Library Elise Sutton

Ms Kathleen's

Screen 5 of 11

The first time we see a woman using a bullwhip it is when Mimi (Catherine Spaak), learns that her deceased husband had a secret apartment (the famous apartment that made Hugh Hefner’s place look like a nursery school) and while perusing the Penthouse (as in ‘apartment’, not the magazine founded by Bob Guccione), she discovers 8mm footage of her husband having bizarre role-play trysts with an abundance of other women, including Claudia, her best friend. In the 8mm film, we see Claudia using a bullwhip on a naked girl who is bound to the bed, while Mimi’s husband watches.

Ok, that sounds pretty damn erotic, you say. Trust me, it’s not. It’s one of those lame S&M scenes. You know the kind, the kind where the Dom lightly drapes the whip across the sub顺从者 — a submissive person while the sound effect gives off that vicious snapping sound that a bullwhip is expected to make if you use it correctly.

The second time we see a bullwhip is when Mimi fantasizes that her Tennis instructor is wearing leather and cracking a whip, when in fact he is hitting a tennis ball. Why does she fantasize about him using a bullwhip? Because she has purchased a copy of Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s “Psychopathia Sexualis”. Mimi wants to better understand sexual kinks性癖 — an unusual sexual taste, therefore she studies “Psychopathia Sexualis”, and in the process, her mind runs wild, imagining different men with these unusual fetishes恋物 — a strong sexual focus on one thing.