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Background: Watching pimple-popping videos has become very popular, particularly on social media. However, the psychological mechanisms behind this novel and puzzling phenomenon remain largely unexplored. Two studies were conducted on this topic. A first study explored the validity of the Pimple Popping Enjoyment Scale (PPES) in terms of predicting viewing behavior during exposure to pimple-popping videos. A second study investigated the association between the PPES and other personality scales. Method: In Study 1, 104 participants (mean age = 26 years, 64% female) completed the PPES and watched pimple-popping videos with the option to skip forward and backward during viewing. In Study 2, 501 participants (mean age = 25 years, 79% female) answered the PPES and additional personality scales (e.g., benign masochism (BM), morbid curiosity (MC)). Results: Higher scores on the PPES were linked to fewer instances of skipping forward while watching pimple-popping videos, indicating reduced visual avoidance. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that MC and BM were positively associated with PPES scores. Conclusions: The present findings help to understand a social media trend: why people watch and enjoy pimple-popping videos. This behavior is likely motivated by an interest in danger and potential death (MC) and the enjoyment derived from discomfort in non-threatening, controlled situations (BM). Highlights: A recent internet trend is watching 'pimple popping' (PP) videos. Investigation of personality traits that are associated with Pimple Popping Enjoyment (PPE). Benign masochism and morbid curiosity were predictors of PPE. PPE was associated with viewing behavior of PP videos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is foremost dedicated to Nietzsche's account of cruelty, which represents one of the central focuses of Nietzsche's genealogical polemic, if not its very foundation. This close reading is complemented by drawing parallels with two other outstanding intellectual figures of the nineteenth century, in whom cruelty plays no less a role. These two authors – one could say that together with Nietzsche they form a kind of cruel trio from the European East – are the writers Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the latter of whom is also the inventor of a particular genre of erotic discourse characterised by 'tyranny, cruelty and, above all, the infidelity of a beautiful woman,' which inspired Krafft-Ebing to name a type of perversion after Masoch. The paper shows that the affinity between the authors lies not only in the fact that cruelty is one of the key themes in all three of them, but that the connection between them – and thus perhaps the beginning of an era characterised, as Alain Badiou said, by an intellectual fascination with cruelty – needs to be sought in the idea of the internalisation of cruelty, which Nietzsche in particular considered to be one of the fundamental driving forces of civilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nietzsche claims that suffering is needed for achievement. Morality, he thinks, aims to end suffering, and so would end achievement. I argue that at best some achievements are partly caused by suffering. Nietzsche could get a more secure connection between suffering and achievement by arguing that some achievements are constituted in part by suffering. But in both the causal and constitutive cases, moralists do not condemn inflicting on oneself the suffering involved in achievement. Nietzsche could instead argue, more simply, that morality is mistaken to think suffering is bad. He could deploy a 'conditionality' view of organic wholes, on which the value of suffering changes when part of an achievement, to argue that in some cases, suffering is good. I argue that here the conditionality view is less plausible than Moore's view of organic wholes, on which suffering would remain bad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to obtain information about the sexual behaviors, sexual functioning of "bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, sadism, masochism" (BDSM) practitioners. Methods: The study group (n=141) consisted of 65 women and 76 men who defined themselves as BDSM practitioners included in the study with the snowball technique through websites that are accessible on online BDSM groups. A control group (n=167) who stated that they were not BDSM practitioners was also recruited through websites. Sociodemographic and Sexual Behavior Evaluation Form and Arizona Sexual Experience Scale (ASEX) were used online to gather data. Results: No significant difference was found between BDSM practitioners and controls with regard to ASEX scores. Yet, in women, the mean ASEX score was lower in BDSM practitioners than in the control group whereas in men, the mean ASEX score was higher in the BDSM practitioners. Conclusion: Gender might be an important factor in terms of sexual functioning in cisgender BDSM practitioners. Awareness on problems of this sexual minority should be increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A previous study found a variety of unusual sexual interests to cluster in a five-factor structure, namely submission/masochism, forbidden sexual activities, dominance/sadism, mysophilia, and fetishism (Schippers et al., 2021). The current study was an empirical replication