Case Studies from The White Stocking 3: Ted Whiston (An Abusive Husband with a Cuckold Fetish)

Anne Van Der Linden: Le bas blanc (2013)

annevanderlinden.net

I.

We have already discussed how Elsie is a prick tease in pearl earrings; and how her illicit lover and dance partner, Sam Adams, is a stocking fetishist who likes to make love to music, happy to humiliate the husbands and boyfriends of the young girls he preys upon.

But, let's be clear from the outset: Ted Whiston is no angel, or a man deserving of our pity. He's an abusive husband with - I would suggest - a cuckold fetish and a taste for sexual violence. Thus it is that, after Elsie receives a pair of pearl earrings as a Valentine's gift from Sam Adams, Whiston leaves for work brooding, but secretly excited by the idea of his wife being fucked by the older man.

And this is why he behaved as he did at the Christmas party two years earlier, when Adams publicly ravished his fiancée upon the dance floor and then pocketed one of her stockings that she had mistakenly carried with her instead of a handkerchief and then accidentally dropped in front of him. Whiston was angry that she let Adams not only pick up the item in question, but keep it too. However, although he would occasionally speak of the matter afterwards, it was one that he tellingly allowed to go unresolved.


II.

When Whiston gets home from work on Valentine's evening, he's tired and depressed, but ready to engage in a little sadomasochistic sex play with Elsie, who, it seems, is an eager and consensual participant in such. Lawrence writes:

"All day the male in him had been uneasy, and this had fatigued him. She was curiously against him, inclined, as she sometimes was nowadays, to make mock of him and jeer at him and cut him off. He did not understand this, and it angered him deeply. She was uneasy before him.

      She knew he was in a state of suppressed irritation. The veins stood out on the backs of his hands, his brow was drawn stiffly. Yet she could not help goading him."

Almost immediately, he asks her about the white stocking, with vicious resentment in his voice. This is the fetish object that excites and unites him, her, and Adams in a perverse relationship. She leaves the room and when she returns she is wearing the white stockings - most likely stained with Sam Adams's semen - and starts to parade around in front of him, admiring her own pretty legs and lifting up her skirt so that he might better see them and get a flash also of her frilly knickers. 

Whiston tells her to stop making a spectacle of herself. But Elsie continues to dance round the room, kicking up her legs and singing as she did so, seemingly indifferent to how this might make him feel. They are, of course, deliberately inciting violent feelings of sexual jealousy and humiliation, as they delve into dark corners of the pornographic imagination. He calls her a whore and tells her to stop acting so shamelessly and yet he clearly delights in her behaviour, just as his abuse excites her: 

"She was rousing all his uncontrollable anger. He sat glowering. Every one of her sentences stirred him up like a red-hot iron. Soon it would be too much." But still she doesn't stop - not until he suddenly - though inevitably - explodes into violence:

"He seemed to thrust his face and his eyes forward at her, as he rose slowly and came to her. She watched transfixed in terror. Her throat made a small sound, as she tried to scream.

      Then, quick as lightning, the back of his hand struck her with a crash across the mouth, and she was flung back blinded against the wall. The shock shook a queer sound out of her. And then she saw him still coming on, his eyes holding her, his fist drawn back, advancing slowly. At any instant the blow might crash into her.

      Mad with terror, she raised her hands with a queer clawing movement to cover her eyes and her temples, opening her mouth in a dumb shriek. There was no sound. But the sight of her slowly arrested him. He hung before her, looking at her fixedly, as she stood crouched against the wall with open, bleeding mouth, and wide-staring eyes, and two hands clawing over her temples. And his lust to see her bleed, to break her and destroy her, rose from an old source against her. It carried him. He wanted satisfaction."

This is the brutal counterpoint of the ecstatic dance scene from earlier in the story, between Elsie and Adams (see part two of this post). Lawrence - supremely skilled at writing scenes of sexual violence in which the erotic aspect of the latter and the obscene cruelty of the former become blurred and indistinguishable - brings things to a disturbing climax:

"He had seen her standing there, a piteous, horrified thing, and he turned his face aside in shame and nausea. He went and sat heavily in his chair, and a curious ease, almost like sleep, came over his brain.

      She walked away from the wall towards the fire, dizzy, white to the lips, mechanically wiping her small, bleeding mouth. He sat motionless. Then, gradually, her breath began to hiss, she shook, and was sobbing silently, in grief for herself. Without looking, he saw. It made his mad desire to destroy her come back.
      She felt that now nothing would prevent him if he rose to kill her. She could not prevent him any more. She was yielded up to him. They both trembled in the balance, unconscious."

After a few moments, Elsie lifts her "tear-stained, swollen face" and looks at her husband with forlorn eyes that cause a "great flash of anguish" to pass over his body. He takes her in his arms and holds her with great tenderness, whilst telling her over and over that he loves her. 

