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La rencontre avec un patient venu initialement consulter pour des troubles du sommeil, qui cachaient une souffrance morale liée à des pratiques sexuelles masochistes avec une Domina a été à l'origine de ce travail de recherche. Cette recherche a pour objectif de tenter de comprendre comment émergent les fantasmes sexuels masochistes et ce que représentent ces pratiques sexuelles pour leurs adeptes, sur le plan de leur vie psychique et de leur sexualité. Seize sujets ont répondu à un questionnaire construit sur deux axes : les pratiques sexuelles elles-mêmes (des premiers fantasmes à leur mise en œuvre dans la sexualité), et le parcours biographique des sujets (histoire de vie, relations à la famille et à l'environnement). Il s'agit d'une recherche qualitative, dont les résultats ont été traités sous forme d'analyse thématique et de portraits de chaque sujet, pour rendre compte de la singularité de leur itinéraire. Les résultats de cette recherche indiquent que les pratiques sexuelles masochistes remplissent toujours une fonction pour ceux qui les choisissent. Elles constituent le plus souvent une solution à un conflit psychique lié à des modalités relationnelles précoces génératrices de souffrance et/ou des expériences traumatiques. Elles peuvent aussi constituer une solution à des troubles sexuels. The encounter with a patient who initially came to consult for sleep disorders, which concealed moral suffering linked to masochistic sexual practices with a Domina, was at the origin of this research work. The objective of this research is to try to understand how masochistic sexual fantasies emerge and what these sexual practices represent for their devotees, in terms of their psychological life and their sexuality. Sixteen subjects answered a questionnaire built on two axes: the sexual practices themselves (from the first fantasies to their implementation in sexuality), and the biographical path of the subjects (life history, relations with the family and the environment). This is a qualitative research, the results of which were treated in the form of thematic analysis and portraits of each subject, to reflect the uniqueness of their itinerary. The results of this research indicate that masochistic sexual practices always perform a function for those who choose them. They are most often a solution to an internal conflict linked to early relational modalities that generate suffering and/or traumatic experiences. They can also be a solution to sexual problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jelinek and Haneke. The Eviscerated Woman as the Object of Gaze. This paper aims to explore a psychoanalytical comparison between Erika from the novel The Piano Teacher (Die Klavierspielerin, 1983), and the same character from the Michael Haneke’s film, La Pianiste (2001), adapted after Elfriede Jelinek’s writing. Whereas the woman in the book can only exist as a mask in order to exist as a phallus (the version of the father, Fr. la Père‐version) – according to Jelinek’s obsession with the monstrous couple eye‐gaze, expressed in an unnatural sexuality –, the woman on the screen is caught between the instances of embedding (the woman as uterus – the mother, the woman as a living tomb – the daughter) and the demystification of sexuality which culminates in rape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Lezione d'amore (2004), Patrizia Valduga voices a woman, who suggests she is a masochist, and her male partner as they progress through their sexual encounters. This essay makes three claims: first, reading the collection alongside the work of Jack Halberstam and Kaja Silverman, I argue that Lezione d'amore instrumentalises the voice of the male partner/'torturer' in telling the masochist's story. Secondly, the collection exposes the power of clichés surrounding masochism, challenging Deleuze's literary aesthetics of sadism and masochism through form and language. Thirdly, Valduga implicitly parallels the masochistic speaker – who paradoxically cedes power in order to gain it – with the position of the poet herself, who claims to speak from a position of lesser authority, only then to insert herself amongst the greats of the Western canon. Lezione d'amore represents a woman subject who submits to the cultural and physical force of masochistic play – and invites us to watch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Erotic target identity inversions (ETIIs) are poorly studied paraphilias that involve sexual arousal by the idea or fantasy of being the object of one's sexual desires. To conduct a large non-clinical online survey to investigate self-reported sexual arousal, behavioral expression, and psychological correlates of 4 proposed ETIIs. A total of 736 natal males and 549 natal females responded to items about self-reported sexual arousal to the idea of acting as an animal (autoanthropomorphozoophilia) or the idea of acting as a child or infant (autonepiophilia), natal males reporting arousal to the idea of acting as a woman (autogynephilia), and natal females reporting arousal to the idea of acting as a man (autoandrophilia). Data pertaining to sexual orientation, childhood gender nonconformity, gender identity discomfort, autism, masochism, and humiliation were also collected. The main outcome was a measure of self-reported arousal and expression of the ETIIs being explored using 4 items: arousal level (–3 to 3) when imagining being the erotic target exemplar; frequency of engagement in dressing or behaving like their preferred target (0–4); strength of feeling that they would be better off as the target (0–4); and the frequency of consideration