Sadism and masochism as medical terms
Encyclopedia
In psychiatry
, the terms sadism and masochism describe a personality type characterized by the actor or actrix deriving pleasure and gratification from inflicting physical pain and humiliation (sadism); and from suffering pain and humiliation upon the self (masochism); such pleasure often is sex
ual, but not exclusively so. Moreover, the term sadomasochism denotes the co-occurrence of sadism and masochism in one person, as discrete mental disorders. In psychiatric theory, the term “sadomasochism” often replaces both terms, per the school of thought. The medical
definitions (denotations and connotations) of “sadism” and “masochism” have been modified as required by medical progress, since the Austrian psychiatrist
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing
(1840–1902) introduced the terms to psychiatry in the 19th century. This article presents the development of “sadism” and “masochism” as medical terms, leading to their contemporary definitions as a paraphilia
(a friendship denoting love), in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM). As erotic practices, the sadomasochistic subculture, and related matters, are noted historically.
named them in psychiatry
. The Italian Renaissance
philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
(1463–1494) described a man who required flogging to achieve sexual arousal and thus be able to copulate. In 1639, the German physician Johann Heinrich Meibom introduced the first theory of masochism in A Treatise on the Use of Flogging in Medicine and Venery; per the 17th century understanding of human anatomy
, flogging a man’s back warmed the semen
in his kidney
s, which sexually aroused him when it flowed into his testicles. Fifty years later, in 1698, Kristian Frantz Paullini modified the sexual theory of flogging, by substituting blood
for semen as descending from the kidneys to the testicles in aiding sexual arousal. In 1788, François Amédée Doppet expanded the theory of masochistic sexual arousal to include women, by presuming that flogging exercised a like effect upon the woman’s genitalia and her consequent venery
. Thus was the theoretic, causal relation between flogging and human sexual arousal, until Krafft-Ebing’s analysis and theorizing upon this aspect of human mental health
.
As a sexual practice, literature recorded sadomasochism before the works of the Marquis de Sade
(1740–1814) provided its name. In Asia, the sexual practices manual Kama Sutra
(ca. 4th c. AD), describes consensual, erotic slapping. The British novel of sexual adventure Fanny Hill
(Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748), by John Cleland
, presents an episode occurred in a brothel, wherein the heroine whips a young man to sexually arouse him. In the autobiographic Confessions
(1782), the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
described his unhappiness for having masochistic fantasies.
In 1886, Richard von Krafft-Ebing published the first edition of Psychopathia Sexualis (Sexual Psychopathy), a collection of sexual case histories and sex-crimes; later editions introduced the terms sadism and masochism. He derived “sadism” from his knowledge of the life and literature of the Marquis de Sade
; before the posthumous publication of important portions of de Sade’s literature, such as The 120 Days of Sodom (1785). “Masochism” derives from the sexual practices described in the contemporary (19th c.) works, such as Venus in Furs
(1870), of the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
(1836–1895). Furthermore, as so defined, “sadism” and “masochism” stem from different sexual and erotic logics, as do the denotations in the literatures of de Sade and Sacher-Masoch; Gilles Deleuze
presented this distinction in his work about Sacher-Masoch.
Krafft-Ebing’s basic presumption was that recreational sexual intercourse was a perversion. The French physician Bénédict Morel
described sadistic and masochistic behaviors in a theory of degeneration
, wherein preference for such sexual behaviors (e.g. masturbation
) was presented as an inheritable
character trait, that would lead to the deterioration of the human gene pool
. Thereby, Krafft-Ebing perceived basic, natural tendencies to sadism in men, and to masochism in women, a perspective later expanded by psychoanalysis
. Nonetheless, Krafft-Ebing’s contemporaries were skeptical of his findings, and suggested modifications. The British physician Havelock Ellis
(1859–1939) noted that the enjoyment of pain was restricted to the erotic context In 1892, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing
introduced the Greek term algolagnia
(algos + lagnia, “pain” + “lust”) as an alternative to “masochism” in describing a person’s enjoyment of the pleasure of pain. In the event, Sigmund Freud
(1856–1939) adopted Krafft-Ebing’s theories to psychoanalysis
, thereby ensuring their integral predominance in classifying and defining human sexual personalities.
made masochism and sadism integral to psychoanalysis
, thus, in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
(1905), he described the tendency to inflict and receive pain during sexual intercourse as “the most common and important of all perversions”, and that both psychosexual tendencies usually occur in the same person. That masochism is a form of sadism against the Self, and that sadism and masochism are manifested variously as “primary masochism” and “secondary masochism”, and as the subordinate forms of “feminine masochism” and “moral masochism”. In the Freudian theory of psychosexual development
, guilt
is integral to sadistic and masochistic sexual tendencies, signalling either an incomplete or an incorrect sexual development of the child.
