C.S. Lewis on tgi
I read The Narnian, by Alan Jacobs, a C.S. Lewis biography I heard about on the malespank forums, which said the book contained references to Lewis’s supposed tgi interests. I considered these claims doubtful, but ordered the book from the library anyway. One reference is to Lewis’s discussion of “Eros” in the chapter by that name in The Four Loves. He alludes to a kind of role-play (first full paragraph on text page 145, or “149″ in the embedded media) :The Four Loves
Jacobs says that Lewis “insists strongly that such play must really be play, accepted as such on both sides, both fully voluntary and very temporary” (Jacobs 287). This revelation increased, exponentially, my feeling of connection with Lewis, a connection already powerful via his writings about his bereavement in A Grief Observed. I thought, He knows everything that’s true! How I wish I’d been alive when he was. I have the strangest crush on him. I think this is my first crush on a dead author, I mean a romantic crush. I want him to read my book. It wouldn’t be intellectual or rigorous enough for him, but I wish he’d read it. We have a lot in common, I feel.
The other reference was to some early letters with an Oxford friend in which he signed himself Philomastix (whip-lover) and opined about girls he’d like to spank (Jacobs 56). If only he’d met Casey Morgan (ho ho). The more I read about this man, the more I feel he was a fellow traveler in every possible way, separated by time. How nuts am I to be crushing out on a long-dead writer? Jacobs is a good writer, smart and sensitive, someone who understands and appreciates both literature and religion. He makes me want to try the other Narnia books, and he makes me cry at times. I often cry around C.S. Lewis. I often cry, period.