to examine whether these findings generalized to a representative population sample. An online, anonymous sample (N = 256) representative of the Dutch adult male population rated 32 unusual sexual interests on a scale from 1 (very unappealing) to 7 (very appealing). An exploratory factor analysis assessed whether similar factors would emerge as in the original study. A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis served to confirm the factor structure. Four slightly different factors of sexual interest were found: extreme, illegal and mysophilic sexual activities; light BDSM without real pain or suffering; heavy BDSM that may include pain or suffering; and illegal but lower-sentenced and fetishistic sexual activities. The model fit was acceptable. The representative replication sample was more sexually conservative and showed less sexual engagement than the original convenience sample. On a fundamental level, sexual interest in light BDSM activities and extreme, forbidden, and mysophilic activities seem to be relatively separate constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing inspiration from Gilles Deleuze's conceptualization of masochism as an obsession with a perfect form, this essay argues that masochism offers literary critics opportunities to reconsider questions of beauty and form in literature. I use John Keats's "Lamia," Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and James Joyce's "The Dead" as case studies to examine how literary works incorporate masochism as a means of reflecting on their own creative processes—and how they would impact their readers. Masochism in literature first helps authors to conceive beautiful forms. The imperfections of these forms, in turn, allows the artists to re-create or revise those original forms to come up with better versions. In this process, texts about masochism open up complex affective dimensions of pleasure, pain, beauty, destruction, and slowness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze the death drive in McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin while investigating the functions of self-defense, self-destruction, and self-abasement in the film. The proposed questions include: What is the function of death drive in the subjectivity of an individual destructing himself? What are the possible socio-cultural implications of death drive as suggested in the movie? To answer these questions, the study makes frequent use of key terms associated with self-defense mechanism, death drive in particular, as well as masochistic and sadistic elements to prove different features of self-destruction in various forms. The present research shows that death drive projects itself as masochistic self-defense reaction, which is more often than not characterized with resentment and antagonism.

This study aims to analyze the death drive in McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin while investigating the functions of self-defense, self-destruction, and self-abasement in the film. The proposed questions include: What is the function of death drive in the subjectivity of an individual destructing himself? What are the possible socio-cultural implications of death drive as suggested in the movie? To answer these questions, the study makes frequent use of key terms associated with self-defense mechanism, death drive in particular, as well as masochistic and sadistic elements to prove different features of self-destruction in various forms. The present research shows that death drive projects itself as masochistic self-defense reaction, which is more often than not characterized with resentment and antagonism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aesthetics of masochism can be found in the 20th century across different media: pictorial and literary models influenced the history of comics, photographic art, and ultimately film. In his book ›Aus Leiden Freuden‹ (1940), Theodor Reik mentions three essential elements: 1. imagination, 2. suspense and 3. the demonstrative character of the masochistic scenario. This gives rise to the idea of masochistic performance: masochistic aesthetics need a stage on which they can unfold their imagination and the staging of suspense. Masochistic performance plays with the desire for fear in the face of the threatening and sublime. Masochistic aesthetics therefore do not require the clear drasticness of pornography, but rather play with suspense, the tension of expectation in the face of the strange and dangerous - and with the pleasure of this fear. The article illustrates this approach by analyzing the film ›Titane‹ (2021) by Julia Ducournau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Masochism serves as a key element of Kathy Acker's poetics, spanning from her early works to her final novels. In ›Great Expectations‹ (1982), Acker's transtextual poetics intricately weaves masochism into her literary fabric. Her methodological ›plagiarism‹ serves as the core of her poetic program, engaging with masochistic themes through a neo-avant-garde lens. This paper examines how Acker's textual interventions critically dissect canonical notions of masochistic theory, particularly in relation to gender dynamics and socio-political dimensions. By deconstructing and recontextualizing literary intertexts, Acker exposes the ideological underpinnings of masochistic typologies and challenges its aestheticization