In the event, Freud’s successors, Carl Jung
, Wilhelm Reich
, and Theodor Reik
, modified and developed his ideas with new terms and supporting concepts. Elsworth Baker attributed the origin of masochistic character to parental inconsistency. Helene Deutsch
postulated that women are naturally of masochistic character, reinforcing the theories of Krafft-Ebing and Freud. The Freudian theory of sadomasochism and the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade were developed by intellectual
s, such as Simone de Beauvoir
and Gilles Deleuze
, whose writings influenced the popular, mainstream perception of sadism, masochism, and sadomasochism in the mid–20th century.
Beyond psychoanalysis
, the study of practicing sadomasochists changed societal perceptions of sadomasochism in the late 20th century. In Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
(1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
(1953), the sexologist
Alfred Kinsey
reported the sadomasochistic tendencies of men and women in the U.S. Moreover, in 1972, Robert Litman was the first sexual behavior researcher to describe the extant sadomasochistic subculture of the U.S. In 1977, using questionnaires to obtain the elementary data, the German psychiatrist Andreas Spengler
conducted the first, large-scale empirical study of sadomasochism. The results reported in Sadomasochisten und ihre Subkulturen (Sadomaschists and their Subcultures, 1979) contradicted most of the earlier work about sadomasochism, especially that of the psychoanalysts, from which Spengler concluded that the previous research was “heavily burdened with prejudice and ignorance”. When the statistician
and medical researcher Norman Breslow
expanded upon Spengler’s work, he discovered the existence of only five previous, empirical studies of sadomasochism in the scientific literature, which included Spengler’s study. Furthermore, Breslow was the first researcher to show that normal women (who are not prostitutes) were a great proportion of the sadomasochistic sexual subculture of a society. None of the extant studies presented causal links between sadomasochistic tendencies and violence, violent crime, or sociopathic
behavior that were presumed since the time of Krafft-Ebing, in the 19th century.
The understanding that many more people practice sadomasochism than was previously believed, and the existence of sadomasochistic sexual subcultures, prompted the investigations of non-medical researchers. The American sexologist and anthropologist Paul Gebhard
described the cultural contexts of sadism and masochism. The German Thomas Wetzstein conducted a large-scale sociologic study of the local sadomasochistic subculture that confirmed and expanded upon the results of the Spengler study, Sadomasochisten und ihre Subkulturen (1979). The investigations revealed that sadomasochistic women practice the sexually dominant sadistic role and the sexually submissive masochist role in equal measures. Much modern sexual research of sadomasochism describes the psychologic characteristics and dynamics of the tendencies rather than seeking to establish their psychic origins.
in the U.S., Vanessa Duriès
in France, and Kathrin Passig
in Germany. The reportage of the new studies allowed the elimination of sadism and masochism as categories of sexual and mental illness
. Moreover, the BDSM
subculture presented social and legal discrimination as further reasons to eliminate said mental illness categories, by noting the precedent of homosexuality
having been eliminated from the list of sexual and mental disorders.
In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association
responded by modifying the denotative criteria defining “sadism” and “masochism” in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM IV); thus, consensual sadomasochistic behavior no longer is considered a sexual disorder. Furthermore, in the textual revision of the DSM-IV TR (2000), sadomasochistic behavior is a sexual and mental disorder if the patient “has acted on these urges with a non-consenting person” and if “the urges, sexual fantasies, or behaviors cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty”. Elsewhere, in 1995, Denmark
became the first country to delete “sadomasochism” from its medical disorders system of classification.
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, the terms sadism and masochism describe a personality type characterized by the actor or actrix deriving pleasure and gratification from inflicting physical pain and humiliation (sadism); and from suffering pain and humiliation upon the self (masochism); such pleasure often is sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
ual, but not exclusively so. Moreover, the term sadomasochism denotes the co-occurrence of sadism and masochism in one person, as discrete mental disorders. In psychiatric theory, the term “sadomasochism” often replaces both terms, per the school of thought. The medical
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
definitions (denotations and connotations) of “sadism” and “masochism” have been modified as required by medical progress, since the Austrian psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing
-Bibliography :* Heinrich Ammerer: Am Anfang war die Perversion. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychiater und Pionier der modernen Sexualkunde. Styria premium 2011 in der Verlagsgruppe Styria GmbH & Co KG, Wien-Graz-Klagenfurt, ISBN 978-3-222-13321-3....
