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This paper aims to explore the meaning of Deleuze’s interpretation of masochism. This work focuses on the concept of dénegation of the worldly reality, which describes the distance between two different types of cold. Masochistic fantasy is in fact irreducible to the sadistic one. This study attempts therefore to demonstrate, by discussing some main ideas of the Freudian psychoanalysis, how the Deleuzian’s reading of Sacher-Masoch romances constitutes a first experiment to think the positivity of desire through and the Oedipus.

As a psychiatry resident working in New York City, I first saw the signs of Covid-19 in an outpatient setting. While it is true that the pressure from hospital administrators to sacrifice is palpable, the current willingness of residents to set aside self-preservation seems driven by something more. [Extracted from the article]

The main idea of this paper resides in the conception of masochism as a cultural and literary phenomenon, since only in this way becomes possible to give an account of the complexity thatcharacterizes it and their functioning as a form of subjectivation. The issue of masochism, from the viewpoint of its psychological use, consists in its blurred status as clinical term ¿is it descriptive or explicative? In the first case ¿what doesit describes? Not only a behaviour or a reflex reaction to pain, since flagella-tion, as a purely physiological sexual stimulus is something different, called "algolagnia". Masochism constitutes a "disease" of imagination, since its main feature isto describe a fantasy, a literary scene. Sacher-Masoch's novel Venus im Furs became a referent for European maso-chists by exhibiting a voluptuousness linked to a paraphernalia of furs, dogs, horses, knifes and heels. These fantasies were not created, but re-appropriated by him; they were already present in the testimonies of the psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing's patients, in his work Psychopathia Sexualis. Havelock Ellis, Krafft-Ebing, Féré, Freud and Sabine Spielrein developed the idea of sadomasochism as double-sided explicative device, among others. Departing precisely from Sacher-Masoch's novel, the French phi-losopher Gilles Deleuze offered an interpretation of masochism as the oppositeof sadism. Masochism was therefore incompatible with sadism, and not its complementary form. If the analysis of literary language high-lights that the order of sadist literature is that of the institutionalization of abuse, the language of masochism is marked by the sign of the contract and the agreement.

The concept of perversion in Freud's work is marked by different times to realize a gradual process of complexity whose starting point is the questioning of the evil as purely phenomenological, after which emerges the psychic plane and thus then the notion of perversion as oedipal product which underlies the mechanism of disavowal, this being the notion that in its articulation with femininity grounds the question of the status of perversion in a woman under which motherhood and masochism appear as ways to think about the matter.

The article analyzes the decline and reinstatement of southern manhood through the main male protagonist of Harry Crews’s novella An American Family: The Baby with the Curious Markings (2006), his last published book of fiction. Drawing on several sources investigating manhood in general and southern manhood, with its frequently stereotyped inclination to violence and brutality, in particular, the article focuses on the possibility, suggested by Crews, of the re-education of an ill-mannered wife-batterer through woman-inflicted violence, torture, and humiliation. Against the background of Sigmund Freud’s theory of masochism and selected texts by representatives of various streams of the men’s movement, who consider men to be weak and increasingly feminized victims searching both for their lost manhood and for the release of their suppressed emotions and sensitivities, the article recognizes three stages of the man’s reformation: infantilization, feminization, and re-masculinization. In the novella, Crews compares the ordeal of his protagonist with that of pit bulls, marginalized for their ferocity, but under the right circumstances able to behave as faithful pet animals.

