V.

Pain, and Not Cruelty, the Essential Element in Sadism and Masochism--Pain

Felt as Pleasure--Does the Sadist Identify Himself with the Feelings of

his Victim?--The Sadist often a Masochist in Disguise--The Spectacle of

Pain or Struggle as a Sexual Stimulant.

In the foregoing rapid survey of the great group of manifestations in

which the sexual emotions come into intimate relationship with pain, it

has become fairly clear that the ordinary division between "sadism" and

"masochism," convenient as these terms may be, has a very slight

correspondence with facts. Sadism and masochism may be regarded as

complementary emotional states; they cannot be regarded as opposed

states.[128] Even De Sade himself, we have seen, can scarcely be regarded

as a pure sadist. A passage in one of his works expressing regret that

sadistic feeling is rare among women, as well as his definite recognition

of the fact that the suffering of pain may call forth voluptuous emotions,

shows that he was not insensitive to the charm of masochistic experience,

and it is evident that a merely blood-thirsty vampire, sane or insane,

could never have retained, as De Sade retained, the undying devotion of

two women so superior in heart and intelligence as his wife and

sister-in-law. Had De Sade possessed any wanton love of cruelty, it would

have appeared during the days of the Revolution, when it was safer for a

man to simulate blood-thirstiness, even if he did not feel it, than to

show humanity. But De Sade distinguished himself at that time not merely

by his general philanthropic activities, but by saving from the scaffold,

at great risk to himself, those who had injured him. It is clear that,

apart from the organically morbid twist by which he obtained sexual

satisfaction in his partner's pain,--a craving which was, for the most

part, only gratified in imaginary visions developed to an inhuman extent

under the influence of solitude,--De Sade was simply, to those who knew

him, "_un aimable mauvais sujet_" gifted with exceptional intellectual

powers. Unless we realize this we run the risk of confounding De Sade and

his like with men of whom Judge Jeffreys was the sinister type.

It is necessary to emphasize this point because there can be no doubt that

De Sade is really a typical instance of the group of perversions he

represents, and when we understand that it is pain only, and not cruelty,

that is the essential in this group of manifestations we begin to come

nearer to their explanation. The masochist desires to experience pain, but

he generally desires that it should be inflicted in love; the sadist

desires to inflict pain, but in some cases, if not in most, he desires

that it should be felt as love. How far De Sade consciously desired that

the pain he sought to inflict should be felt as pleasure it may not now be

possible to discover, except by indirect inference, but the confessions of

sadists show that such a desire is quite commonly essential.

I am indebted to a lady for the following communication on the

foregoing aspect of this question: "I believe that, when a person

takes pleasure in inflicting pain, he or she imagines himself or

herself in the victim's place. This would account for the

transmutability of the two sets of feelings. This might be

particularly so in the case of men. A man may not care to lower

his dignity and vanity by putting himself in subjection to a

woman, and he might fear she would feel contempt for him. By

subduing her and subjecting her to passive restraint he would

preserve, even enhance, his own power and dignity, while at the

same time obtaining a reflected pleasure from what he imagined

she was feeling.

"I think that when I get pleasure out of the idea of subduing

another it is this reflected pleasure I get. And if this is so

one could thus feel more kindly to persons guilty of cruelty,

which has hitherto always seemed the one unpardonable sin. Even

criminals, if it is true that they are themselves often very

insensitive, may, in the excitement of the moment, imagine that

they are only inflicting trifling pain, as it would be to them,

and that their victim's feelings are really pleasurable. The men

I have known most given to inflicting pain are all particularly

tender-hearted when their passions are not in question. I cannot

understand how (as in a case mentioned by Krafft-Ebing) a man

could find any pleasure in binding a girl's hands except by

imagining what he supposed were her feelings, though he would

probably be unconscious that he put himself in her place.