(1840–1902) introduced the terms to psychiatry in the 19th century. This article presents the development of “sadism” and “masochism” as medical terms, leading to their contemporary definitions as a paraphilia
Paraphilia
Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her...
(a friendship denoting love), in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders...
(DSM). As erotic practices, the sadomasochistic subculture, and related matters, are noted historically.
Early descriptions
Sadistic and masochistic sexual behaviors were known before Dr. Krafft-EbingRichard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing
-Bibliography :* Heinrich Ammerer: Am Anfang war die Perversion. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychiater und Pionier der modernen Sexualkunde. Styria premium 2011 in der Verlagsgruppe Styria GmbH & Co KG, Wien-Graz-Klagenfurt, ISBN 978-3-222-13321-3....
named them in psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
. The Italian Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of...
(1463–1494) described a man who required flogging to achieve sexual arousal and thus be able to copulate. In 1639, the German physician Johann Heinrich Meibom introduced the first theory of masochism in A Treatise on the Use of Flogging in Medicine and Venery; per the 17th century understanding of human anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
, flogging a man’s back warmed the semen
Semen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
in his kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
s, which sexually aroused him when it flowed into his testicles. Fifty years later, in 1698, Kristian Frantz Paullini modified the sexual theory of flogging, by substituting blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
for semen as descending from the kidneys to the testicles in aiding sexual arousal. In 1788, François Amédée Doppet expanded the theory of masochistic sexual arousal to include women, by presuming that flogging exercised a like effect upon the woman’s genitalia and her consequent venery
Libido
Libido refers to a person's sex drive or desire for sexual activity. The desire for sex is an aspect of a person's sexuality, but varies enormously from one person to another, and it also varies depending on circumstances at a particular time. A person who has extremely frequent or a suddenly...
. Thus was the theoretic, causal relation between flogging and human sexual arousal, until Krafft-Ebing’s analysis and theorizing upon this aspect of human mental health
Mental health
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
.
As a sexual practice, literature recorded sadomasochism before the works of the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
(1740–1814) provided its name. In Asia, the sexual practices manual Kama Sutra
Kama Sutra
The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Hindu text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit literature written by Vātsyāyana. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse. It is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses...
(ca. 4th c. AD), describes consensual, erotic slapping. The British novel of sexual adventure Fanny Hill
Fanny Hill
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is an erotic novel by John Cleland first published in England in 1748...
(Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748), by John Cleland
John Cleland
John Cleland was an English novelist most famous and infamous as the author of Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure....
, presents an episode occurred in a brothel, wherein the heroine whips a young man to sexually arouse him. In the autobiographic Confessions
Confessions (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Confessions is an autobiographical book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In modern times, it is often published with the title The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in order to distinguish it from St. Augustine of Hippo's Confessions...
(1782), the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
described his unhappiness for having masochistic fantasies.
Krafft-Ebing and the Psychopathia Sexualis
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
; before the posthumous publication of important portions of de Sade’s literature, such as The 120 Days of Sodom (1785). “Masochism” derives from the sexual practices described in the contemporary (19th c.) works, such as Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs is a novella by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the best known of his works. The novel was part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series...
(1870), of the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch was an Austrian writer and journalist, who gained renown for his romantic stories of Galician life. The term masochism is derived from his name....
(1836–1895). Furthermore, as so defined, “sadism” and “masochism” stem from different sexual and erotic logics, as do the denotations in the literatures of de Sade and Sacher-Masoch; Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
presented this distinction in his work about Sacher-Masoch.
Krafft-Ebing’s basic presumption was that recreational sexual intercourse was a perversion. The French physician Bénédict Morel
Bénédict Morel
Bénédict Augustin Morel , was a French physician born in Vienna, Austria. He was an influential figure in the field of psychiatry during the mid-19th century....
described sadistic and masochistic behaviors in a theory of degeneration
Degeneration
The idea of degeneration had significant influence on science, art and politics from the 1850s to the 1950s. The social theory developed consequently from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution...