of making physical changes to look or function more like the target (0–4). Mild levels of reported sexual arousal to the idea of being the preferred erotic target were common among the 4 groups, characterizing about half of them. Gender identity discomfort was associated with autogynephilia, autoandrophilia, and autoanthropomorphozoophilia. Greater gender nonconformity was associated with autogynephilia, autoandrophilia, and autonepiophilia. Autism scores were associated with autoandrophilia and autonepiophilia. Masochism was not associated with ETII scores, but humiliation was. Findings suggest that it may be important to distinguish between subgroups of those with different levels and types of ETII arousal/expression. Strengths of this study include the large, non-clinical sample of men and women for the investigation of ETIIs and the inclusion of measures of psychological correlates. The use of an Internet sample with self-report measures may be unrepresentative, although the Internet has the advantage of allowing recruitment from stigmatized or unusual groups. The cross-sectional nature limits our conclusions, as no causal inferences can be made. The results support the concept of ETIIs as a paraphilic dimension in non-clinical samples and the possible role of gender-related psychological factors. Brown A, Barker ED, Rahman Q. Erotic Target Identity Inversions Among Men and Women in an Internet Sample. J Sex Med 2020;17:99–110. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Negative Therapeutic Reaction rightly receives more critical scrutiny today, since in the past it has often been framed as the patient's destructive acting-out. But even if one understands malignant regressions, successes undone or engrained stagnation as phenomena of transference / countertransference dynamics, a thorough self-analysis is required for the analyst not to fall prey to seduction by an NTR conceptualization that resists empathy with prevailing processes of desobjectalization, as described in the present casuistry. The elaboration of depressive states in the countertransference is necessary in order, on one hand, to find a way out of dead ends and, on the other hand, to accept the necessity of the patient's places of retreat where these may represent a lesser evil, or to endure the oscillation between both positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Enthymema is the property of Enthymema, International Journal of Literary Criticism, Literary Theory & Philosophy of Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The following paper is intended to offer a discussion of the theoretical concept of "intensity", inspired by Freud's reflections on the matter and employed as an analytical tool in order to provide a better understanding of the psychic, sensorial and emotional dimensions of cinematographic spectatorship. The paper shall demonstrate that the notion of intensity is grounded on sadistic and masochis tic impulses, as described by psychoanalytic theory, and that the polarization of the author's sadistic stance and of the spectator's masochistic stance (along with the range of its possible variations) is foundational of cinematographic spectatorship in its entirety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Polish culture suggests to the men two stances: subjugation to the (real or imaginary) female power or, to the contrary, aggressive elimination of "femineity." The article analyzes these stances as presented in certain works of fiction and their worlds. Femineity is eliminated under the model of homosocial sadism, which must be distinguished both from the traditional patriarchy and from - denied or sublimed - homosexuality. The issue is first discussed based on Wzgórze psów by Jakub Żulczyk; then it is tracked back to the works displaying similar psychosocial structures, even though they may not obviously belong to the same historical literary community (despite their chronological proximity). These works are: Zwał by Sławomir Shuty, Ciało obce by Rafał Ziemkiewicz, White Raven by Andrzej Stasiuk, Morfina by Szczepan Twardoch and His Current Woman by Jerzy Pilich. The theoretical tools applied come from politicized versions of the late psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis (along the Lacan - Deleuze - Theweleit line). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Allen Ginsberg's Howl presents a complex idea of queer identity politics restructuring American urbanity. In a de Certeauan portrayal of 'queer' sexual encounters, the actors tend to subvert notions of the heteronormative hegemony over sexuality, sexual bodies, and masculinities. The writing back by the marginalised sexual 'Others' employs the agency of representing pain as liberating, subversive, and pleasurable. These ecstatic performances reveal gender and sexuality as 'performative,' contributing towards a construction of a 'homosexual masculinity' which is subversive of heteronormative politics. However, there can be located a counter-subversion at work in this portrayal of queer masculinity by virtue of its drawing from the very heteronormative constructs that it intends to subvert. Nevertheless, the agency of a Deleuzian 'queer masochism' entailed in a Butlerian queer performativity can be inferred as a potential strategy for refashioning queer literary politics. This paper attempts to interrogate this very discursive queer identity and performative politics in Ginsberg's poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos de Investigación Filológica is the property of Universidad de la Rioja, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the light of Huizinga's conceptualisation of play