"As a child I exercised a good deal of authority and influence

over my youngest sister. It used to give me considerable pleasure

to be somewhat arbitrary and severe with her, but, though I never

admitted it to myself or to her, I knew instinctively that she

took pleasure in my treatment. I used to give her childish

lessons, over which I was very strict. I invented catechisms and

chapters of the Bible in which elder sisters were exhorted to

keep their juniors under discipline, and younger sisters were

commanded to give implicit submission and obedience. Some parts

of the _Imitation_ lent themselves to this sort of parody, which

never struck me as in any way irreverent. I used to give her

arbitrary orders to 'exercise her in obedience,' as I told her,

and I used to punish her if she disobeyed me. In all this I was,

_though only half consciously_, guided through my own feelings as

to what I should have liked in her place. For instance, I would

make her put down her playthings and come and repeat a lesson;

but, though she was in appearance having her will subdued to

mine, I always chose a moment when I foresaw she would soon be

tired of play. There was sufficient resistance to make restraint

pleasurable, not enough to render it irksome. In my punishments I

acted on a similar principle. I used to tie her hands behind her

(like the man in Krafft-Ebing's case), but only for a few

moments; I once shut her in a sort of cupboard-room, also for a

very short time. On two or three occasions I completely undressed

her, made her lie down on the bed, tied her hands and feet to the

bedstead, and gave her a slight whipping. I did not wish to hurt

her, only to inflict just enough pain to produce the desire to

move or resist. _My pleasure, a very keen one, came from the

imagined excitement produced by the thwarting of this desire_.

(Are not your own words--that 'emotion' is 'motion in a more or

less arrested form'--an epigrammatic summary of all this, though

in a somewhat different connection?) I did not undress her from

any connection of nakedness with sexual feeling, but simply to

enhance her feeling of helplessness and defenselessness under my

hands. If I were a man and the woman I loved were refractory I

should undress her before finding fault with her. A woman's dress

symbolizes to her the protection civilization affords to the weak

and gives her a fictitious strength. Naked, she is face to face

with primitive conditions, her weakness opposed to the man's

power. Besides, the sense of shame at being naked under the eyes

of a man who regarded her with displeasure would extend itself to

her offense and give him a distinct, though perhaps unfair,

advantage. I used the bristle side of a brush to chastise her

with, as suggesting the greatest amount of severity with the

least possible pain. In fact, my idea was to produce the maximum

of emotion with the minimum of actual discomfort.

"You must not, however, suppose that at the time I reasoned about

it at all in this way. I was very fond of her, and honestly

believed I was doing it for her good. Had I realized then, as I

do now, that my sole aim and object was physical pleasure, I

believe my pleasure would have ceased; in any case I should not

have felt justified in so treating her. Do I at all persuade you

that my pleasure was a reflection of hers? That it was, I think,

is clear from the fact that I only obtained it when she was

willing to submit. Any _real_ resistance or signs that I was

overpassing the boundary of pleasure in her and urging on pain

without excitement caused me to desist and my own pleasure to

cease.

"I disclaim all altruism in my dealings with my sister. What

occurs appears to me to be this: A situation appeals to one in

imagination and one at once desires to transfer it to the realms

of fact, being one's self one of the principal actors. If it is

the passive side which appeals to one, one would prefer to be

passive; but if that is not obtainable then one takes the active

part as next best. In either case, however, it is _the

realization of the imagined situation_ that gives the pleasure,

not the other person's pleasure as such, although his or her

supposed pleasure creates the situation. If I were a man it would

afford me great delight to hold a woman over a precipice, even if

she disliked it. The idea appeals to me so strongly that I could

not help _imagining_ her pleasure, though I might _know_ she got

none, and even though she made every demonstration of fear and

dislike of it. The situation so often imagined would have become

a fact. It seems to me I have to say a thing is and is not in the

same breath, but the confusion is only in the words.

"Let me give you another example: I have a tame pigeon which has

a great affection for me. It sits on my shoulder and squats down

with its wings out as birds do when courting, pecking me to make

me take notice of it, and flickering its wings. I like to hold it

so that it can't move its wings, because I imagine this increases

its excitement. If it struggles, or seems to dislike my holding

it, I let it go.

"In an early engagement (afterward broken off) my _fiancé_ used

to take an evident pleasure in telling me how he would punish me

if I disobeyed him when we were married. Though we had but little

in common mentally, I was frequently struck with the similarity

between his ideas and what my own had been in regard to my

sister. He used his authority over me most capriciously. On one

occasion he would not let me have any supper at a dance. On

another he objected to my drinking black coffee. No day passed

without a command or prohibition on some trifling point. Whenever

he saw, though, that I really disliked the interference or made

any decided resistance, which happened very seldom, he let me

have my own way at once. I cannot but think, when I recall the

various circumstances, that he got a certain pleasure, as I had

done with my sister, by an almost unconscious transference of my

feelings to himself.

