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- Masochism, Dermatology, Adolescent, Humans

The enigmatic appeal of submission in sexual masochism is a phenomenon that calls for an explanation: What makes receiving pain during sex so appealing? This appeal can be explained conceptually, phenomenologically, and biochemically as the motivation to reach the highly pleasurable psycho-physical altered state called 'subspace'. Although the term subspace is used in the context of sex, parallels can be drawn between subspace and another phenomenon: a psycho-physical altered state that can occur during natural and undisturbed birth. I hypothesize that the ability (or even the desire) to reach pain-related altered states in sexual masochism has roots in a crucial evolutionary advantage that comes into play during childbirth, consistent with recent findings that sexual masochists are generally psychologically healthy. Moreover, I contend that from an evolutionary perspective, sexual masochism may even confer adaptive advantages, consistent with evolutionary explanations for the tendency toward submission in conjunction with pain in the context of female reproductive responses such as mating and childbirth.

- by Orli Dahan
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- Evolutionary Psychology, Philosophy of Mind, Consciousness, Masochism
- by Charles Moser
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- Psychology, Masochism, Homosexuality, Humans

One of the paradoxes of Robespierre’s Republic of Virtue is that the author from whom he so largely borrowed did not really consider himself virtuous. Virtue may mean purity of heart and motive in one’s daily actions, but as Jean-Jacques Rousseau very well knew, it also implied a constant rational struggle against intrinsic passions and appetites. It is for this reason that in several parts of the Dialogues, Rousseau portrays himself paradoxically as a virtuous man who lacks virtue: “But is there some virtue in that sweetness? None. There is only the inclination of a loving and tender nature […] This very reasonable choice isn’t made by either reason or will. It is the work of the pure instinct. It lacks the merit of virtue, doubtless, but neither does it have its instability. One who has surrendered only to the impulses of nature for sixty years is certainly never going to resist them” (RJJ 150). It is not difficult to see why Rousseau would characterize himself as such. If, as Saint-Preux warns Julie, “virtue is a state of war” (J 560), belief in this struggle would mean recognizing our inherent disposition to sin and refuting, as a result, one of Jean-Jacques’s principal tenets: man’s natural inclination for the good. As Rousseau notes in the first pages of the Dialogues, “virtue among us often requires fighting and conquering nature” (RJJ 10–11).

- by Fayçal Falaky
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- Psychoanalysis, French Literature, Eighteenth-Century literature, Jacques Lacan
- by Rolando Pérez
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- World Literatures, Comparative Literature, Mythology, Jewish Studies

This article explores nonpractitioners’ understandings of and responses to the increasingly mainstream representation of BDSM in U.S. media, focusing on the film Secretary (Shainberg, 2002). I argue that popular images of SM promote the acceptance and understanding of sexual minorities through two mechanisms: acceptance via normalization, and understanding via pathologizing. Rather than challenging the privileged status of normative sexuality, these mechanisms reinforce boundaries between protected/privileged and policed/pathological sexualities. Instead of celebrating increased representation, this article argues that political energy might be directed toward the desire that the popularity of BDSM representations signifies: the desire to encounter authentic, undisciplined, and non- commodified representations that would transgress the sexual norms of American postmodern consumer culture.

- by Margot Weiss
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- Pathology, Psychology, Sexuality, Politics

This essay aims to trace subversive pleasures in Jan Švankmajer’s Alice (Něco z Alenky, 1988) and their revolutionary potential residing within densely saturated atmospheres of aesthetic expression. It will be explored, how poetic-analytical notions such as ‘adorned shadows’ and ‘subversive pleasures’ serve to describe expressive dramas and intensities and how their very material as well as abstract nature facilitates the possibility of social and political change. In order to elaborate this claim, the paper will draw extensively on Antonin Artaud’s ‘metaphysics of expression,’ Paul Ricœur’s notion of mimesis, Vivian Sobchack’s view on interobjectivity, and Gilles Deleuze’s conception of the event. The approach is experimental. Poetic and analytical language inspire each other to unfold and indulge within, in between, on / of the powerlessness to think and the fragility of sense – an erotics of interpretation toward the expressible and expressed in Švankmajer’s remarkable interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

- by Mareike Sera
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- Critical Theory, Literary Theory, Gilles Deleuze, Paul Ricoeur