and Bakhtinian carnival theory, this article exemplifies the ludic-carnivalesque qualities of female masochism on China's social media. Arguably, the joint venture of play and carnival frameworks allows a de-pathological account of female masochism under the male gaze and a reclaiming of the feminist agenda through the critical reading of abusive texts in the pan-entertaining digital era. Thus, the study fills a gap regarding non-sexual female masochistic pleasure in the literature of feminist studies. The article has found billingsgate language, or the language of marketplace, a fertile ground to investigate patriarchy and objectification. It contends that billingsgate language, which hails a ludic-carnivalesque exposure of present patriarchal biases against women and imbalanced gender power relations, is pregnant with a power of deconstruction that overturns present social orders in favour of gender equalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the peculiar erotics of the material world in Andrew Marvell’s country house poem. The discussion builds upon previous scholarship regarding the role of sexuality in this text in order to offer new directions for interpretation by combining recent approaches from queer theory with those of the new materialism. The essay finds that the trope of mirroring subtends the poem and that tracing the operations of reflection allows us to draw linkages between the personified landscape’s ruins of a highly sexualized nunnery and the humans who await personal contact and long for the pleasure of connection. The analysis here dwells particularly on the speaker’s role in relation to the physical environment and how that interrelationship might fuel the erotic excitement explored in ‘Upon Appleton House’. The poem’s culminating fantasy ultimately allows the speaker to lose his position as a subject and instead feel what it is like to be an object—not just an object of desire but a material object. To better understand the speaker’s experience of desire in the absence of another subject, the essay draws our attention to his desire to take on the qualities of the natural environment, which is described in terms of the mirror. I ultimately argue that the speaker’s desire to be rendered an object relies on the notion that estrangement offers a potent experience that heightens erotic pleasure.

Resumo A adicção sexual pode ser definida como quadro psicopatológico no qual o sexo é buscado de forma incontrolável, desenfreada, a despeito dos prejuízos emocionais, sociais e profissionais que suscita no cotidiano do adicto. Após o frenesi, a excitação e a adrenalina em ceder aos próprios impulsos urgentes e vorazes, o sex-addict percebe-se incapaz de gerenciar suas atuações sexuais, sendo consumido por sentimentos de vazio, fracasso e desespero. A problemática do prazer sexual “além do princípio de prazer”, conjugada à da dor psíquica, nos conduz a uma interrogação mais rigorosa sobre a dimensão do masoquismo na vida subjetiva e sua relação com os estados destrutivos da psicossexualidade. Neste artigo, fundamentado sob o viés da psicanálise, procuramos examinar a estreita relação entre autodestruição e satisfação libidinal nos fenômenos próprios do quadro em questão.

Sexual consent has received increased attention in mainstream media, educational, and political settings since the rise of the #MeToo movement in 2017. However, long before #MeToo, sexual consent has been a core practice among people who engage in Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism, and Masochism (BDSM). This study examined sexual consent norms among a sexually diverse sample, including people who practice BDSM (n = 116), people who identify with another sexual minority group, such as swingers and sex workers (n = 114), and people who did not identify with a sexual minority group, termed sexual majority group members (n = 158). Explicit consent for both BDSM- and non-BDSM-related activities was rated as more common (descriptively normative) among people who were a member of the BDSM community compared to majority participants. Further, BDSM participants rated consent discussions as less sexually disruptive compared to majority participants. We found no significant group differences in the extent to which people thought sexual consent should be discussed. We also discuss findings from an open-ended question asking participants to recall a recent sexual experience with a new partner. This study demonstrates variability in consent norms between groups and points to the potential to shift sexual consent behaviors among majority participants., (© 2023. Crown.)

This article examines the development of male bondage in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s through an examination of products designed by Jim Stewart, who founded the company Fetters in 1976. Through research using primary written sources, interviews with early customers, users and business partners, and the objects themselves, this paper situates Fetters designs within the broader infrastructures that were essential for the development of the material culture of male BDSM. The research finds that the primary contacts and inspiration came from outside of the emergent gay leather scene, in particular the cult of Houdini and publications that facilitated collecting of esoteric objects. Furthermore, military culture is shown to have influenced the design and mediation of bondage objects in a way that was fundamental to their design and functioning. This analysis therefore highlights some tensions surrounding cultural aspects of sexual identity that were negotiated through the design and development of objects produced at Fetters.