"I find, too, that, when I want a man to say or do to me what

would cause me pleasure and he does not gratify me, I feel an

intense longing to change places, to be the man and make him, as

the woman, feel what I want to feel. Combined with this is a

sense of irritation at not being gratified and a desire to punish

him for my deprivation, for his stupidity in not saying or doing

the right thing. I don't feel any anger at a man not caring for

me, but only for not divining my feelings when he does care.

"Now let me take another case: that of the man who used to

experience pleasure when surprising a woman making water. (Cf.

_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Nov. 15, 1900.) Here the

woman's embarrassment appears to be a factor; but it seems to me

there must be more than this, as confusion might be produced in

so many other ways, as if she were found bathing, or undressed,

though it might not be so acute. In reality, I fancy she would be

checked in what she was doing, and that the man, perhaps

unconsciously, imagined this check and a resulting excitement.

That such a check does sometimes produce excitement I know from

experience in traveling. If the bladder is not emptied before

connection the pleasure is often more intense. Long before I

understood these things at all I was struck by this quotation:

'Cette volupté que ressentent les bords de la mer, d'être

toujours pleins sans jamais déborder?' What would be the effect

on a man of a sudden check at the supreme moment of sexual

pleasure? In reality, I suppose, pain, as the nerves would be at

their full tension and unable to respond to any further stimulus;

but, in imagination, one's nerves are _not_ at their highest

tension, and one imagines an increase or, at any rate, a

prolongation of the pleasurable sensations. Something of all

this, some vague _reflection_ of the woman's possible sensations,

seems to enter in the man's feelings in surprising the woman. In

any case his pleasure in her confusion seems to me a reflection

of her feelings, for the sense of shame and embarrassment before

a man is very exciting, and doubly so if one realizes that the

man enjoys it. Ouida speaks of the 'delicious shame' experienced

by 'Folle Farine.'

"It seems to me that whenever we are affected by another's

emotion we do practically, though unconsciously, put ourselves in

his place; but we are not always able to gauge accurately its

intensity or to allow for differences between ourselves and

another, and, in the case of pain, it is doubly difficult, as we

can never recall the pain itself, but only the mental effects

upon us of the pain. We cannot even recall the feeling of heat

when we are cold, or _vice versâ_, with any degree of vividness.

"A woman tells me of a man who frequently asks her if she would

not like him to whip her. He is greatly disappointed when she

says she gets no pleasure from it, as it would give him so much

to do it. He cannot believe she experiences none, because he

would enjoy being whipped so keenly if he were a girl. In another

case the man thinks the woman _must_ enjoy suffering, _because_

he would get intense pleasure from inflicting it! Why is this,

unless he would like it if a woman, and confuses in his mind the

two personalities? All the men I know who are sadistically

inclined admit that if they were women they would like to be

harshly treated.

"Of course, I quite see there may be many complications; a man's

natural anger at resistance may come in, and also simple, not

sexual, pleasure in acts of crushing, etc. I always feel inclined

to crush anything very soft or a person with very pretty thick

hair, to rub together two shining surfaces, two bits of satin,

etc., apart from any feelings of excitement. My explanation only

refers to that part of sadism which is sexual enjoyment of

another's pain."

That the foregoing view holds good as regards the traces of

sadism found within the normal limits of sexual emotion has

already been stated. We may also believe that it is true in many

genuinely perverse cases. In this connection reference may be

made to an interesting case, reported by Moll, of a married lady

23 years of age, with pronounced sadistic feelings. She belongs

to a normal family and is herself apparently quite healthy, a

tall and strongly built person, of feminine aspect, fond of music

and dancing, of more than average intelligence. Her perverse

inclinations commenced obscurely about the age of 14, when she

began to be dominated by the thought of the pleasure it would be

to strike and torture a man, but were not clearly defined until

the age of 18, while at an early age she was fond of teasing and

contradicting men, though she never experienced the same impulse

toward women. She has never, except in a very slight degree,

actually carried her ideas into practice, either with her husband

or anyone else, being restrained, she says, by a feeling of

shame. Coitus, though frequently practised, gives her no

pleasure, seems, indeed, somewhat disgusting to her, and has

never produced orgasm. Her own ideas, also, though very

pleasurable to her, have not produced definite sexual excitement,

except on two or three occasions, when they had been combined

with the influence of alcohol. She frankly regrets that modern

social relationship makes it impossible for her to find sexual

satisfaction in the only way in which such satisfaction would be

possible to her.