and idealization, ultimately reshaping our understanding of poetic masochism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay delves into the masochistic poetry found in the poetry collection ›Confirmo te chrysmate‹ by Maria Eichhorn, who, writing under the pseudonym Dolorosa, showed significant public activity within the Berlin Bohemian circles between 1900 and 1910. Alongside her artistic endeavors she contributed to the psychoanalytic discourse on masochism. Her poems unveil the myth of a bourgeois model of desire, predicated on the notion that femininely coded desire finds its fulfillment in physical and psychological submission. Eichhorn's poetry reveals that masochistic tendencies are not inherently feminine but rather the result of a ritualized initiation of young girls into bourgeois desire practices, wherein acts of suffering sacralize sexualized violence. Christian iconography ennobles this violence by stylizing suffering as an ›imitatio‹ of the Mater Dolorosa. The radical consequence, as Eichhorn's poetry demonstrates, is that these practices of suffering culminate directly in a death wish for the girl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of the article in the Journal of Aesthetics and General Art Studies (ZÄK) is on the topic of "practices of suffering". The ambivalence of high heels as an "embodied practice" that includes both pleasure and pain is discussed. Designer Christian Louboutin and director David Lynch have designed a collection that showcases the shoe as a fantasy object. The article also sheds light on the historical development of masochism and its connection to literature. The importance of contracts in a masochistic context is emphasized. [Extracted from the article]

This study explores benign masochism, the ostensibly non-adaptive enjoyment of inherently aversive experiences (e.g., rollercoasters). After confirming the proposed eight-factor structure of the Benign Masochism Scale (BMS), gender differences in BMS scores and their association with measures of acculturation were examined to assess if benign masochism reflects degree of immersion in the dominant culture. Data were then used to test the hypothesis that benign masochism serves an emotion regulatory function comparable to behaviors like substance use or non-suicidal self-injury. Participants (n = 585, 51.1% female) completed the BMS and measures of sensation-seeking, impulsivity, emotion regulation deficits, and acculturation. Finding suggest significant gender differences in benign masochism and links with degree of acculturation in participants from diverse backgrounds. Associations between BMS scores, impulsivity, sensation-seeking, and emotion regulation deficits were replicated here, though variables accounted for little variance in BMS scores. In spite of similarities to established clinical phenomena such as substance use and non-suicidal self-injury, the mechanisms underlying the common yet relatively understudied phenomenon of benign masochism appear to differ and require further exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the use of some psychoactive substances continues to be a global health risk, it is important to understand why people use them. We compared the predictive power of psychopathy and masochism with regard to lifetime recreational drug use and tested the underlying motives in a sample of 415 US-based adults. Psychopathy predicted use of illicit drugs, cannabis, and nicotine, while masochism predicted cannabis, alcohol, and caffeine use. Both traits were related to most motives, but the motives differentially predicted substance use. Expansion motivation was the sole motive for illicit drug use, whereas cannabis was predicted mainly by expansion and enhancement. Alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine were used to escape daily worries, and alcohol was further used for social reasons. Benign masochism is a newly identified predictor of popular drug use. Future research could investigate masochism and expansion motivation as predictors of potentially harmful substance use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study bridges the gap between three industries, namely the dating industry, the event industry, and the hospitality industry. Because of the width and depth of speed dating events, this type of event is perfectly suitable to further discuss and formulate propositions in hospitality and event management studies. From a conceptual point view, this study is supporting the fact that a new type of event should be added to the existing ones developed by Getz and Page (2020). As a result, this study has coined 'Special Interest and Meso-adultainment events', as a new type of event. This type of event would include entertainment and recreational activities such as speed dating events, masochism bondage events, etc. From a practical point of view, this study has revealed the fact that speed dating events are not only meeting existing needs, but have some potential to grow. In terms of future research, this study is suggesting a focus on the hospitality industry and on hospitality management studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shocks in the form of two world wars and many ecological catastrophes turned out to be not the most catastrophic for the consciousness of modern man. The catastrophic is seen as disharmony, disconnection with the world, in which cities