The dreams of those women, like those of masochistic men, are often of the nightmarish type. They suffer in their night visions all sorts of torture. Analysis brings out the fact that every detail of those dreams is associated with energy, achievement, etc.
De Sade's wife belonged evidently to the masochistic type. She remained faithful to him to the end in spite of his perverse life, his prison record and the fact that he deceived her with her own sister. Her life of sorrow must have vouchsafed her, after all, a good many masochistic compensations of the neurotic variety.
Famous Women Sadists. As against the assumption that "all" women are masochists, we may mention many famous women sadists, several Byzantine and Roman Empresses, Frankish queens, two Russian empresses, the treatment meted out by women to Theroigne de Méricourt, tortured publicly by the Jacobine women in 1793, not to mention legendary characters like the Amazons and mythological goddesses who killed or tortured their lovers.
Sadism and masochism in love are pathological disturbances due to a neurotic attempt on the part of an inferior individual to dominate the sexual partner thru violence or weakness, and to assure himself against defeat in the sexual relationship.
The Freudian Suggestion that the sadist identifies himself with the powerful and apparently, brutal father, the masochist identifying himself with the weaker and submissive mother, applies to a too restricted number of cases to be of positive help in understanding the nature of those two perversions. Even when that explanation seems to fit the case, we must, nevertheless, fall back upon the Adlerian view of the neurotic temperament in order to understand why a child decides to identify himself with one parent instead of the other.
CHAPTER XXI
What Love Owes to Sadists and Masochists
Love that inflicts suffering and love which craves suffering are travesties on love, for normal love gives joy and craves joy.
Yet, it may be that a too perfect adaption, one vouchsafing constantly to the mates the security they seek in each other's arms would soon pall on them. They might not remain attached to each other any longer than the animals who, in the majority of species, part as soon as they have fulfilled their biological mission.