This study examined the relationship between narcissism, masochism, and violent criminal justice involvement. Current interventions used with offender populations target traits such as antisocial personality but typically ignore narcissism and masochism. Understanding the connection between violent crime, narcissism, and masochism can help us develop a more indepth understanding of which personality features contribute to an increased proclivity towards criminal action. The participants (N = 494) were post-incarcerated individuals. To assess individuals' degree of narcissistic and masochistic thinking, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and the underserving self-image subscale of the Self-Defeating Interpersonal Style Scale were administered via a Qualtrics survey. Basic demographic information, psychopathy, intelligence, and personality were also measured and controlled for in the analyses. A logistic regression indicated that high levels masochistic thinking were associated with violent criminal justice involvement, even when relevant covariates were controlled for. High levels of narcissism were not found to exhibit a statically significant relationship with violent criminal justice involvement when psychopathy was controlled for. These findings suggest that masochistic characteristics may be a potential target for treatment in rehabilitating offenders., (Copyright © 2023 National Medical Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Highlights • Malignant Self-Regard is a type of self-structure that account commonalities in vulnerably narcissistic, depressive, self-defeating, and masochistic personality disorder. • Italian adaptation of the Malignant Self-Regard Questionnaire (MSRQ). • Reliability and the validity in a large sample of non-clinical adults from general population (n = 2574). • MSRQ captures several dimensions of personality pathology that are clinically relevant. Abstract Malignant self-regard (MSR) was proposed as a particular type of self-structure that may account for similarities among a set of clinically relevant Personality Disorders (PDs) such as masochistic/self-defeating and depressive PDs that yet have failed to be adequately represented in the diagnostic manuals. The investigation on the MSR may provide a better framework upon which to understand the nature of these personality types and their discrimination from related constructs. The present study examines the psychometric properties of the Italian adaptation of the Malignant Self-Regard Questionnaire (MSRQ). Reliability and validity indicators are determined in a large sample of adults from general population (n = 2574). The measure was found to be reliable and valid, given its correlations with measures of depressive personality, negative affectivity, self-defeating, and vulnerably narcissistic personalities. MSR also can be meaningfully differentiated from a nomological network of related constructs, including sadness rumination, depression, neuroticism, extraversion, and grandiose narcissism. These findings suggest that MSR may be a personality component which includes a negativistic self-representation, vulnerability and hypersensitivity to judgment, sometimes compensated by perfectionistic tendencies. As a whole, results seem to support the reliability and the validity of the Italian adaptation of the MSRQ as a measure of the MSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this rejoinder we provide notes to consider when reviewing the research on the relationship between race, personality and crime. We concur with DeLisi (2017, this issue) that the equivocal nature of this research demands that there is a need for further inquiry. We also agree with Zuckerman (2002) that there is a distinction between personality disorders and crime but also that crime cannot be used as a proxy for personality disorders. We argue that the research suggests that there are no genetic components of personality disorder and also that this disorder has been found to be equally distributed across racial/ethnic groups. Understanding why there appears to be a racial/ethnic personality disorder disparity within the criminal justice system may be more a function of social class and historical circumstance than genetic composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Middleton’s 1622 tragicomedy The Nice Valour: Or, the Passionate Madman takes shame as its central preoccupation. The limited scholarship on this play has focused primarily on its representations of unconventional sexuality: homoeroticism and masochism. This essay examines the intersection of sexuality with shame, and specifically how the play offers access to the phenomenology of shame through the sensations of the sexualized body. After analyzing how the play uses that body to provide language for pinpointing the experience of shame, the essay then turns to how the masochistic practices of one of its central characters offer up a queer, mock-utopian strategy for neutralizing shame’s destructive potential. The Nice Valour is a comic celebration of shame that demonstrates that to deny the shared shame of our common bodiliness is to isolate ourselves from the pull of the blood that constitutes the strongest bonds between the self and others. [J.P.