The true prevalence of sexual sadism (and its variants) is unknown. However, all clinicians will knowingly or unknowingly encounter patients with this disorder. Regretfully, few programs offer adequate education in normal sexuality and even less provide training in the assessment and treatment of pathologic sexual interests. This review synthesizes current theories about possible etiologies of criminal sexual sadism and the resulting implications for diagnosis and treatment of this sexual disorder. Included is a review of theories of criminally sadistic sexual motivations, response patterns, and physiology, including possible neurophysiologic factors and more complex interactions. This review focuses primarily on published English-language scientific studies of sexual sadism. It should be noted that my use of the term sadism refers to nonconsensual sexual aggression.

- by Paul Fedoroff
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- Psychology, Violence, Treatment, Masochism

Čitanje kriminalističkog romana "Kneginja iz Petrinjske ulice" Marije Jurić Zagorke kao ishodišta za komparativnu analizu Freudovih studija o mazohizmu i melankoliji, a naspram konfiguracija mazohizma i melankolije u knjigama "Hladno i... more

- by Tatjana Jukić
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- Psychoanalysis, Comparative Literature, Feminist Theory, Gilles Deleuze

In this paper, I argue that the video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution provides an opportunity for the Asian American gamer to experience not only hir own body-as-stereotype, but hir own body-as-other. I argue that this is precisely how DX:HR presents generative potential for the Asian subject who plays it and engages its deeply problematic gameworld. I thus follow Viet Nguyen’s call to break from the moralizing binary of resis- tance and complicity in Asian Americanist critique, suggesting instead that by playing and performing within the techno-Orientalist gameworld of DX:HR the Asian/American subject may exercise a mode of what Elizabeth Freeman terms “erotohistoriography,” a deployment of violent erotics to contend with one’s own subject formation. Through a reading of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, this essay gestures to an Asian American cultural politics that locates itself in slippages, role reversals, and unintuitive affects. Consequently, this paper aims to bring technocultural studies, queer theory, and Asian American Studies into conversation around this politically “improper” object.

- by Takeo Rivera
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- Queer Theory, Asian American Studies, Video Games, Masochism

A reading of gendered violence, body horror, "hyperreality," and postmodern cinematic nostalgia in Quentin Tarantino's 'Death Proof' through Jean Baudrillard's 'Simulacra and Simulation' and 'America' as well as Gilles Deleuze's "Coldness... more

- by Aaron Anderson
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- Critical Theory, Semiotics, Cultural Studies, Psychoanalysis
- by Selime Buyukgoze
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- Gilles Deleuze, Masochism, Marina Abramovic
- by Marina Cano
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- Victorian Studies, Victorian Literature, Feminism, Masochism

This essay offers a reading of Mario Mieli's militant political project through the theoretical lens of performativity. Performativity, suspended between, and fully incorporating both the linguistic and the theatrical, courses through Mieli's cultural production. I begin with a discussion of the role of the travestito within the context of Mieli's involvement in the emergence of gay theater in Italy in the late 1970s and its necessarily political valences. I then move on to discuss a performativity that is particular to Mieli's cultural production: to dare, elaborating on the performative structure of Mieli's insistence that to dare is also to give of oneself. I conclude by reflecting on Mieli's figuring of the actor as masochist. For Mieli, masochism makes it possible to dissolve the individual self in favor of a liberated communal self, a subjective process that is enabled through daring acts.

- by Matthew Zundel
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- Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Italian Studies, Queer Theory
- by Volker Arolt
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- Psychometrics, Masochism, Adolescent, Gender Identity
- by Poppy Frean
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- Violence, Pleasure, Masochism, Film Noir

This paper examines the masochistic elements in The Story of O. It uses the works of Sacher-Masoch and others who have written on the theme of masochism to help make sense of what these masochistic performances give to O, the protagonist of The Story of O. One recurring argument which will be addressed is that masochism is an exaggeration of the existing traps that romantic and gender structures create. The paper hopes to show that this exaggeration which O enacts through her masochistic acts is utilized as a method of gaining freedom from the very traps it mimics.