, wherein preference for such sexual behaviors (e.g. masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
) was presented as an inheritable
Heredity
Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring . This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause some species to evolve...
character trait, that would lead to the deterioration of the human gene pool
Gene pool
In population genetics, a gene pool is the complete set of unique alleles in a species or population.- Description :A large gene pool indicates extensive genetic diversity, which is associated with robust populations that can survive bouts of intense selection...
. Thereby, Krafft-Ebing perceived basic, natural tendencies to sadism in men, and to masochism in women, a perspective later expanded by psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. Nonetheless, Krafft-Ebing’s contemporaries were skeptical of his findings, and suggested modifications. The British physician Havelock Ellis
Havelock Ellis
Henry Havelock Ellis, known as Havelock Ellis , was a British physician and psychologist, writer, and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was co-author of the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and...
(1859–1939) noted that the enjoyment of pain was restricted to the erotic context In 1892, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing
Albert von Schrenck-Notzing
Albert Freiherr von Schrenck-Notzing was a German physician, psychiatrist and notable psychic researcher, who devoted his time to the study of paranormal events connected with mediumship, hypnotism and telepathy...
introduced the Greek term algolagnia
Algolagnia
Algolagnia is a sexual tendency which is defined by deriving sexual pleasure and stimulation from physical pain, often involving an erogenous zone.Studies conducted indicate differences in how the brains of those with algolagnia interpret nerve input....
(algos + lagnia, “pain” + “lust”) as an alternative to “masochism” in describing a person’s enjoyment of the pleasure of pain. In the event, Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
(1856–1939) adopted Krafft-Ebing’s theories to psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, thereby ensuring their integral predominance in classifying and defining human sexual personalities.
Freud and psychoanalysis
Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
made masochism and sadism integral to psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, thus, in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality is a 1905 work by Sigmund Freud which advanced his theory of sexuality, in particular its relation to childhood...
(1905), he described the tendency to inflict and receive pain during sexual intercourse as “the most common and important of all perversions”, and that both psychosexual tendencies usually occur in the same person. That masochism is a form of sadism against the Self, and that sadism and masochism are manifested variously as “primary masochism” and “secondary masochism”, and as the subordinate forms of “feminine masochism” and “moral masochism”. In the Freudian theory of psychosexual development
Psychosexual development
In Freudian psychology, psychosexual development is a central element of the psychoanalytic sexual drive theory, that human beings, from birth, possess an instinctual libido that develops in five stages. Each stage — the oral, the anal, the phallic, the latent, and the genital — is characterized...
, guilt
Guilt
Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...
is integral to sadistic and masochistic sexual tendencies, signalling either an incomplete or an incorrect sexual development of the child.
In the event, Freud’s successors, Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
, and Theodor Reik
Theodor Reik
Theodor Reik was a prominent psychoanalyst who trained as one of Freud's first students in Vienna, Austria. Reik received a Ph.D. degree in psychology from the University of Vienna in 1912. His dissertation, a study of Flaubert's Temptation of Saint Anthony, was the first psychoanalytic...
, modified and developed his ideas with new terms and supporting concepts. Elsworth Baker attributed the origin of masochistic character to parental inconsistency. Helene Deutsch
Helene Deutsch
Helene Deutsch was an Austrian-American psychoanalyst and colleague of Sigmund Freud. She was the first psychoanalyst to specialize in women.- Life :...
postulated that women are naturally of masochistic character, reinforcing the theories of Krafft-Ebing and Freud. The Freudian theory of sadomasochism and the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade were developed by intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s, such as Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
and Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
, whose writings influenced the popular, mainstream perception of sadism, masochism, and sadomasochism in the mid–20th century.
Empirical research
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, the study of practicing sadomasochists changed societal perceptions of sadomasochism in the late 20th century. In Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
Kinsey Reports
The Kinsey Reports are two books on human sexual behavior, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female , by Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others and published by Saunders...
(1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
Kinsey Reports
The Kinsey Reports are two books on human sexual behavior, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female , by Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others and published by Saunders...
(1953), the sexologist
Sexology
Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behavior, and function. The term does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sex, such as political analysis or social criticism....