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Coetzee's Disgrace narrates the plights of individuals in their attempts to cope with the existential and social forces to maintain their precarious existence. Driven by the imperative to sustain their sanity and to achieve a sense of belonging, these individuals attempt to break free from their isolated existence and relate themselves to others. In fact, relating one to others and transcending one's separateness is one of human being's existential needs that has to be satisfied. This paper suggests that this existential need combines with social realities of South Africa and all the attempts to satisfy this existential need never result in a healthy attachment. This study argues that the individuals in post-apartheid world of Disgrace, in their attempts to transcend their isolation, reveal sadistic and masochistic aspects of themselves in their interpersonal relations. Their ontological insecurity, rooted in structural inadequacies of the society, compels them to establish unhealthy dependence on others. As they tie their survival to some unproductive ways of relatedness to others, they turn into what Coetzee calls deformed individuals. Therefore, sanity, which depends on productive satisfaction of existential needs, becomes absent, insanity and deformity prevails, and the prospect of a sane society recedes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desire for piquant/spicy food has grown phenomenally over the last 500 years or so. In this review, I summarize the literature on this most intriguing of oral sensations, and summarize various explanations for why it may have become so liked by so many peoples around the world in recent years. A number of alternative hypotheses for the rise in popularity of this plant/fruit have been put forward and are briefly discussed. These include the masochistic/thrill-seeking hypothesis, the antimicrobial hypothesis, the thermoregulation/salivation-induction hypotheses, and medicinal/health/diet-based accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, complaints of "unluckiness," which are often heard in psychotherapy, are discussed with respect to masochistic personality. Luck is a concept that belongs to the outer world. However, the phrase "I am unlucky" can be a concept that becomes a part of one's own identity. Some clients in the therapy process, either explicitly or implicitly, express the idea that they are unluckier than other people. Seeing one's self as unluckier than others poses problems in the therapy process. The 'unluckiness' becomes a personality trait that is extremely difficult to handle, and thus, the therapist's job becomes just as difficult. Moreover, while luck is an outer world concept, unluckiness becomes a part of one's identity, and the boundary between the inner and outer worlds vanishes. In this paper, it is described how two clients in psychoanalytical-oriented therapy defined themselves as unlucky. The material from these cases is discussed using psychoanalytic concepts. An overly punitive superego, the need for punishment, death drive, and masochistic personality are the major axes of the discussion. It has been argued that in many instances where one describes him/herself as being unlucky, there may be an aggressive act in which the person aims harm at him/herself. The dynamics of this aggressive act are discussed. One of the major aspects of masochistic personality, the fantasy of "If I torture myself enough, eventually I will be loved" is also discussed. The view that the need for self-punishment or unconscious feelings of guilt may be obscuring feelings of grief is elaborated within the context of Winnicott's transition object concept. It has been argued that if the phrase "I am unlucky," which poses problems for therapists, is better understood, it may be better handled in the therapy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Objective: Our aim was to conduct a systematic review of the literature on psychological masochism to identify hypotheses for examination in clinical studies. Method: We identified defenses, conflicts, and motives using standardized measures in 23 psychoanalytic papers. Results: Three primary and three secondary subtypes of masochism emerged in the literature. Overall Gratification Inhibition (subtype I.1) was the “healthiest” form, associated with higher developmental level motives and neurotic defenses. The Global Conflict (I.2) was the least healthy form of masochism, consistent with personality disorder. It was associated with early developmental level motives and immature defenses, including depressive defenses, often associated with depression. Dominant Other (I.3) represented masochistic attachment problems, associated with early developmental level motives, object-related, image-distorting defenses, and narcissism. Of the secondary types, Separation-Abandonment (II.1) reflected object-related defenses, and separation-related motives. Rejection of Others (II.2) represented a sadistic-narcissistic form, associated with image-distorting and disavowal defenses, with both early and later developmental level motives. Finally, Sexual Pleasure vs. Guilt (II.3) was associated with autistic fantasy, and both early and later developmental level motives, suggesting a distinct traumatic origin and representing the juncture of sexual and psychological masochism. Conclusions: Analysts described six distinguishable types of masochism. Future studies should examine their validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I am concerned exclusively with the kind of comparative disadvantage an individual suffers in having less valuable opportunities than another individual and that may entitle her to corrective action, such that we ought to regulate the risk of this disadvantage and/or consider compensating her if she suffers disadvantage. The dominant approach in both political philosophy and public policy proceeds by identifying a metric by which to determine whether an individual’s opportunities are less valuable than another’s. Let’s call this the Metric Test. However, there is another way in which to proceed. Rather than appealing to a metric by which to determine disadvantage, we could instead allow an individual to determine for herself whether or not she is disadvantaged. On the version of this view that I shall defend, we should treat an individual as disadvantaged if and only if that individual envies another’s opportunities. Let’s call this the Envy Test. My overall aim in this article is to illuminate the appeal of the Envy Test and, in particular, to explain its superiority over the Metric Test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Objectif Cet article se propose d’examiner les enjeux psychiques des fantasmes de maltraitance qui s’expriment parfois avec insistance dans le discours de certaines personnes âgées confrontées à une situation de dépendance. Méthode À partir d’une compréhension psychodynamique du fonctionnement psychique adossée à deux évocations