[587] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Sexual Links: Intermixture of Masculine and Feminine Sexual Characters (Sexual Intermediate Stages),” Leipzig, 1905.
CHAPTER XXI
ALGOLAGNIA (SADISM AND MASOCHISM)
“We must continually keep before our minds the fact that in no other department of life so much as in the sexual life do we find side by side, and closely associated each with the other, the noblest and the basest, the superhuman and the subhuman, because the finest and the deepest roots of our spiritual and bodily existence spring, for the most part, from this subsoil; and we must remember that man would not be able to sink so deep, far beneath the level of animality, if he had not first raised himself by his own powers, in conflict with Nature and with himself, through an immeasurable height of civilization.”—Albert Eulenburg.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXI
Algolagnia, or painful voluptuousness — Biological roots of algolagnia — Its rôle in the civilized life of mankind — Connexion between pain and voluptuousness — Pain in the vita sexualis — Sadism and masochism — Physiological algonagnistic phenomena — The sexual enjoyment of spiritual pain — Philosophical views on this subject — Weltschmerz and pessimism as sources of pleasure — The joy of grief — Cruelty as intermediator in the production of algolagnia — Theories of cruelty — The enjoyment of power — Nietzsche’s justification of cruelty as a factor in civilization — Sadistic and masochistic phenomena of civilization — Examples from the present day — Increase of sexual desire by means of emotional concussion — Evolutionary theory of algolagnia — Cruelty of woman — Debauchees and prostitutes — “Tropical frenzy” as an especial form of sadism — Various explanations of tropical frenzy — Influence of sexual differences between man and woman — Genesis of the “hen-pecked” state and of “mistress-rule” — Coquetry and flirtation — Frequent association with sadism and masochism — Flagellation as the principal form of algolagnia — Imitation of physiological algolagnia — Exciting influence of massage and friction — Various factors of the sexual influence of passive flagellation — Active flagellation — Chance occurrences leading to the development of flagellomania — Sexual influence of whipping upon children — Examples — “Schoolmaster’s flagellantism” (Dippoldism) — Examples — Flagellation and prostitution — Flagellation brothels — Inclination of woman to flagellation — A Parisian “school” — “Corset discipline” — Sadistic bodily injuries and lust-murder — Characteristics of lust-murder — “Girl stabbers” — Other forms of sadistic bodily injury — Sexual vampirism — Offences against property committed from sadistic motives — Vitriol throwing — Sadistic arson — Sexual kleptomania — Symbolic forms of sadism — Verbal sadism — Erotic dictionaries — Verbal exhibitionism — Example — Other varieties of symbolical algolagnia — Satanism — Wide diffusion of passive algolagnia, of masochism — Passive algolagnia — Examples — Masochistic instrumentarium — A masochistic “torture-chamber” — Masochistic prostitution — Letter of a masochist — A “slave” — Characterization of male masochists — A very typical case of masochism — Masochism in women — Letter of a female masochist.
Appendix: A contribution to the psychology of the Russian revolution (History of the development of an algolagnistic revolutionist).