- by Milena Milojicic
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- French Literature, Masochism, Masochistic theory, Erotic Literature

This book is the story of my self-deception about my “deviant” sexuality and my protracted and painful progress toward self-understanding and self-acceptance. Unavoidably, the book involves explicit descriptions of a wide range of activities often regarded as sexually deviant. It is not intended as pornographic; though some people may use it that way. It describes how I deceived myself about my sexuality as a consequence of trying to conform to the norms of my inherited culture. I hope that it will be found enlightening and entertaining. I also hope that it will be helpful to people who are struggling to adjust themselves to social expectations that make unreasonable demands upon them and that it will help them to avoid the psychological crises and decades of wasted life that I suffered.

- by Tony Summer
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- Transgender Studies, Queer Theory, Critical Thinking, Sexuality

Traiter de la liberté « en tant que fardeau et danger » : quel apparent paradoxe pour Erich FROMM, juif allemand ayant fui l’Allemagne nazie en 1934 et qui a trouvé refuge aux États-Unis pour ne plus jamais les quitter ensuite! En réalité, l’auteur a semblé se rendre compte que, si la liberté a pu être anéantie par le totalitarisme en Allemagne -dont il vient, elle peut aussi être pervertie par la démocratie comme aux États-Unis -où il s’est réfugié, comme de nombreux intellectuels de son temps. Il décida alors d’interrompre se travaux en cours pour mener une réflexion sur l’ambivalence de cette liberté qui est proclamée comme un idéal bien vite perverti aussitôt qu’atteint. Dans « la peur de la liberté » publié en 1941 et republié en 2010 cette fois intégralement dans une nouvelle traduction, son regard critique s’attarde donc sur ce constat en s’appuyant sur une conception originale de la psychologie sociale, donnant naissance à un ouvrage jugé comme un des classiques de la théorie critique de l’École de Francfort, et plus particulièrement du freudo-marxisme, bien que FROMM fut ultérieurement assez vite écarté de ces deux courants de pensée.

- by Michel Sage
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- History, Sociology, Social Psychology, Jewish Studies

Pierwszy polski przekład tekstu Julii Kristevej o narcyzmie.

- by Schulz/Forum online
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- Masochism, Julia Kristeva, Bruno Schulz, Psychoanalisis
- by Richard Wassersug
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- Psychometrics, Masochism, Adolescent, Gender Identity
- by Nicola Zambon
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- Philosophy, Violence, Literature, Theodor Adorno

The text consists of seven fragments which in different ways refer to a central category of separation; in particular to masochism, one of its manifestations. First, however, separation reveals itself in an imaginary act of self-castration (in a dream), described by Schulz in a letter. This act locates the writer beyond the sexes, symbolically excludes him from biological support of the stream of life and directs to art. Schulz considered that irreversible passage from biological reproduction to artistic creation a grave sin. The masochistic separation became a topic of many graphic works and drawings in which the artist, as an icon of himself, paid homage to “la belle dame sans merci.” His literary works are quite different – Schulz’s fiction is marked by shame. The present essay demonstrates how the literary discourse of the "Cinnamon Shops" generates meaningful gaps. Allusions and silence, all kinds of narrative suspension, were supplemented by Schulz with pictorial representations, according to a principle that what cannot be
written about, may be drawn. Many of his graphic works are overt manifestoes of masochism.
In the Booke of Idolatry these are emblematic representations, projections of the
artist’s own phantasms, based on the visual idiom of the times, while in the compulsive
drawings from the 1930s the boundary between fantasy and reality blurs. Schulz’s artistic
operations are ostentatious. He never used any disguise, reporting on himself. He was
a masochist, but what did it mean? Another fragment is an attempt to find out what it
meant to be a masochist in Schulz’s times, and how he defined himself in that context,
particularly in an explicit statement made in a letter to a certain psychiatrist: “Creatively,
I express this perversion in its loftiest, philosophically interpreted form as a foundation
determining the total Weltanschauung of an individual in all its ramifications.”
The final fragment presents for the most part some hitherto unknown documents
of Schulz’s life, such as a police certificate of decency, men’s second-hand reports
on his masochism, and memories of women with whom the writer held various
kinds of liaisons.

