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Masochism: The Art of Power

Masochism: The Art of Power

How does the male masochist provide a metaphor for modern and postmodern power? Through a study of the representations of masochism in literature, psychopathology, philosophy, and cultural theory, Mansfield challenges our fundamental assumptions about masculine power in the postmodern era, arguing that masculine power has become masochistic. In the later twentieth [...]

Sadism as a psychosexual disorder

“The perfect counterpart to masochism is sadism,” wrote Austro-German sexologist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing in his 1886 text Psychopathia Sexualis. “While in the former there is a desire to suffer and be subjected to violence, in the latter the wish is to inflict pain and use of violence.” When Krafft-Ebing wrote of sexual perversions in [...]