The History of Sex: Graz and Vienna -- 'The Century of Sacher-Masoch' -- (Chapter VIII, Part 12)

You may have blinked and missed it, but Graz was Europe's Capital of Culture in 2003, the same year its most famous son did his bit for world culture in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

Nowadays, though, Schwarzenegger is a former Governator non grata, after Graz's assembly denounced him for sending a convicted killer to his death in California.

(The city hasn't always been so conscientious, however, having produced more than its fair share of Nazis—including Arnie's own police chief father.)

The star of Kindergarten Cop promptly returned a 'ring of honor' to Graz and demanded that it remove his name from the local sports stadium.

MASOMANIA

As for its other infamous son of a local police chief, Graz has also had a tortuous relationship.

The story goes that Sacher-Masoch's widow tried to have his ashes interred in Graz, but the city fathers refused to let his cinders besmirch their soil.

In the sexed-up twenty-first century, however, the dead writer has become an underground celebrity, with at least one French philosophe bemoaning the fact that masochism 'has suffered from unfair neglect' versus sadism, and Ukrainian and Russian intellectuals bickering over which country is the true home of the perversion: Sacher-Masoch's hometown was actually the city of Lviv in Ukraine, which now boasts a Masochist Café and a life-size bronze statue of him, while some Russians argue that he got his taste for a good whipping from their native sect of khlysty, or flagellants.

According to this fascinating Russian blog post on monuments people rub and kiss, the statue "hides a few 'surprises': in chest was mounted magnifying glass through which erotic pictures can be seen, and by putting a hand into the left pocket you can touch its 'man-dignity' for good luck." 

To justify Graz's EU sop in 2003, a local art gallery hosted a full-blown Sacher-Masoch Festival, including a film festival, a conference featuring a domina friend of the Fanny I met in Paris, lectures with titles like 'The Headaches and Rewards of the Dominatrix in the Relationship with a Submissive/Masochist' and a program of 'Masomania' performances, as well as an installation piece featuring a weedy little Pole being bullied by an Austrian (alas, some things never change).

'The 20th century was the century of de Sade,' the festival declared. 'The 21st century will be the century of Sacher-Masoch.'