- by Christof Lossin
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- Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Borderline Personality Disorder, Masochism

... A Case Study in Perversion and Sadomasochism ... masculinity and incorporates into her simulacrum violence, cruelty, penetration, oppression, voyeurism, sadism, perversion, and ... rendition of the novel, to emphasize and illustrate... more

- by Christopher Christian
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- Psychology, Literature, Symbolism, Masochism
- by Esra Plumer Bardak
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- Surrealism, Masochism, Hans Bellmer, Women and Surrealism

The permissibility of actions depends upon facts about the flourishing and separateness of persons. Persons differ from other creatures in having the task of discovering for themselves, by conjecture and refutation, what sort of life will fulfil them. Compulsory slavery impermissibly prevents some persons from pursuing this task. However, many people may conjecture that they are natural slaves. Some of these conjectures may turn out to be correct. In consequence, voluntary slavery, in which one person welcomes the duty to fulfil all the commands of another, is permissible. Life-long voluntary slavery contracts are impermissible because of human fallibility; but fixed-term slavery contracts should be legally enforceable. Each person has the temporarily alienable moral right to direct her own life.

- by Danny Frederick
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- Kant, Self and Identity, Aristotle, Human Rights
- by Felipe Díaz Peña
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- Social Psychology, Literature, Lacan, Culture
- by Michael Uebel
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- Psychoanalysis, History Of Psychoanalysis, Shame Theory, Masochism
- by Romy Siegrist
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- Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Psychodrama, Psychoanalysis

"This essay reads Frantz Fanon and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari together based on their critiques of an Oedipal model of kinship. Though they have divergent reasons for rejecting this structure, merging these discourses brings into relief their overlapping interest in non-Oedipal relations. It also allows us to reconsider the theoretical implications of their work. On the one hand, it allows us to look more carefully at the affective implications of Fanon’s rejection of the Oedipus complex and understand his focus on solidarity in a new light. On the other hand, it renders Deleuze and Guattari’s abstractions more concrete and allows us to review the ethical stakes of their project by providing a historical foil for their theories. Ultimately, I argue, reading them together allows us to revisit queer concepts of kinship from different historical and theoretical
frames."

- by Amber Jamilla Musser
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- Psychoanalysis, Queer Theory, Gilles Deleuze, Masochism

Resumo: O artigo é uma introdução ao tema do sadomasoquismo no campo das Ciências Sociais. Isso se deve ao fato de que mesmo outras áreas, como a Psiquiatria ou a Psicanálise, terem muito explorado a questão, o mesmo não se deu, por exemplo, com a Antropologia ou a Ciência Política. Nossa metodologia envolverá análise qualitativa tanto das fontes originais do sadomasoquismo como posteriores comentadores do tema. Trabalharemos com tipos ideais dos conceitos e nossa conclusão envolve ver como não há uma leitura certa e final da obra do Marquês de Sade ou de Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, mas diferentes apropriações no campo cultural, logo veremos como os termos se desvelam polissêmicos. Palavras-chave: Sadismo; Masoquismo; Sadomasoquismo; Sade; Sacher-Masoch. Abstract: The article wants to be an introduction to the theme of sadomasochism in the field of Social Sciences. This is due to the fact that even other areas, such as Psychiatry or Psychoanalysis, have explored the issue a lot, the Anthropology or Political Science didn't did the same. Our methodology will involve qualitative analysis of the original sources of sadomasochism and later commentators of the theme. We will work with ideal types of concepts and our conclusion involves: there is no certain and final reading of the work of the Marquis de Sade or Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, but different appropriations in the cultural field. Introdução Sadismo, masoquismo e sadomasoquismo são elementos sociais/culturais 2 envolvendo a sexualidade. Assim sendo o presente artigo deseja investigar, e fazer uma 1 Doutorando, mestre, licenciado e bacharel em Ciências Sociais pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), membro dos grupos de pesquisa: Desigualdades socioeconômicas e políticas no Brasil Contemporâneo e As elites políticas brasileiras, grupos coordenados pelo doutor Eduardo de Vasconcelos Raposo. Contato: mariojpaiva@oi.com.br 2 Quando tratamos do tema cultura, estamos abarcando praticamente tudo. Antropólogos podem analisar desde os chocalhos xamãs até os aceleradores de partículas. Afinal ao tentarmos especificar o termo cultura, diferindo assim do termo sociedade-ver Roberto DaMatta (2010)-veremos sua ampla variação. Se pegarmos as atividades dos humanos, todas elas terão elementos culturais. Porque os nossos atos não são meramente biológicos, eles estão revestidos das particularidades (culturais) dos grupos. Na questão