Her chief delight would be to torture the man she was attached to

in every possible way; to inflict physical pain and mental pain

would give her equal pleasure. "I would bite him till the blood

came, as I have often done to my husband. At that moment all

sympathy for him would disappear." She frequently identifies her

imaginary lover with a real man to whom she feels that she could

be much more attracted than she is to her husband. She imagines

to herself that she makes appointments with this lover, and that

she reaches the rendezvous in her carriage, but only after her

lover has been waiting for her a very long time in the cold. Then

he must feel all her power, he must be her slave with no will of

his own, and she would torture him with various implements as

seemed good to her. She would use a rod, a riding-whip, bind him

and chain him, and so on. But it is to be noted that she declares

"_this could, in general, only give me enjoyment if the man

concerned endured such torture with a certain pleasure_. He must,

indeed, writhe with pain, but at the same time be in a state of

sexual ecstasy, followed by satisfaction." His pleasure must not,

however, be so great that it overwhelms his pain; if it did, her

own pleasure would vanish, and she has found witty her husband

that when in kissing him her bites have given him much pleasure

she has at once refrained.

It is further noteworthy that only the pain she herself had

inflicted would give her pleasure. If the lover suffered pain

from an accident or a wound she is convinced that she would be

full of sympathy for him. Outside her special sexual perversion

she is sympathetic and very generous. (Moll, _Konträre

Sexualempfindung_, 1899, pp. 507-510.)

This case is interesting as an uncomplicated example of almost

purely ideal sadism. It is interesting to note the feelings of

the sadist subject toward her imaginary lover's feelings. It is

probably significant that, while his pleasure is regarded as

essential, his pain is regarded as even more essential, and the

resulting apparent confusion may well be of the very essence of

the whole phenomenon. The pleasure of the imaginary lover must be

secured or the manifestation passes out of the sexual sphere; but

his pleasure must, at all costs, be conciliated with his pain,

for in the sadist's eyes the victim's pain has become a vicarious

form of sexual emotion. That, at the same time, the sadist

desires to give pleasure rather than pain finds confirmation in

the fact that he often insists on pleasure being feigned even

though it is not felt. Some years ago a rich Jewish merchant

became notorious for torturing girls with whom he had

intercourse; his performances acquired for him the title of

"_l'homme qui pique_," and led to his prosecution. It was his

custom to spend some hours in sticking pins into various parts of

the girl's body, but it was essential that she should wear a

smiling face throughout the proceedings. (Hamon, _La France

Sociale et Politique_, 1891, p. 445 et seq.)

We have thus to recognize that sadism by no means involves any love of

inflicting pain outside the sphere of sexual emotion, and is even

compatible with a high degree of general tender-heartedness. We have also

to recognize that even within the sexual sphere the sadist by no means

wishes to exclude the victim's pleasure, and may even regard that pleasure

as essential to his own satisfaction. We have, further, to recognize that,

in view of the close connection between sadism and masochism, it is highly

probable that in some cases the sadist is really a disguised masochist and

enjoys his victim's pain because he identifies himself with that pain.

