Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in WomenEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in Women
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
[79] De Stendhal (_De l'Amour_) mentions that when in London he was on
terms of friendship with an English actress who was the mistress of a
wealthy colonel, but privately had another lover. One day the colonel
arrived when the other man was present. "This gentleman has called about
the pony I want to sell," said the actress. "I have come for a very
different purpose," said the little man, and thus aroused a love which was
beginning to languish.
[80] See Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, chapter vi, "The Senses."
[81] This liability is emphasized by Adler, _Die Mangelhafte
Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 125.
[82] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. viii, 1876, pp. 22-28.
II.
The Definition of Sadism--De Sade--Masochism to some Extent
Normal--Sacher-Masoch--No Real Line of Demarcation between Sadism and
Masochism--Algolagnia includes both Groups of Manifestations--The
Love-bite as a Bridge from Normal Phenomena to Algolagnia--The Fascination
of Blood--The Most Extreme Perversions are Linked on to Normal Phenomena.
We thus see that there are here two separate groups of feelings: one, in
the masculine line, which delights in displaying force and often inflicts
pain or the simulacrum of pain; the other, in the feminine line, which
delights in submitting to that force, and even finds pleasure in a slight
amount of pain, or the idea of pain, when associated with the experiences
of love. We see, also, that these two groups of feelings are
complementary. Within the limits consistent with normal and healthy life,
what men are impelled to give women love to receive. So that we need not
unduly deprecate the "cruelty" of men within these limits, nor unduly
commiserate the women who are subjected to it.
Such a conclusion, however, as we have also seen, only holds good within
those normal limits which an attempt has here been made to determine. The
phenomena we have been considering are strictly normal phenomena, having
their basis in the conditions of tumescence and detumescence in animal and
primitive human courtship. At one point, however, when discussing the
phenomena of the love-bite, I referred to the facts which indicate how
this purely normal manifestation yet insensibly passes over into the
region of the morbid. It is an instance that enables us to realize how
even the most terrible and repugnant sexual perversions are still
demonstrably linked on to phenomena that are fundamentally normal. The
love-bite may be said to give us the key to that perverse impulse which
has been commonly called sadism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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