and the urbanised environment appear as symbols of modern catastrophic loneliness and estrangement. The first decades of the XXI century have supplemented the catastrophic series with all sorts of thanatological perversions, whimsically combining the fullness of the feeling of life with the phenomena of sadism, masochism, sexual revolutions, terrorism and moral degradation. The density of personal, social and national misfortunes is hopelessly catastrophic, turning the catastrophe not into a turning event that brings "negative consequences", but into a current everyday life filled with the expectation of the negative and destructive, which generates fear, stress and longing on the one hand, and hatred, aggression and desire for revenge on the other. It is substantiated that individual conflicts, due to their mass nature, create a huge and difficult to classify conglomerate of socio-psychological tension, against the background of which many people form psychological and clinical variants of socio-stress syndrome. The reasons for this can be explained by the everyday culture of social space, which forms standardized ideals for a person, and this leads to the loss of individual ideals and values. It is shown that as a result of the disaster a peculiar tragic, moral atmosphere is created, which is a complex system of interrelated principles, norms, values and stereotypes of behavior that differ from the moral standards of everyday life. It is noted that the decrease in the level of moral normativity is the result of ambivalence of morality, associated both with changes in the functional and mental state of a person in stressful conditions, and with the need to follow the values and norms developed in the disaster situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to illustrate the motif of sadism in La Sirène des bas-fonds. To achieve this, we presented the warning signs of sadistic behavior. The analysis of the reason of sadism in our corpus seems to legitimize male domination over women and from this observation, we managed to question the real intentions of the author, who is a woman, to see if she legitimized the male domination over women or else it is a form of denunciation. After the analysis, it is undeniable that the author vigorously denounces this sadistic inclination which is linked to the man. The female character, blinded by sincere feelings of love, lends herself to the game of the sadist and ends up accepting to suffer for the man she loves, hence her acquisition of the masochistic symptom. The absence of parents, especially the father, is a factor that reinforces male domination.

Based on a close reading of Claudia Rankine's play The White Card (2018), in this article I argue that Rankine offers a political view of the theatre as capable of producing a dialectical image of white masochism in service of a critique of the neoliberal present. Drawing from Walter Benjamin's theory of dialectical images, I further contend that Rankine's dialectical image intervenes in helpful ways in the famous debate between Saidiya Hartman and Fred Moten regarding how to represent the scene of racial/sexual subjection. In that debate, Hartman decides not to focus on the "intolerable image" that spectacularizes Black suffering to defamiliarize the terror of slavery, concentrating instead on the terror of the mundane. Moten questions that move and turns back to that image to unpack a different kind of agency, which he identifies as the resistance of the object. Rankine's theatre succeeds, I claim, in rendering both mundane and schocking violence visible without replicating it, while also foregrounding the otherwise compromised and often erased agency of the enslaved. In doing this, I conclude, Rankine's theatre offers us a fugitive rather than emancipated spectator. Here I question the limits of Jacques Rancière's theory of the emancipated spectator to address the politics of the theatre, when one understands policing not as an abstract logic of power but as a historically changing technology of racial/sexual subjection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reads Robert Musil's debut novel Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (The Confusions of Young Törless) (1906) as a novel of the institution (Campe) in which diverse forms of violence are intertwined. Contrary to the assumption that Musil's novel aims at the depiction of sado-masochistic transgressions, my argument focuses on a reading scene that mediates the novel's various potentials of violence: only when Törleß reads Kant does it become clear which violence and which pain are meant by Musil's text. The experience of reading becomes a masochistic act in the course of which the pleasure of the text is recast in terms of a negative textual jouissance. Musil's novel, in turn, becomes readable not as an exhibition of schoolboys in disgrace, but as an exploration of the violent structure of practical reason itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines how Stanisław Lem mobilizes the genre of science fiction to portray regional Central European concerns as structural conditions of semiperiphery. The essay centers on Lem's interest in illegibility, which defines him as a novelist and a critic, showing how his argument against the US monopoly within the genre of science fiction is reflected in his novels. Focusing on Lem's paralleling of female masochism and