cliniques, l’étude des représentations mettant en scène un « vieillard battu » permet de repérer les modalités singulières de traitement des problématiques de castration et de passivité réactualisées dans les relations d’aide et de soin. Résultats La prégnance du fantasme de fustigation « on bat un vieillard » apparaît ainsi comme une tentative de liaison de l’excitation suscitée par la difficile confrontation à la position passive, et montre que l’acuité de la question narcissique dans le grand vieillissement n’obère pas la conflictualité œdipienne et les problématiques d’identifications sexuelles, qui trouvent là un lieu de réactualisation majeure en même temps qu’une occasion de reprise élaborative. Discussion Ces considérations conduisent à envisager les spécificités psychopathologiques de la rencontre avec la dépendance dans le grand âge à la lumière des tensions entre la réalité interne et la réalité externe, au risque sinon de dissoudre l’écart entre le contenu manifeste de la dépendance, imputable notamment à l’actualité événementielle biologique et sociale, et le contexte psychique par lequel il est ressaisi. Conclusion Cette étude souhaite attirer l’attention, derrière l’évidence des rapports sociaux de domination, sur les aménagements masochistes et mélancoliques de la passivité susceptibles de s’exprimer à travers cette configuration fantasmatique. Aim In this paper, we analyze the psychic issues entailed in mistreatment fantasies that are expressed, sometimes insistently, in the discourse of some elderly people finding themselves in a situation of dependency. Method This study is based on a psychodynamic understanding of psychic functioning, and it also uses clinical vignettes. We explore the fantasy of “the elderly person being beaten” which casts light on a particular mode of processing of the issues of castration and passivity, re-contextualised in the care setting and care relationships. Results The pervasiveness of this fantasy appears as an attempt to bind the excitation caused by the difficulty in accepting a passive position. It also shows that the acute narcissistic issues of old extreme old age do not compromise Oedipal conflict and sexual identification issues. The re-emergence of these issues enables psychic work which can lead to new modes of elaboration. Discussion These considerations lead us to envisage the psychopathological characteristics of the encounter with dependency in old age in the light of the tensions between external reality and the internal world. Otherwise the risk is that the distinction between the manifest content of dependency – linked in particular to current biological and social parameters – and the psychic context in which this content is reshaped will be abolished. Conclusion Above and beyond the evident social relationships of domination, this study aims to draw attention to the masochistic and melancholic modes of passivity that can be mobilized in this fantasized configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the US literary publisher Grove Press from 1951 to 1970. During this period, Grove promoted an aesthetic that Susan Sontag termed the "new sensibility," one that valued impersonal sensations over personal expression. Grove thus became a key mediator between humanism and antihumanism, publishing many of the major literary works cited by poststructuralist thinkers. This editorial sensibility found its roots in the class character of the press, which was headed by affluent radical Barney Rosset. Drawing on close readings of key publications, as well as of editorial discourse such as advertising and marketing surveys, this essay argues that the masochistic fantasies of self-shattering featured in Grove's publications allowed its imagined audience of professional-managerial class radicals to appear to transcend their economic positions. In the pages of Grove publications, white-collar masochists styled themselves as revolutionary suicides or self-destructive saboteurs squandering the human capital of the organizations in which they worked. Nevertheless, this imaginative solution failed to overcome the press's own class contradictions, which came to a head during the unionization drive and feminist protest occupation of Grove in 1970. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I investigate the masochist practices and relations presented in the Fifty shades trilogy by E.L. James and Macho sluts by Pat Califia through the lenses of Coldness and cruelty—Deleuze’s essay on masochism—as well as the further developments of his thoughts on masochist relations as presented in the texts written with Guattari, expressly Anti-Oedipus (in terms of the development of their thought on the body without organs) and A thousand plateaus (as a further exposition on the BwO, but this time directly related to masochism). In particular, I am interested in the relationship of desire—and also sexual desire—to the capitalist machine, as well as the kinds of masochistic literatures and subsequent practices and affective registers that are produced in such a context. Finally, I begin to look at the affective structures needed by masochistic literatures, relations and practices for fomenting becomings that initiate subjectivities where each series is defined in terms of its haecceity so that subjective desire is not reduced to capitalist production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork in Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) communities in Sweden, I explore the ritual aspects of BDSM. Drawing on Douglas and Collins’ theories of interaction rituals, I analyse the creation of emotional energy during humiliation practice through connection and intimacy between the participants. The article examines how the ritual aspect of BDSM sessions can be understood as an enabler of expressions and emotional energy. BDSM becomes a free zone in which bodies are allowed to be open in a Bakhtinian sense, that is, transgressive and beyond control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Douleur et Analgésie is the property of John Libbey Eurotext Ltd. 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.)

