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)
"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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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