epistemological critique, the essay reads Solaris as a novel invested in inspecting the interrelatedness of systems of oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for the consideration of food challenge media as a mode in which the audience's sadistic desire for the levelling of celebrities 'through personal humiliation' is captured and repurposed through the performative masochism of the celebrities themselves. Celebrity food challenge media, a term which I use to refer to programming such as a The Late Late Show with James Corden segment called 'Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts' and the YouTube show Hot Ones, exists as a space in which celebrities (who tend to typify ostentatious wealth) allow for controlled humiliation in order to diffuse legitimate anger and critique from the audience in an era of soaring inequality. This article posits that in exchange for light humiliation, such as the consumption of an ostensibly disgusting food or the pain of an incredibly spicy hot sauce, the celebrity retains the power, privilege, and income afforded to them by their celebrity status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I set out to describe the different viewpoints, conceptualisations and defence mechanisms of the state of passivity; the categorisation by Freud; how the perspective of his thinking was altered by later insights and clinical observations; the close connection between the superego, passivity and masochism; the significance of the internal object world for Melanie Klein; countertransference as a means of access to masochism and destructiveness, with the aid of a short case illustration; and, finally, Betty Joseph's clinical experiences in work with her patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on queer psychoanalysis to explore links between homoerotic masculinity and heterosexual women under patriarchal manhood. I argue specifically that the genderqueer effects of male masochism—as conceptualized by Carol J. Clover—helps us to understand Sherwood Anderson's exploration of a male protagonist who identifies with women's pain so profoundly that he himself transforms into a woman who then experiences what it means to be subjected to male violence and sexual predation from that position. Anderson feels ambivalent about the extent to which this form of genderqueer masculinity is sustainable. It is a position that must be purged for the protagonist to survive, but it is also an experience that stays with him. The analysis then broadens to address the larger implications of the close reading, specifically what it means for a cisgender, heterosexual male author to depict men who see themselves in/as women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dans cet article, nous avons souhaité montrer les conséquences des violences sexuelles infantiles sur le développement psychique et leurs implications dans la répétition victimaire à l'âge adulte. La situation clinique présentée dans cet article est issue d'une recherche portant sur l'impact des relations précoces dans le vécu de relations conjugales violentes à l'âge adulte. Cette étude de cas, paradigmatique du reste de notre population d'étude, est analysée dans une perspective psychanalytique. Cette situation clinique montre les enjeux conscients et inconscients des maltraitances sexuelles infantiles dans le développement psychique des victimes. En effet, l'effraction psychique causée par les maltraitances sexuelles infantiles précoces ont mis en péril la construction du moi. Pour se protéger et se prémunir d'une désorganisation psychique et/ou somatique, la participante s'est alors coupée d'une partie de sa vie affective, entravant l'élaboration psychique et favorisant la répétition victimaire. Face aux traumatismes sexuels précoces, même si le sujet maintient les éléments traumatiques à distance, ceux-ci agissent toujours en trame de fond de l'appareil psychique. Le travail de la honte et de la culpabilité, constitutifs du masochisme moral, plongent ainsi le sujet dans une contrainte de répétition. En effet, s'ils ne trouvent pas d'issue en s'exprimant dans un cadre propice à la symbolisation, les éléments du traumatisme initial se réactualisent à travers la répétition de relations conjugales violentes. Pour prendre en charge les femmes victimes de maltraitances sexuelles infantiles et prévenir la contrainte de répétition, il apparaît nécessaire de tenir compte des modalités de fonctionnement psychique des victimes et des processus de transformation qui ont pu s'opérer face aux traumatismes subis. In this article, we show the consequences of childhood sexual abuse on psychic development and its implication in victimary repetition in adulthood. The case study presented in this article is from a doctoral research project in psychology about the impact of early relationships on the experience of intimate partner violence in adulthood. This case appears emblematic of the rest of our population. The elements mentioned are anonymized and analyzed from a psychoanalytic perspective. The results show the conscious and unconscious consequences of childhood sexual abuse on the victims' psychological development. Indeed, the psychic intrusion following early sexual abuse hinders the construction of the self and prevents the psychic instances from functioning properly. This intrusion also leads to repetition in violent intimate relationships. Oscillating