III.

Why does Elsie stay with a man who is willing and able to abuse her in this manner? Is she frightened to leave, or is she only too aware of the practical and financial difficulties of leaving? Does she have a support network of friends and family that might enable her to do so?

I don't know and the story doesn't really tell us. I'm somewhat reluctant to suggest that, maybe, she enjoys the violence - just as she seems to enjoy sexual teasing and manipulation. But we need to recall that Elsie is a consenting adult and it's clearly ridiculous to suggest that women can't enjoy the darker aspects of edgeplay (smacking, punching, strangulation, erotic asphyxiation, etc.).

By her own admission, Elsie is bored by her husband and used to his ways. Maybe she needs the physical stimulation that results from such activities and that violence and fear ultimately result in heightened pleasure or jouissance. Besides, as Sylvia would say, every woman adores a fascist - it just becomes a question of who's the Daddy; Ted Whiston or Sam Adams. 

IV.

As for Ted Whiston, what's his story? Why does he need to imagine his wife involved with Sam Adams and to abuse her before he can find his own sexual satisfaction? In order to answer this, we need to understand something of the appeal of cuckold fetish ...

Traditionally, a cuckold was unaware of what was going on behind his back. But in the world of modern fetish, the cuckold is fully complicit in his wife's sexual infidelity and often in control of the affair, deriving pleasure both from his humiliation and the perverse exertion of power. I think a strong argument can be made to suggest that Ted Whiston belongs to this modern school of cuckoldry. Who knows, maybe he was even the one who suggested she carry a white stocking instead of a handkerchief to the dance and ensnare Sam Adams with it ...?      

Interestingly, it's been suggested that there is a solid biological basis for cuckold fetish; that a man who believes his mate to have been getting jiggy with another male will want to copulate more frequently with her in order to compete with his rival. And copulate more vigorously too; thrusting more deeply, ejaculating with more force, and producing more sperm (suggesting that female infidelity is good for him and good for her).

I suspect that Whiston could hardly even get it up without the thought of Elsie in the arms of Adams. Or, indeed, enjoying the attentions of a black-skinned lover who has bought her affections with a bar of chocolate (the ultimate erotico-racist fantasy of a man like Whiston). 

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, 'The White Stocking', in The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, ed. John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 143-64.

The University of Adelaide have made The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (1914) freely available as an ebook: click here (or here if you want to go straight to 'The White Stocking'). 

For the first of the White Stocking case studies - on Elsie Whiston as a prick tease in pearl earrings - click here.

For the second of the White Stocking case studies - on Sam Adams as a Lothario who makes love to music - click here. 

Case Studies from The White Stocking 2: Sam Adams (A Lothario Who Makes Love to Music)

I.

In an essay written in 1927, Lawrence examines the idea that dancing is essentially a form of making love to music, or rhythmic fucking with a melodious accompaniment. He asserts that this is what many - perhaps most - modern people long to experience; particulary those women who wished that man was not such a coarse creature keen to copulate and have done as quickly as possible.

For such women - women who find great pleasure in flirting and sexual foreplay - ejaculation is always premature and the act of coition always a let down; not so much a consummation as a humiliating anti-climax. If their physical desire was to be satisfied anywhere, then it was in the ballroom - not in the bedroom - with a man who intimately knew his way round the dance floor.

Lawrence writes, mockingly: "They wanted heavenly strains to resound, while he held their hand, and a new musical movement to burst forth, as he put his arm round their waist." For sex can be very charming and very delightful, so long as it's sublimated in 3/4 time, like a waltz, and you can keep your clothes on.

All of which brings us to the fascinating case of Elsie Whiston and her dance partner-cum-illicit lover, Sam Adams, in Lawrence's short story 'The White Stocking' (1914) ...

II.

Sam Adams is a forty-year old bachelor with an eye for the ladies. In fact, his fondness for the girls employed in his lace factory - and, to be fair, their fondness for him - was notorious. And he was particularly taken with Elsie, whom he had once ravished on the dance floor at the firm's Christmas do, as she blissfully liked to recall, even though she was now married to another:

"That dance was an intoxication to her. After the first few steps, she felt herself slipping away from herself. She almost knew she was going, she did not even want to go. Yet she must have chosen to go. She lay in the arm of the steady, close man with whom she was dancing, and she seemed to swim away out of contact with the room, into him. She had passed into another, denser element of him, an essential privacy. The room was all vague around her, like an atmosphere, like under sea, with a flow of ghostly, dumb movements. But she herself was held real against her partner, and it seemed she was connected with him, as if the movements of his body and limbs were her own movements, yet not her own movements - and oh, delicious! He also was given up, oblivious, concentrated, into the dance. His eye was unseeing. Only his large, voluptuous body gave off a subtle activity. His fingers seemed to search into her flesh. Every moment, and every moment, she felt she would give way utterly, and sink molten: the fusion point was coming when she would fuse down into perfect unconsciousness at his feet and knees. But he bore her round the room in the dance, and he seemed to sustain all her body with his limbs, his body, and his warmth seemed to come closer into her, nearer, till it would fuse right through her, and she would be as liquid to him, as an intoxication only.
      It was exquisite. When it was over, she was dazed, and was scarcely breathing. She stood with him in the middle of the room as if she were alone in a remote place. He bent over her. She expected his lips on her bare shoulder, and waited. Yet they were not alone, they were not alone."

Indeed, not only were there other couples on the dance floor, but her soon-to-be husband, Ted, was in the next room playing crib and drinking coffee with the old ladies 'cos, as he informed Elsie, he wasn't made for the dance floor. And so, in a sense, he's a deserving cuckold; for, unlike the older man, "Whiston had not made himself real to her. He was only a heavy place in her consciousness."

That is to say, he embodies the spirit of gravity, whilst Adams allows her to float and fly and spin round the dance floor, and holds her in close physical contact, his limbs touching her limbs.

Adams is also first off the mark when Elsie (accidentally on purpose) takes out what she pretends to be her handkerchief and drops it on the floor, only to discover with mock-embarrassment it's actually something quite different:

"For a second it lay on the floor, a twist of white stocking. Then, in an instant, Adams picked it up, with a little, surprised laugh of triumph.
      'That’ll do for me,' he whispered - seeming to take possession of her. And he stuffed the stocking in his trousers pocket ..."

What Adams chooses to do with the stocking, we can only guess; perhaps he takes it home and tries it on - just as Paul Morel tries on the stockings belonging to Clara Dawes in a memorable scene in Sons and Lovers. Or perhaps he masturbates with his fetishistic trophy, before later returning it to Elsie in the post as a semen-stained Valentine's gift; sexually exciting her whilst further humiliating poor Teddy Whiston.


Notes

D. H. Lawrence, 'Making Love to Music', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 41-8.

D. H. Lawrence, 'The White Stocking', The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, ed. John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 143-64. 

The University of Adelaide have made The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (1914) freely available as an ebook: click here (or here if you want to go straight to 'The White Stocking'). 

For the first of the White Stocking case studies - on Elsie Whiston as a prick tease with pearl earrings - click here.

For the third of the White Stocking case studies - on Ted Whiston as an abusive husband with a cuckold fetish - click here. 

Case Studies from The White Stocking 1: Elsie Whiston (A Prick Tease with Pearl Earrings)

The desire of the man is for the woman. 

But the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.

I.

As mentioned before on this blog, D. H. Lawrence was an ardent stocking fetishist - even though he outrageously branded other men who found women's undergarments sexually exciting as savages. No surprise to discover, therefore, that one of his earliest (and kinkiest) short stories was entitled 'The White Stocking'.

First published in 1914, it's a queer tale about which I'd like to offer an extensive series of remarks, beginning with this post on the central female character, Elsie, a prick tease with pearl earrings. Following, in part two, I'll discuss the character of Sam Adams, a Lothario who likes to make love to music and sexually exploit his young female employees; whilst in part three, I'll talk about the husband, Ted Whiston, and explore his liking for sexual violence and fetishistically playing the role of a cuckold.       

II.

Ted and Elsie are a young married couple. She was a pretty little thing with tousled short black hair and "small, delightful limbs". He very much enjoyed watching her get dressed in the morning, throwing her clothes on with insouciance: "Her slovenliness and untidiness did not trouble him." And when she "picked up the edge of her petticoat, ripped off a torn string of white lace, and flung it on the dressing-table, her careless abandon made his spirit glow" and his cock stiffen. 

She was, he knew, a bit of a minx. But every man loves a tease, flashing cleavage beneath a loosely pinned (i.e. strategically unfastened) black silk dressing-jacket. Having said that, sometimes the sight of her exposed soft flesh disconcerted and even pained him a little. The ruddy-faced postman doesn't seem to mind, however, when Elsie opens the door to him with her tits half-hanging out. He smiles knowingly as he hands over the mail. But she didn't give a fuck about him and "closed the door in his face" as if he didn't exist.

It's Valentine's Day and Elsie is eager to discover what she's been sent from secret admirers. The hideous comic card is quickly dropped on the floor. And the white silk handkerchief, embroidered with her initial, doesn't much impress either: "She smiled pleasantly, and gently put the box aside." The third envelope, however, did contain something that piqued her interest; a long white stocking containing a small box in the toe, which, in turn, contained a pair of pearl earrings:     

"With a little flash of triumph, she lifted ... [the] earrings from the small box, and she went to the mirror. There, earnestly, she began to hook them through her ears, looking at herself sideways in the glass. Curiously concentrated and intent she seemed as she fingered the lobes of her ears, her head bent on one side.