One of the best-known chroniclers of the Levant is undoubtedly T.E. Lawrence, whose Seven pillars of wisdom (1926) is an adventure tale, a war-time memoir and a travelogue all at once. It describes the region and its Arab inhabitants at moments admiringly and at others through an Orientalist lens. Lawrence's narrative voice is mercurial: it's often heroic and confident, yet sometimes full of self-doubt, rendering it curiously fragile. In opposition, Gertrude Bell's narrative voice in The desert and the sown (1907) is assured, controlled and masculine, as Bell uses it to solidify a career as an archeologist and a regional expert. Both are calculated attempts at defying their assigned gender roles and both participate in a gender transgression, the convoluted nature of which can be explained with the theories of masochism. For Bell this means to use her narrative voice to place herself close to the seat of masculine power, while also maintaining her upper class femininity. Lawrence's defiance erodes the conventionally masculine, heroic image the public held of him after the Arab Revolt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autoerotic asphyxiation (AEA) is a sexual interest that involves heightening sexual arousal by deliberately self-inducing a reduced supply of oxygen to the brain. Most of the literature on AEA is comprised of case studies and research based on people who have died from the practice. The present study explored information about AEA practices and the degree of overlap between AEA and other paraphilias in community participants. Participants (n = 395) were recruited through different online platforms to complete an anonymous survey and 165 were classified as having AEA by reporting mild to strong sexual arousal in AEA. These individuals reported that their interest emerged in late adolescence, and many reported that they discovered AEA via the internet. Regarding safety precautions people take during their AEA practice, 19% of participants reported that they did not use safety precautions. Most people (> 80%) were not distressed by their AEA interest. Additionally, significant relationships were found between AEA interest and many paraphilic interests with masochism being the only paraphilia associated with AEA when considering other paraphilic interests. These results suggest that most individuals engage in less risky manifestations of AEA than what is reported in the clinical literature and that AEA is appropriately conceptualized as a subtype of masochism. The results underscore the importance of gathering information about alternative sexual practices in community samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Ayn Rand's thoughts for conservatism and masochism. Topics include the influence of conservative thoughts on literature and reflection of social norms on masochism; her rejection for social welfare schemes of the liberal state, and her intense satisfaction from vulnerable emotions.

Today, capitalism functions as a very complex tool of colonisation capturing our desires, dreams, and putting life itself at risk. Its effects lead us all to times of extreme anxiety increasing the number of people with mental health problems. This paper is concerned with the question of 'critique' within this context. How can critical legal scholarship engage with a theoretical mode that allows us to confront the politics of law with today's capitalism? This analysis shows that contemporary capitalism, which operates as an immanent desiring-machine, is investing in our unconscious. In this sense, we aim to rethink the idea of 'critique' as an opportunity to make it creative and effective. As such, this paper argues that the Deleuzian concept Critical and Clinical is particularly useful, as it opens new roots for the critical movement. Taking the literary strategy of Masochism and the experience of the Institutional Psychotherapy movement in France, the clinical–critical practice contributes to push and expand critical scholarship into new terrains of thought and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempted to understand people's desires for aggressive and humiliating sexual play, both in terms of interests and fantasy. An evolutionary framework has been developed which generated five hypotheses to be tested. Evidence from a qualitative study of 102 participants identified 13 aggressive and sexual acts which were commonly preferred. A subsequent quantitative online study of 1026 men and women asked participants to rate the desirability of these acts. The results indicated that more than 70% of participants found at least one aggressive or humiliating sexual play desirable, whereas about half of the participants found at least three such acts desirable. Significant sex differences were also found, with men desiring to engage in such play more than women. This discordance was moderated by the willingness of each party to partially accommodate each other's desires. On the basis of these findings and the proposed theoretical framework, it is concluded that aggressive and humiliating sexual play constitutes a normal variation in sexual desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Gilles Deleuze's and Giorgio Agamben's thoughts on the immanent creativity emergent from formal, impersonal life as a pathway for resistance to biopolitics. In Coldness and Cruelty, Deleuze explores masochism as the inversion of the sadistic, biopolitical use of the body which can bring forth genuinely new expressions. Agamben dismisses masochistic creativity because it leaves the dialectical ontology of biopower intact to conceptualize his form-of-life as a space of indiscernibility between ontological essence and legal-political actualization. For Agamben, the form-of-life escapes biopolitical capture because it is absolutely detached from its relations. This article argues that the radicalness of this detachment calls into question the political capacity offered by the form-of-life to actively change the relations of biopower. Against this background, Deleuze's masochistic eroticization of power offers an alternative conceptualization of relationality as external to its terms and productive of expressions which are both thoroughly immanent and genuinely creative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the resistance in all living beings to accept pain and suffering, the psychological aspects, and the biological make-up and mental health conditions that contribute to the resistance. Topics discussed include the inevitability of suffering in life, facing adversity, the state of modern culture and society, the understanding of well-being and happiness in the modern world, the sacralization of pain and masochism, and the Ignatian anthropological perspective on suffering.

