal will."
"The Will Proper, or the Higher Appetite, is (a) pure indeterminateness of the Ego, which as such has no limitation or a content which is immediately extant through nature but is indifferent towards any and every determinateness. (b) The Ego can, at the same time, pass over to a determinateness and make a choice of some one or other and then actualize
it." (Hegel, The Philosophical Propaedeutic p. 2)
The "Universal Will" is "the Will which is Lawful and Just or in accordance with Reason." (Philosophical Propaedeutic p. 1)
If these ideas are combined with psychoanalysis, the Kant/Hegel elaboration of of them (e.g. as the "categorical imperative") doesn't fully escape the influence of instinct. This shows up as a leaving of unmastered sadism. One indication of this is the self-contradictory attempt to justify retributively inflicting suffering by means of an argument that attributes an autonomous will to the criminal. But, on their premises, criminal behaviour can't be the expression of such a will.
Marx's sublation of this returns to a wholly positive conception of autonomous willing i.e. it's the willing productive of the greatest pleasure and happiness. In the case of sexual relations, it leads to evaluative judgments in these terms i.e. to the judgment that sexual relations that actualize autonomy in the above sense will be the most pleasurable ones.
Such relations are then elaborated in terms of Hegel's concept of "mutual recognition" amended to eliminate the remaining heteronymy. This is the interpretation I would give to Marx's comments on the sexual relation in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts.
On this basis, an argument can be constructed that sadomasochistic relations are not the "best" relations i.e. the relations capable of producing the greatest pleasure. Individuals who react to the idea of any relations, including sadomasochistic ones, with feelings of disgust or condemnation aren't fully autonomous. Such feelings, understood psychoanalytically, are expressions of unmastered instinct. They can also be expressed projectively i.e. by finding them in others where they don't exist.
There is contemporary work other than the book reviewed by Kovel that attempts to combine psychoanalysis with the ethical idea of "mutual recognition." Jessica Benjamin's Bonds of Love is a good example. An essay of hers is available on the web <http://psychematters.com/papers/benjamin.htm>.
Ted