between primary and secondary processes, the person can cut her/himself off from a part of her/his emotional life to avoid psychic and/or somatic disorganization. After experiencing early sexual trauma, even if the psychic apparatus is temporarily able to keep the traumatic elements far from the conscious mind, these elements still act in the unconscious. The work of shame and guilt, which are constitutive elements of moral masochism, lock the subject into a deadly repetition compulsion that can promote the experience of repetitive intimate partner violence (physical, psychological, sexual) in adulthood. To prevent, detect, and care for women victims of childhood sexual abuse, it is necessary to consider their modalities of psychic functioning, the formation of their Self, and their ability to psychically transform the trauma they suffered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novels of Jean Rhys (1890-1979), published in the 1900s, championed a new corpus of feminist writing, with emphasis laid on the trials and tribulations of twentieth-century women. The psychological trauma experienced by women because of contemporary social codes, forms the prime concern of Rhys, presenting a unique way of tackling gender issues. This article explores the masochistic tendencies that constantly overshadow Rhys' works in the context of female characters' relishing their bleak, morbid life. Through a detailed analysis of her novels Quartet (1928) and Good Morning, Midnight (1939), the article argues that Rhys' use of masochism is a literary device meant to emphasize the magnanimity of the female personae, as opposed to the sexually pervasive masochism identified by twentieth-century psychoanalytic theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Masochism has often been categorised among the endless list of perversions developed by psychiatry since the late nineteenth century. Similarly, an almost fixed link between masochism, perversion and femininity persists within psychoanalysis. By asserting that female masochism is a male fantasy, Lacan opens a radically different perspective. This article unfolds this idea by drawing on philosophy, and courtly and masochistic literature. I argue that masochism is a male fantasy and try to open a way for a rigorous separation from perversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I critique Gilles Deleuze's "Coldness and Cruelty" (1967), his introduction of Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs (1870). Having rightly emphasized the contract as the most important political aspect of masochism, and precisely the feature that psychoanalysis, as a theory of sexuality, could not account for, I argue that Deleuze nonetheless fails to confront the racial contract that renders this masochism white. By failing to confront the racial contract that informs not only the social contract but also the sociality implicit in the masochistic contract, Deleuze idealizes masochism. Drawing from queer of color critique, and especially from the work of Amber Jamilla Musser, I show the ways in which anti-Blackness supplements the masochistic contract in the effort of the sexual parties to reach for that modality of desire that approximates death. Notwithstanding Deleuze's powerful critique of the complementariness that psychoanalysis wrongly establishes between sadism and masochism, I conclude this article by showing how the racial contract makes it possible for sado-masochism to become complementary in this case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a critical commentary on the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-V, from 2013. It traces the historical reasons behind the fact that sexual preferences are included as mental disorders in the psychiatric manual, even if many of them are empirically neither generally associated with impairment or harmful to anyone else. This holds true for fetishism, masochism and consensual sadism among others, and the article pays special attention “sadism” and “masochism, which as “clinical” terms are constituted from the names of literary authors. Second it close reads the descriptions in DSM-V to show that there are several reasons why these descriptions become pathologizing and stigmatizing despite explicit intentions to be the opposite. These include erosions of the distinction between paraphilia and paraphilic disorder – a distinction on which the very possibility of diagnosis is established. Furthermore, the handbook does not make the non-consensual, the impairing or the harmful, the over-riding principle but instead the sexual preference in and of itself. The article shows how deeply affected the conceptions of the real-world preferences are by the events and characters in the fiction of these authors, and how hierarchical disparity and power exchange are typically more central to the preferences than pain with which they have been so closely linked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I analyze and discuss the potentials of what I call negative intimacies in Tomas Lagermand Lundme’s debut novel Forhud (1998) through the lens of antisocial queer theory. Through Berlant’s concept of intimacy as inherently threatened by an internal failure, I identify three types of negative intimacies in the novel: 1) Incestuous intimacy, in which the narrator denies the incest taboo and the Oedipus complex as foundation of heteronormative sociality through a perversion of the father figure. 