- by Mário Paiva
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- Gilles Deleuze, Masochism, Deleuze, Michel Foucault

Considering the possibility that there might be something utopic about strip clubs, this paper traces the relays between power and powerlessness, feminism and antifeminism, utopia and dystopia within a broad psychoanalytic framework. It is interested in analyzing the social and psychological stakes for the male heterosexual consumer of strip culture. Strip clubs, this paper argues, are the special site of a masculine debasement amounting to a kind of moral masochism, to use the Freudian typology. The male masochism here is an index of contemporary power and how it is expressed, where what is important is not how much power one can demonstrate, but rather how much one can hold in check, and thus the logic of sadism and masochism, it is argued, is a key to the dynamic relations that inhere in the strip scene. An attempt is made to bring radical feminism in alignment with this analysis of sexualized power and pleasure.

- by Michael Uebel
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- Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Sex and Gender, Gender and Sexuality
- by Andrea Nicolini
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- Gilles Deleuze, Masochism, Desire, Philosophy of Time
- by Frank Castrillon
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- Psychoanalysis, Evolutionary Psychology, Thermodynamics, Epistemology
- by Michael Uebel
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- Web Technologies, Masochism, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Pornography

Through the philosopher Gilles Deleuze we can begin to think about reading and writing as processes of transformation. When one reads or writes, one plugs into impersonal flows and affects and becomes something else. Likewise, Deleuze theorizes masochism as an embodied practice that produces transformation on a multitude of levels. Beginning with Deleuze’s analysis of Leopold von Sacher- Masoch, from whom he developed a concept of masochism as a process of inversion and rebirth, this article reads Deleuze’s theories on reading, writing, and masochism together. This article argues that Deleuze saw these three processes as kindred methods of producing impersonality and freedom. As a way of complicating Deleuze’s notion of freedom as the production of impersonal flows, this article reads his meditations on his own chronic illness as a way to flesh out his own reading and writing on masochism and becoming. This article suggests that we reflect back on Deleuze as a reader and writer in order to critically engage with our own readerly and writerly relationships to reading, writing, masochism, and identity. Against a universal notion of impersonality, this article argues that fusing reading, writing, and masochism opens ways to think about the intimacies between text and body, and the importance of the specificity of flesh.

- by Amber Jamilla Musser
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- Embodiment, Gilles Deleuze, Masochism
- by Julia Barbara Koehne
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- Film Studies, Horror Film, Gilles Deleuze, Masochism

Recently, much has been written in the mass media about the novel and film Fifty Shades of Grey. It was widely portrayed as an example of BDSM (a common abbreviation for the terms bondage, discipline, dominance, submissivity, sadism and masochism) subculture and used as a symbol of sadomasochistic identity. But is this public view based on the self image of BDSM subcultural members or is it a figment of the imagination of writers and journalists? This article presents the voice of BDSM activists, who are silenced and excluded from the public debate. Using a virtual ethnographic method, we analyse the BDSM blogosphere as a platform for subcultural expressions of opinion. We combine this with a documentary analysis. In doing so, we examine how BDSM subculture members perceive themselves in contrast to the mainstream view of them pictured in the book Fifty Shades of Grey. This article investigates to what extent the subcultural conception of BDSM corresponds to the book's depiction and where it differs fundamentally.

- by Lucie Drdová
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- Sociology Of Deviance, Anthropology, Blogs, Ethnography

In this article, we intend to perform a critical study on how the figure of masochism was composed on Freudian theory. We start it by explaining its predecessors, that is, the literature of Sacher-Masoch and the fabrication of the masochism category in the field of legal medicine by Krafft-Ebing. Later, we investigate the concept of masochism in Freud’s works, showing that such concept was prominent in certain important theoretical reflections on the instinct and, subsequently, on the ego. Finally, we indicate that the way psychoanalysis understands masochism, far from being a pathology or sexual aberration, it’s a manner by which the subject can evade a state of helplessness.

- by Leonardo Câmara
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- Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, Masochism, Psychoanalysis And Literature