Based on his reading of Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, Deleuze claims that one aspect of masochism is the repudiation of the father. Following this, many critics argue for a subversive nature in perversion, and misperceive the dynamics of sadism and masochism. A Lacanian reading of an experientially grounded representation of BDSM, as conveyed in the stories of Califia, allows us to dispel the Deleuzean misunderstanding of perversion and bypass a two-dimensional portrayal of the power relation between sadists and masochists. As explicated through Lacan and Califia, an understanding of BDSM practice also helps to reveal the underlying erotic structure of forms of contemporary politics such as fundamentalism and liberalism. To understand BDSM in Califia's story, the Lacanian imaginary/real/symbolic triad is employed, serving first as a framework to dispel the Deleuzean miscomprehension of masochism, and then as a way to fully grasp Califia's perverted world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (1855), male protagonist John Thornton, a supposed master of industry, is truly industry's victimized object. Critics have covered the Victorian drive for noble self-sacrifice, particularly in female characters, but this article claims that Gaskell critiques a masochistic work ethic that arises out of the mixture of industrialism with Protestantism and produces a bourgeois masculinity so masochistic it is nearly suicidal. Gaskell's novel unmasks this deceptively simple system of "self-denial," which promises working men reciprocity for their deferred pleasure but fails to deliver. Denial of the body to perfect the soul is a system that works well enough for the rich, Gaskell shows, since the rich body is neither starving nor healthily reproductive. Self-denial, then, becomes a position of privilege rather than of self-improvement. Ultimately, Gaskell rejects the unfeeling masochism of this industrial code of masculinity in favor of the pains of love and vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing especially focuses upon pain. A great build-up of physically but mainly verbally caused pain dissolves in the play's final episodes. This essay explores this paradox by analysing the pain Beatrice and Benedick, Don John, Claudio and Hero, Leonato and Anthony feel and mutually inflict. Variously charged by local dramatic contexts, such suffering invites the application of past and contemporary theories of pain for its fullest interpretation in this comedy. The possibility of empathy depends in the case of Much Ado upon this application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nasleđe is the property of University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Philology & Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Critics have widely explored the issue of masochism and Jake Barnes in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. However, the connection between masochism and Robert Cohn (who is Jewish) remains unexplored, which becomes the central theme of this article. The first section analyses the formation of Cohn's masochism based on his encounter with dominant women, the practice of boxing, and the anti-Semitic society he is surrounded by. Focusing on the climax of the plot, which includes the fight between Cohn and the Spanish bullfighter Pedro Romero in Pamplona, the second section indicates that through this fight, Cohn comes to embrace his inherent Jewish self and masculinity. The article continues to suggest that Cohn's act of hand-shaking symbolizes a process of selfforgiveness. Taking Jake Barnes' unreliable narration into consideration, the last part of the article proposes a rather optimistic interpretation of Cohn's life after the book ends, that his leaving of Pamplona represents a sign of his mastery of submission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work is a reflection on "A Child is Being Beaten" 100 years after its publication. The same is done from the place that this work presents within the Freudian corpus and some current reflections, which in particular take some paths opened by Jaques Lacan. It focuses on a clinical perspective, considering the phases of fantasy as different forms of a saying starting, as Freud formulates in his article, that fantasy, in principle, is said. These three phases, which do not necessarily respond to a chronological sequence, articulate three times, which correspond to the active, passive and reflexive voices, as Freud distinguishes it, by ordering the destinies of the drive in the transformation to the contrary and the turn on itself. In this perspective, the work will try to articulate these destinies with what J. Lacan conceives as the times of the drive, which concludes in a third with the appearance of a new subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses persistent concerns within clinical contexts that Emmanuel Levinas's ethics harbors a "masochistic"—or otherwise unwholesome—conception of subjectivity. Mobilizing Emmanuel Ghent's distinction between masochism and surrender, and extending it into ethical terrain, I argue that Levinas instead offers us an ethics of surrender. What underpins this vital distinction, I propose, is a different orientation to the question of vulnerability vis-à-vis relational trauma. I argue that post-traumatic psychopathological formations (such as masochism or narcissism) defend against relational vulnerability—a defense that manifests as a form of "ethical impairment." Levinas's ethical for-the-other existence, by