Contents
Throughout history, masochistic people have always existed in society. It took, however, until the 19th century and the writings of Sacher-Masoch to discover its full importance in human sexuality. Masochism is defined as sexual behavior in which sexual arousal and satisfaction are obtained through one's own physical or mental pain, humiliation, domination and submission..
Masochism is a topic that was rarely talked about until the end of the 19th century. Our contemporaries of that time, where romanticism and puritanism reigned, did not find it easy to accept the existence of people who cannot feel pleasure except through suffering. Little was known about these practices, until the arrival of Sacher-Masoch. Currently and thanks to the cinema and the audiovisual media, the figure of the masochist has gained prominence and has even emerged as best sellers on the shelves of bookstores and on movie theaters..
Baron Léopold Von Sacher-Masoch, born in 1836, certainly did not have a very romantic view of love. It was, however, thanks to his books that we have been able to categorize and understand this new form of eroticism called masochism. In fact, this practice, widespread throughout the world, has always been part of the customs and behavior of the great majority (although to varying degrees), but before Masoch it was not truly known what it consisted of or what its characteristics were. . The male Sacher-Masoch revealed, in several of his works, the characteristics of this tendency. Indeed, his books reflected without hiding anything, the masochistic ghosts of the heroes described in them.
Léopold Von Sacher-Masoch
The publication in 1980 of his novels "The Venus of the skins" and "The divorced woman" where he narrates his love affairs with Fanny von Pistor and Anna von Kottoviz, was a notable scandal for the society of his time. In 1986 the term "masochism" was coined for the first time as a result of the Latinization of his surname Masoch, in the work "Sexual Psychopathy" published by Kraft-Ebing. The term masochism appears linked to a series of perverse erotic activities and behaviors. Although Masoch categorically denied these perverse behaviors, his name was definitively linked to masochism.
The titles of his books are already surprisingly explicit: "The Venus of the skins", "The scourged knights" ... For him, love is a constant struggle between the two sexes. It finds its balance only through degrading compromises. Masoch wrote in “The Venus of the Skins”: “I feel a singular attraction for suffering, tyranny and cruelty. Above all, what most stimulates my passion is the infidelity of a beautiful woman ".
His erotic hobbies are already known, where he liked to play the victim, be chased and hunted by a beautiful woman, covered in furs and with a whip in her hand, who tied him up, spanked him and inflicted punishment, humiliation and physical pain.
Masoch was actually inspired by his own tendencies to write his books. His first wife (he had three), published a book in which she described all the manifestations of her husband's wickedness. He claimed that Sacher-Masoch was a helpful slave, a dog who worshiped fur and required his women to wear them as often as possible, especially when they were cruel. He made quite special marriage contracts with his women: he promised to be their slave and to obey their every whim for six months. His wives could beat him beyond measure. He died in 1895 of a heart attack. Those around him say that his last words were "Aimez moi".
Sache Masoch was not, however, the only one who has written masochistic stories. The Marquis de Sade, who gave sadism his name, published his work "Justine" in which he offers an innocent young woman as a masochistic victim to the nameless sadists who populated his books. This cruel rake had suffered 30 years of successive imprisonment and prosecutions for wantonness and cruelty. We also have the "Story of O", in which the heroine submits completely to the will of her lover.
Closer to us, we find this masochistic tendency in Cinderella, one of the heroines of our children's stories. Cinderella is, indeed, the "take it all" type of victim. He suffers the blows of his stepsisters and his stepmother without a complaint, always with a resigned smile. Although she is not truly a masochist in the sexual field, she has, in any case, the moral attitude of the masochist..
Indeed, two categories of masochists can be distinguished. In the first category, sexual orientation, the masochist can feel pleasure only in a state of inferiority, humiliation and suffering. He tries to identify himself as a slave or servant of the loved one and demean himself for her.
The second category, in which the Cinderella case is included, is that of moral masochists. They feel a need for punishment and unconsciously seek frustration and injustice. They refuse to enjoy life and are always victims of something. It is the most common case of masochism: it is very present in Western society. There are various theories, facing each other, about the origin of masochism. Freud claimed that it is the manifestation of the death instinct. For him, the masochist is a sadist who turns against himself. More recently, certain researchers have put forward the hypothesis, according to which, it would be the sadism of the loved one that transforms the subject into a masochist. Indeed, the traditional attitude of parents to "punish for affection" would lead the child, in his future life, to seek in the loved one the person who can punish him. If the parents only offered love or paid attention to him when they punished him, the child will always have the tendency to unite both phenomena. "I punish you for your sake, because I love you." Who has not ever heard this during their childhood?
If we were to search history, we would find a surprisingly large number of masochists in England at the end of the last century. At that time, corporal punishment was totally normal in men's private schools. The teachers generously handed out whips on the back or rulers on the fingertips of their students or made them fast by confining them to their room. A great cartoonist of the time, Thomas Rowlandson, illustrated the bourgeoisie of the time in a series of unusual sexual activities strongly tinged with masochism. Obviously, he was referring to the former students of the private schools. The great teacher of this type of sexual refinement is, without a doubt, France. By the end of the 19th century, it had achieved a fame unmatched throughout Europe. Its artists were famous for their erotic paintings. It was, then, almost an obligation for young English people to go to Paris to complete their sexual education. They came back to England with all kinds of copies of the latest fashionable erotic illustrations. They had evidently all read the works of the Marquis de Sade.
The pursuit of pleasure is universal. All of us find pleasure, at some point in our lives, in playing masochism. Without getting whipped, it is easy, and it can even be enjoyable, to play victim. Many people find intense pleasure thinking that they are suffering and that, not for that reason, they stop being a good lover: they value their ego. In reality, masochists are very narcissistic. They like to play victim in order to win the love or attention of their partner and have, at the same time, an attitude that means: “Look how I suffer for you. Isn't this proof of how good I am and how much I love you? "
The true masochist does not have a very strong personality. He is willing to deny his own personality in order to make himself unpleasant and thus be punished. They have a great dependence on the loved object or the person who will make them enjoy through suffering. The masochist, like every human being, is always in search of fulfillment. Even when in this search he takes a wrong path, and sometimes reprehensible, he does not stop being a sensitive being, often marked by negative experiences. Try, like all of us, to find the absolute, through the sometimes tortuous paths of love.
Yet No Comments