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 …