This article evaluates the application of dominant institutional discourses, such as psychoanalysis, in the interpretation of literary fiction. I take up the case of Jean Rhys and her 1929 novel Quartet. Both author and novel have been analyzed through the concept of masochism, as creating masochistic characters or a masochistic aesthetic. But what do we mean when we classify or "diagnose" authors of literature or fictional characters as in the case of Rhys' and Quartet's protagonist? Against this mode of reading, I argue that Rhys' novel asks us, in various ways, to understand it on its own terms, suggesting a mode that I call immanent reading. It enjoins the reader to understand rather than to classify the famously problematic Rhys "heroine." Ultimately, Quartet foregrounds the instability of moral and social positions, implicitly arguing against what it calls the "mania for classification" employed by the novel's antagonists. Quartet cautions against diagnostic interpretations by dramatizing scenes of hypothetical focalization, emphasizing the modal nature of reality, and providing the novel with its characteristically shadowy mood. Mood is a term drawn from Gérard Genette, which describes how certain narrative choices and devices (or mode) compose a discursive narrative atmosphere (or mood). This project suggests the untapped potential of narratology for analyzing affect in fictional narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Ernest Hemingway remained faithful to a wide range of traditional masculine values in his life and his fiction. He was a propagator of the normative roles assigned by the patriarchal system on men and women and accordingly distinguished between male and female social and artistic functions; however, the tension in his behavioral patterns is expressed through his subversion of those ascriptions on the sexual level. The themes of homoerotic wishes, suppressed femininity and transvestic impulses have well been established in Hemingway's fiction through years of literary criticism; however, the masochistic undertones of his writings have not received an equal attention so far. The purpose of this paper is to underline the masochistic properties of Hemingway's psychosexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RESUMO A Lei Maria da Penha, ao transformar os crimes contra a mulher em crimes de ação penal pública incondicionada, torna o processo contra o agressor uma iniciativa do Estado, independentemente da vontade da mulher vítima da agressão. Analisada a partir do método hermenêutico crítico e da psicanálise, sustentamos que tal mudança produz uma desresponsabilização do sujeito frente ao seu masoquismo e sustenta uma dobra ideológica que trata a mulher como infantil e passiva, naturalizando uma situação histórico-libidinal. Por fim, a conclusão apresenta a hipótese de que tal mudança na lei é perniciosa ao objetivo de criar condições sociais e libidinais para que a mulher possa responsabilizar-se, reconhecendo os fatores inconscientes envolvidos na situação de agressão.

In his Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud quotes a poem by Heinrich Heine: "Selten habt Ihr mich verstanden/selten auch verstand ich Euch./Nur wenn wir im Kot uns fanden,/so verstanden wir uns gleich". ("Rarely did you understand me, and rarely did I understand you; Only when we found ourselves in the muck did we understand each other at once.") In my contribution, I want to examine this ability of the excrement to function as a kind of universal equivalent for understanding; a kind of perfectly convertible currency or primordial gift (according to Freud's account). What is it that makes this border-element between culture and nature so specifically useful when nothing else seems to help in human communication? This question shall be raised specifically with regard to the "scatological rituals" examined and analyzed by Stephen Greenblatt as well as with to the issue that D. A. F. de Sade makes of the excrement in his "120 days of Sodom", where it plays an astoundingly predominant role when it comes to finding unequivocal proofs of human autonomy.