      Then the pearl earrings dangled under her rosy, small ears. She shook her head sharply, to see the swing of the drops. They went chill against her neck, in little, sharp touches. Then she stood still to look at herself, bridling her head in the dignified fashion. Then she simpered at herself. Catching her own eye, she could not help winking at herself and laughing."

The earrings, obviously a gift from a man friend of some description, even come with a little verse:

Pearls may be fair, but thou art fairer.
Wear these for me, and I’ll love the wearer.

Little wonder, then, that her husband Ted is so often racked with jealousy. And no wonder she conceals the truth - and the earrings - from him; showing him the card and the hanky, but pretending that the stocking is simply a free sample sent in the post. Later, however, over breakfast, Elsie teases him with the truth and shows him the verse. Indeed, she even reveals the name of the person whom she knows to have sent these provocative items - her ex-boss, Sam Adams; a forty-year old bachelor well known to have an eye for the ladies.

Ted Whiston becomes sullen. And when his wife admits that she's been for a drink with Adams, he turns nasty (and racist): "'You’d go off with a nigger for a packet of chocolate,' he said, in anger and contempt, and some bitterness." She bit her lip, flushed, and allowed tears to come to her eyes. He was hurt and she was aggrieved, writes Lawrence. But both, I think, are playing a slightly edgy sexual game with one another and the genuineness of their emotions and reactions might be questioned.

After her husband leaves for work, Elsie immediately returned to her pearl earrings:

"Sweet they looked nestling in the little drawer - sweet! She examined them with voluptuous pleasure, she threaded them in her ears, she looked at herself, she posed and postured and smiled, and looked sad and tragic and winning and appealing, all in turn before the mirror. And she was happy, and very pretty."

One suspects that Elsie knew very well that a pearl is not just a beautiful, iridescent object in its own right; nor merely a metaphor for something that is rare and fine. It's also laden with sexual symbolism; seminal fluid, for example, is sometimes referred to as pearl jam due to its translucent whitish colour and the fact that it's prone to coagulate into small globules or pearl-like droplets. Thus it is that, when a man ejaculates on to the neck and breasts of a lover, he is said to have provided her with a pearl necklace.

Elsie wore her earrings all day about the house and flirted with the tradesmen who came to her door, never once thinking of her husband, but remembering with illicit pleasure the time one Christmas when she danced with her boss and allowed him to effectively ravish her in public (see part two of this post), much to Ted's apparent chagrin - but, perhaps also, I'm suggesting, his secret delight (see part three of this post).

Elsie loved her husband. But, unfortunately, she had grown used to him. And she thrilled to the idea that Sam Adams found her attractive: "So that, when, after some months, she met Sam Adams, she was not quite as unkind to him as she might have been." And, little prick tease that she was, she couldn't help playing upon his desire and exploiting his generosity, even though she didn't care one jot for him:

"When Valentine’s day came, which was near the first anniversary of her wedding day, there arrived a white stocking with a little amethyst brooch. Luckily Whiston did not see it, so she said nothing of it to him. She had not the faintest intention of having anything to do with Sam Adams, but once a little brooch was in her possession, it was hers, and she did not trouble her head for a moment how she had come by it.
      Now she had the pearl earrings. They were a more valuable and a more conspicuous present. She would have to ask her mother to give them to her, to explain their presence. She made a little plan in her head. And she was extraordinarily pleased. As for Sam Adams, even if he saw her wearing them, he would not give her away. What fun, if he saw her wearing his earrings! [...] She laughed to herself as she went down town in the afternoon, the pretty drops dangling in front of her curls."

If this doesn't make her the most honest or ethical character in Lawrence's fiction, Elsie remains nevertheless one of the most fascinating. But then, as I said earlier, every man adores a prick tease ...

Certainly I can't help admiring the 64% of heterosexual women who admitted within a recent academic study that they regularly exploited their charms and played games of seduction based upon sexual insincerity in order to make themselves feel not only desirable, but powerful. And - if lucky - receive precious gifts into the bargain.

Notes 

D. H. Lawrence, 'The White Stocking', in The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, ed. John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 143-64.

The University of Adelaide have made The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (1914) freely available as an ebook: click here (or here if you want to go straight to 'The White Stocking').

For the second of the White Stocking case studies - on Sam Adams as a Lothario who makes love to music - click here. 

For the third of the White Stocking case studies - on Ted Whiston as an abusive husband with a cuckold fetish - click here.