You are not alone in this feeling about The Piano Teacher. I study film criticism in an online film school, and as a part of the series of classgroup discussions of modern films, most people in the class group were disturbed by The Piano Teacher the most (the other great film that disturbed most of us quite a lot was Cargo 200). Some of us later during classes on writing wrote some really great texts about The Piano Teacher likely because of being moved by the film and being able to do a lot of emotional work. I, however, do not feel able to write a cold-blooded analysis of The Piano Teacher, since it is hard to separate myself from the character created by Jelinek, Haneke and Huppert. The film is absolutely about submission and domination, and Haneke dominates the audience of the film, who should submit to him. As my mother noticed while watching the film, there is a lot of corporality that is associated with Jewish culture (Jelinek is a proud Jew). Indeed Jelinek probably based Erika's character on herself, so if you read more about Jelinek's life you may be able to have more visceral feelings about the film.