contrast, is predicated upon a defense of relational vulnerability—as the condition of possibility for ethical subjectivity. This crucial point of difference not only explains why Levinasian ethics is not moral masochism but also invests Ghentian surrender with a decidedly ethical dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simone Drichel's "Emmanuel Levinas and the 'Specter of Masochism'" raises important questions not only about whether Levinas's ethics is a masochism but also about the sense in which we may speak of a Levinasian ethics at all and of the primacy Levinas attributes to it. Drichel's development of his account of "surrender" and "vulnerability" represent an illuminating entry point into Levinas's thought. However, questions can be raised as to whether she is right to insist on a dichotomy inherited from traditional ethics between the for itself and the for others, between self-preservation and self-sacrifice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her article "Emmanuel Levinas and the 'Specter of Masochism': A Cross-Disciplinary Confusion of Tongues," Levinas scholar Simone Drichel takes up the challenge to read Emmanuel Ghent's work as an antidote to psychoanalysts' misunderstandings of Levinasian responsibility as masochistic. In addition, she develops an elegant account based on D. W. Winnicott, citing his desire to turn us invulnerable ones into sufferers. From there her return to Emmanuel Levinas, with his challenging language, becomes actually graceful. Having already linked masochism to narcissism as means of coping with psychological trauma, she then invokes Levinas as he linked philosophical egoism with narcissism and inverted ordinary accounts of subjectivity. She makes her "cross-disciplinary" turn clear, but the connections clear as well, creating a model for those who want to contribute across disciplines and discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual addiction can be defined as a psychopathological condition in which sex is sought in an uncontrollable, unrestrained manner, despite the emotional, social, and professional harm caused to the addict's daily life. After the frenzy, excitement, and adrenaline rush experienced in indulging in their own urgent and eager impulses, sexual addicts find themselves incapable to manage their sexual performances, being consumed by feelings of emptiness, failure, and despair. The issue of sexual pleasure "beyond the pleasure principle," combined with the issue of psychic pain, leads us to a more rigorous questioning about the dimension of masochism in subjective life and its relation with the destructive states of psychosexuality. In this article, based on the perspective of psychoanalysis, we seek to examine the close relation between self-destruction and libidinal satisfaction in the phenomena that are characteristic of the condition in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Benign masochists seek less often experiences characterized by low arousal and positive valence. • Benign masochists seek more often experiences characterized by high arousal and negative valence. • High benign masochists derive greater pleasure from such aversive experiences than low benign masochists. • Masochistic actions can serve a self-regulatory function. Seeking hedonic reversals is central to benign masochism, which reflects enjoyment of aversive experiences falsely interpreted as threatening. However, evidence linking benign masochism to greater pleasure following such experiences is incomplete. To fill this gap, participants were given an option to choose what emotional experiences they wanted to feel and reported how they felt afterwards. In Study 1, benign masochism was associated with greater preference for stimuli characterized by high arousal and negative valence. High benign masochists reported greater positive affect after exposure to such repulsive stimuli than low benign masochists. Study 2 replicated these findings while accounting for sensation seeking. These findings provide support for the utility of the benign masochism in examining contrahedonic motives in self-regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors share thoughts on how adaptations could transform the past for a revised political and cultural context, pedagogy and personal identity. They consider the potential for adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's same-gender affirming novel "The Price of Salt." They identify issues of contemporary conversation including homophobia, transphobia and ghosts of melodramatic masochism like the self-punishing maternal martyr and patriarchal heterosexuality that occurred in the film "Carol."

This article deals with a typology of 45 techniques of humor that I found when doing research on the mechanisms that generate humor in texts, lists the techniques and applies them to a Jewish joke. It references the work of Vladimir Propp on folktales as analogous in that both are concerned with mechanisms in text that generate meaning. It also deals with four theories about why people find texts humorous, defines the joke as a short narrative with a punch line that is meant to generate mirthful laughter and defines Jewish humor as being about Jewish people and culture as told by Jewish people. It offers a paradigmatic analysis of the joke, and offers some insights into why Jewish people developed their distinctive kind of humor. This article is an enhanced and expanded version of an article which was published in a Chinese semiotics journal (doi:10.1515/css-2015-0022).