2) Masochistic intimacy, in which the symbolic function of the father as authority is negated through contractual submission. And, lastly, 3) impersonal intimacy, which I argue is the overall mode of intimacy that the novel explores both in its content and as a gesture toward its reader. Impersonal intimacy offers an ethical alternative to heteronormative identity- and relation-based intimacy. In the impersonal intimacy I find what Tim Dean has called an ”ethics of alterity,” that is, a radical openness to otherness. In Forhud only strangers can be lovers, which is precisely the queer potential of the novel. I argue that these queer intimacies do not lend themselves to any kind of positive representation of queerness, but rather a negative critique of heteronormative sexuality. Though Forhud does not express any optimistic hope for queerness, it nevertheless stresses the pleasure of being intimate with the stranger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Leo Bersani makes repeated stringent critiques of relationality and other-oriented sexuality, drawing on an array of literary examples including Gide, Proust, and Robbe-Grillet, he evinces a somewhat ambiguous relation to the question of sadism and to sadism's inherent relation to masochism. Very similar notions of self-shattering not structured by the other, the world, or the couple are formulated by Gilles Deleuze in the late 1960s, but in this case as characteristics of Sadean demonstrative reason fully distinct from a psychoanalytic position that would insist on the relation between sadism and masochism. This missed connection between Deleuze and Bersani is broached through Deleuze's reading of Michel Tournier's rewriting of Robinson Crusoe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I discuss the origins of the capacity to hope, its roots in the infant's experience of a loving and secure relationship with their caregiver. The infant's awareness of his or her own mental and emotional agency can gradually develop and so the capacity to channel desires and impulses, and to expect an attuned response. I suggest that the failure of this intersubjective developmental process gives rise to an enduring sense of hopelessness, an expectation that emotional needs and desires will never be met. The key role that play has in the development of hope is discussed from psychoanalytic and neuroscientific perspectives. The impact that a patient's persistent hopelessness has for psychoanalytic psychotherapy practice is explored, its function as a defence against any new, spontaneous relational experience which might activate trust and hope. Internal and external change and transference dependence are resisted as the patient fears becoming vulnerable to being abandoned or rejected by the analyst. I explore some socio‐political aspects of hope and hopelessness, such as the belief that people deserve their success in society and the self‐blame, shame and hopelessness that result from an experience of economic or social failure. I discuss the possibility that hope in human relationship and in our humanity can survive in the face of overwhelming catastrophe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that Teresa of Cartagena's Grove of the Infirm offers a recalibration of the wisdom emergent from suffering by moving from a cruciform spirituality to an intellectual ' scientia ,' which benefits specific marginalized groups (prolonged sufferers) by establishing new paths of agency (through distinctive cooperative virtues) for those who suffer. I show that by disengaging suffering's spiritual meaning from the Franciscan focus on the cross, Teresa is able to amplify the relationship of virtue to wisdom while maintaining the validity of the painful experience endured. I argue that Teresa's focus on wisdom challenges the diminution of sufferers' experiences and elevates their spiritual wisdom as applicable to the church writ large. Teresa's work opens new spaces of agency for the most sidelined and secures the lasting significance of the wisdom of suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to investigate the semiotics of masochism in Abi Tammam's poetry, with remarkable signs, which reflected the abundance of subjectivity and presence. And the image that was manifested in the sanctification of the other, and the slavery of the ego of the victim, which punishes itself, is a hidden masochistic pleasure. The research concluded that these features in his poetry are morally masochistic and not lustful or feminine- framed by the emotions of consciousness and subconsciousness as a result of a neurotic psychological disorder due to his tension and anxiety over his frequent travels in pursuit of ambition and transcendence that have not been fully achieved, and that it is a clear reflection of the impact of the societal culture of poets in general. As well as for the value transformation at the level of the human circle of the individual based on hidden pleasure despite the apparent complaint according to the concept of linguistic phenomena based on standard morphological and structural considerations in which we presented the synchronic (synchronicity) over the dacronism (evolution). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Review of Andrea Nicolini, Masochism. A Challenge for Ethics (Mimesis International, 2022).