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey...
reported the sadomasochistic tendencies of men and women in the U.S. Moreover, in 1972, Robert Litman was the first sexual behavior researcher to describe the extant sadomasochistic subculture of the U.S. In 1977, using questionnaires to obtain the elementary data, the German psychiatrist Andreas Spengler
Andreas Spengler
Andreas Spengler is a German psychiatrist and researcher who conducted through 1974 and 1975 a well-known sociological study on sadomasochism in men at the Institute for Sexual Research in the University Hospital Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany.-Biography:For his PhD at the Institute for Sexual...
conducted the first, large-scale empirical study of sadomasochism. The results reported in Sadomasochisten und ihre Subkulturen (Sadomaschists and their Subcultures, 1979) contradicted most of the earlier work about sadomasochism, especially that of the psychoanalysts, from which Spengler concluded that the previous research was “heavily burdened with prejudice and ignorance”. When the statistician
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
and medical researcher Norman Breslow
Norman Breslow
Norman E. Breslow is an American statistician and medical researcher.He and co-author Nicholas Day developed and popularized the use of case-control matched sample research designs, in the two-volume work Statistical Methods in Cancer Research.-References:* 1980, Statistical Methods in Cancer...
expanded upon Spengler’s work, he discovered the existence of only five previous, empirical studies of sadomasochism in the scientific literature, which included Spengler’s study. Furthermore, Breslow was the first researcher to show that normal women (who are not prostitutes) were a great proportion of the sadomasochistic sexual subculture of a society. None of the extant studies presented causal links between sadomasochistic tendencies and violence, violent crime, or sociopathic
Antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder is described by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition , as an Axis II personality disorder characterized by "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood...
behavior that were presumed since the time of Krafft-Ebing, in the 19th century.
The understanding that many more people practice sadomasochism than was previously believed, and the existence of sadomasochistic sexual subcultures, prompted the investigations of non-medical researchers. The American sexologist and anthropologist Paul Gebhard
Paul Gebhard
Paul H. Gebhard, born , was an American anthropologist and sexologist. Born in Rocky Ford, Colorado, he earned a B.S. and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1940 and 1947, respectively. Gebhard followed Alfred Kinsey as the second director of the Kinsey Institute and served in that capacity from 1956 to...
described the cultural contexts of sadism and masochism. The German Thomas Wetzstein conducted a large-scale sociologic study of the local sadomasochistic subculture that confirmed and expanded upon the results of the Spengler study, Sadomasochisten und ihre Subkulturen (1979). The investigations revealed that sadomasochistic women practice the sexually dominant sadistic role and the sexually submissive masochist role in equal measures. Much modern sexual research of sadomasochism describes the psychologic characteristics and dynamics of the tendencies rather than seeking to establish their psychic origins.
Contemporary perspective
The results of the studies and increased societal toleration of sexual minorities led to sadomasochists organizing in groups such as the Eulenspiegel Society in 1971 in the U.S. This is especially true in countries where consensual, adult sadomasochism is legal, such as in Germany and Norway. Resultantly, sadomasochism entered the mainstream cultures of the West and of Japan, via the works of Maria Marcus in Denmark, Patrick CalifiaPatrick Califia
Patrick Califia , born 1954 near Corpus Christi, Texas is a writer of nonfiction essays about sexuality and of erotic fiction and poetry. Califia is a bisexual trans man.-Biography:...
in the U.S., Vanessa Duriès
Vanessa Duriès
Vanessa Duriès, also known as Katia Lamara was a French novelist.She was the author of the French BDSM novel Le lien based on her own experience as a slave...
in France, and Kathrin Passig
Kathrin Passig
-Life and Works:Passig was born in 1970 in a small town in Lower Bavaria. She is editor and programmer of the blog “Riesenmaschine” which received the Grimme Online Award 2006, awarded by the renowned Adolf-Grimme-Institut. The same year, her short story “Sie befinden sich hier” got her the...
in Germany. The reportage of the new studies allowed the elimination of sadism and masochism as categories of sexual and mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
. Moreover, the BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
subculture presented social and legal discrimination as further reasons to eliminate said mental illness categories, by noting the precedent of homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
having been eliminated from the list of sexual and mental disorders.
In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association
American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential worldwide. Its some 38,000 members are mainly American but some are international...
responded by modifying the denotative criteria defining “sadism” and “masochism” in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders...
(DSM IV); thus, consensual sadomasochistic behavior no longer is considered a sexual disorder. Furthermore, in the textual revision of the DSM-IV TR (2000), sadomasochistic behavior is a sexual and mental disorder if the patient “has acted on these urges with a non-consenting person” and if “the urges, sexual fantasies, or behaviors cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty”. Elsewhere, in 1995, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
became the first country to delete “sadomasochism” from its medical disorders system of classification.