But there is a further group of cases, and a very important group, on

account of the light it throws on the essential nature of these phenomena,

and that is the group in which the thought or the spectacle of pain acts

as a sexual stimulant, without the subject identifying himself clearly

either with the inflicter or the sufferer of the pain. Such cases are

sometimes classed as sadistic; but this is incorrect, for they might just

as truly be called masochistic. The term algolagnia might properly be

applied to them (and Eulenburg now classes them as "ideal algolagnia"),

for they reveal an undifferentiated connection between sexual excitement

and pain not developed into either active or passive participation. Such

feelings may arise sporadically in persons in whom no sadistic or

masochistic perversion can be said to exist, though they usually appear in

individuals of neurotic temperament. Casanova describes an instance of

this association which came immediately under his own eyes at the torture

and execution of Damiens in 1757.[129] W.G. Stearns knew a man (having

masturbated and had intercourse to excess) who desired to see his wife

delivered of a child, and finally became impotent without this idea. He

witnessed many deliveries and especially obtained voluptuous gratification

at the delivery of a primipara when the suffering was greatest.[130] A

very trifling episode may, however, suffice. In one case known to me a

man, neither sadistic nor masochistic in his tendencies, when sitting

looking out of his window saw a spider come out of its hole to capture and

infold a fly which had just been caught in its web; as he watched the

process he became conscious of a powerful erection, an occurrence which

had never taken place under such circumstances before.[131] Under favoring

conditions some incident of this kind at an early age may exert a decisive

influence on the sexual life. Tambroni, of Ferrara, records the case of a

boy of 11 who first felt voluptuous emotions on seeing in an illustrated

journal the picture of a man trampling on his daughter; ever afterward he

was obliged to evoke this image in masturbation or coitus.[132] An

instructive case has been recorded by Féré. In this case a lady of

neurotic heredity on one side, and herself liable to hysteria, experienced

her first sexual crisis at the age of 13, not long after menstruation had

become established, and when she had just recovered from an attack of

chorea. Her old nurse, who had remained in the service of the family, had

a ne'er-do-well son who had disappeared for some years and had just now

suddenly returned and thrown himself, crying and sobbing, at the knees of

his mother, who thrust him away. The young girl accidentally witnessed

this scene. The cries and the sobs provoked in her a sexual excitement she

had never experienced before. She rushed away in surprise to the next

room, where, however, she could still hear the sobs, and soon she was

overcome by a sexual orgasm. She was much troubled at this occurrence, and

at the attraction which she now experienced for a man she had never seen

before and whom she had always looked upon as a worthless vagabond.

Shortly afterward she had an erotic dream concerning a man who sobbed at

her knees. Later she again saw the nurse's son, but was agreeably

surprised to find that, though a good-looking youth, he no longer caused

her any emotion, and he disappeared from her mind, though the erotic

dreams concerning an unknown sobbing man still occurred rather frequently.

During the next ten years she suffered from various disorders of more or

less hysterical character, and, although not disinclined to the idea of

marriage, she refused all offers, for no man attracted her. At the age of

23, when staying in the Pyrenees, she made an excursion into Spain, and

was present at a bull-fight. She was greatly excited by the charges of the

bull, especially when the charge was suddenly arrested.[133] She felt no

interest in any of the men who took part in the performance or were

present; no man was occupying her imagination. But she experienced sexual

sensations and accompanying general exhilaration, which were highly

agreeable. After one bull had charged successively several times the

orgasm took place. She considered the whole performance barbarous, but

could not resist the desire to be present at subsequent bull-fights, a

desire several times gratified, always with the same results, which were

often afterward repeated in dreams. From that time she began to take an

interest in horse-races, which she now found produced the same effect,

though not to the same degree, especially when there was a fall. She

subsequently married, but never experienced sexual satisfaction except

under these abnormal circumstances or in dreams.[134]

As the foregoing case indicates, horses, and especially running or

struggling horses, sometimes have the same effect in stimulating the

sexual emotions, especially on persons predisposed by neurotic heredity,

as we have found that the spectacle of pain possesses. A medical

correspondent in New Zealand tells me of a patient of his own, a young

carpenter of 26, not in good health, who had never masturbated or had

connection with a woman. He lived in a room overlooking a livery-stable

yard where was kept, among other animals, a large black horse. Nearly

every night he had a dream in which he seemed to be pursuing this large

black horse, and when he caught it, which he invariably did, there was a

copious emission. A holiday in the country and tonic treatment dispelled

the dreams and reduced the nocturnal emissions to normal frequency. Féré

has recorded a case of a boy, of neuropathic heredity, who, when 14 years

of age, was one day about to practise mutual masturbation with another boy

of his own age. They were seated on a hillside overlooking a steep road,

and at this moment a heavy wagon came up the road drawn by four horses,

which struggled painfully up, encouraged by the cries and the whip of the

driver. This sight increased the boy's sexual excitement, which reached

its climax when one of the horses suddenly fell. He had never before

experienced such intense excitement, and always afterward a similar

spectacle of struggling horses produced a similar effect.[135]

In this connection reference may be made to the frequency with which

dreams of struggling horses occur in connection with disturbance or

disease of the heart. In such cases it is clear that the struggling horses

seem to dream-consciousness to embody and explain the panting struggles to

which the heart is subjected. They become, as it were, a visual symbol of

the cardiac oppression. In much the same way, it would appear, under the

influence of sexual excitement, in which cardiac disturbance is one of the

chief constituent elements, the struggling horses became a sexual symbol,

and, having attained that position, they are henceforth alone adequate to

produce sexual excitement.