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Paradoxical at first sight, some tourists engage in activities involving negative emotions and even physical pain. Tourism scholars have begun investigating this phenomenon and have called for more of such research. Against this background, the authors introduce to tourism the notion of benign masochism, defining it as a trait describing a person's tendency to embrace and seek pleasure through safely playing with a stimulating level of physical pain and negative emotions. In doing so, the authors root benign masochism in the notion of play from evolutionary psychology and develop a benign masochism scale that is able to predict various tourism outcomes, including willingness to visit a haunted house, to go on a challenging adventure holiday, and to visit a nuclear disaster site. The authors conclude by discussing theoretical and managerial implications as well as limitations and future opportunities for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we aimed to analyze how the pervert, sadist, or masochist, when acting out his fantasy ($<>a) takes himself as an object a to refuse castration and locates it in his anguished and divided partner ($). Thus, he enjoys and meets the superego imperatives in a very peculiar way. This is a stubborn strategy to restore the voice of the Other, to make him non-castrated, which would give him access to a mythical jouissance. To this end, neurotic and perverse fantasies are distinguished and the way in which the engendering of jouissance is correlated to the position of the object and that of the divided subject in each one is analyzed. Besides this, the relations of the superego with the fantasy of the perverse, sadist, or masochist are deeply studied, which demonstrates their particularities. Therefore, it is concluded, by the importance of the clinic and the differential diagnosis in the studies about the superego. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. The aim of the research was to study the narrative of BDSM practitioners (sadism and masochism - S/M, bondage and discipline - B&D) and to attempt to describe how they interpret and define their practices and what significance they have in their life. Method. Qualitative methodology - grounded theory - has been used in the study. The sample consisted of 12 individuals aged 20-49 who identified with BDSM practices. The data have been collected through intensive interviews with participants. Results. Based on the language analysis of the interviews, researchers established categories related to identity and the definition of BDSM. Subsequently, the initial model of the process of defining one's own sexuality in BDSM practicing individuals was proposed. Conclusions. The research showed stages of the process of defining and accepting their sexuality in BDSM practicing individuals and multifaceted identification with their BDSM roles. The initial stage of the development of identification with BDSM was gender identity and sexual orientation. The participants defined their sexuality by either the identification with their roles in BDSM practices (not only as a form of sexual activity, but also in every-day life) or assuming such roles temporarily. It seems that defining their identity by the persons practicing BDSM is not an either-or between "identity" or a "role", but can be seen as continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Review of Nicolini, Andrea. Masochism. A Challenge for Ethics. Mimesis International, 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reads Robert Musil’s debut novel Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (The Confusions of Young Törless) (1906) as a novel of the institution (Campe) in which diverse forms of violence are intertwined. Contrary to the assumption that Musil’s novel aims at the depiction of sado-masochistic transgressions, my argument focuses on a reading scene that mediates the novel’s various potentials of violence: only when Törleß reads Kant does it become clear which violence and which pain are meant by Musil’s text. The experience of reading becomes a masochistic act in the course of which the pleasure of the text is recast in terms of a negative textual jouissance. Musil’s novel, in turn, becomes readable not as an exhibition of schoolboys in disgrace, but as an exploration of the violent structure of practical reason itself.

Manto's short story "Allah Ditta" is of great significance in terms of psychology. The psychology of the Electra complex is depicted in this myth. This story also reveals that the girl feels jealousy and rivalry not only with her mother but with any woman who she fears will share her father's love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]