A Psychiatrist and Philosopher Attempts to Explain Sadomasochism
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
Essay substantially revised on 29 August 2026.
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
I am human, and consider nothing human to be alien to me.
—Terence
Many people think of sadism and masochism merely as perversions. In fact, these tendencies exist on a continuum, and are present, to some degree, in all of us.
Sadomasochism can be defined as the taking of pleasure, often sexual in nature, from the inflicting or suffering of pain, hardship, or humiliation. It can feature as an enhancement to sexual intercourse, or, less commonly, as a substitute or sine qua non.
The infliction of pain or hardship incites pleasure, while the simulation of violence can serve to express and deepen attachment. Indeed, sadomasochistic activities are often instigated at the behest, and for the benefit, of the masochist, who orchestrates the activities through subtle cues.
Consensual sadomasochism should not be confused with simple acts of aggression. While sadomasochists seek out pain in the context of love and sex, they do not do so in other situations, and abhor uninvited aggression or abuse as much as the next person.
Sadomasochistic practices are very diverse, although one study identified four distinct patterns or clusters: hypermasculinity, infliction and reception of pain, physical restriction, and psychological humiliation. Interestingly, the study found that homosexual males tended more to hypermasculinity, whereas heterosexual males tended more to humiliation.
A Brief History of Sadomasochism
‘Sadomasochism’ is a portmanteau of ‘sadism’ and ‘masochism’. In Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), a compendium of sexual case histories and sex-crimes, the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who coined the terms, spoke of basic tendencies to sadism in men, and to masochism in women. Modern surveys indicate that sadistic and masochistic desires are common in both men and women, with, however, sadism being commoner in men and masochism commoner in women.
Krafft-Ebing named ‘sadism’ after the Marquis de Sade, author of Justine, or The Misfortune of Virtue (1791); ‘masochism’ he named after Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs (1870):
Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman’s entire but decisive advantage. Through man’s passions, nature has given man into woman’s hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise.
The terms ‘sadism’ and ‘masochism’ may be of the nineteenth century, but the activities they denote are as old as the rocks. In his Confessions (1782), the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau admits to the pleasure that he derived from childhood beatings, adding that ‘after having ventured to say so much, I can shrink from nothing’. And shrink he did not: ‘To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates, or implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments…’
In Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, the only Roman novel to survive complete, Fotis slips into her lover’s bedchamber, produces a whip from beneath her clothes, and invites him to punish her.
The Kama Sutra, which probably dates back to the second century, contains an entire chapter devoted to ‘blows and cries’. ‘Sexual relations,’ according to this Hindu sacred text, ‘can be conceived as a kind of combat… For successful intercourse, a show of cruelty is essential.’
The physician JH Meibom formulated the first theory of masochism in his Treatise on the Use of Flogging in Medicine and Venery (1639). According to Meibom, flogging a man’s back warms the semen in the kidneys, which then flows down into the testicles, leading to sexual arousal. Other early theories of masochism centred upon the warming of the blood, or the benefits of sexual arousal in mitigating physical pain.
Krafft-Ebing never connected sadism and masochism, because he understood them as stemming from different sexual and erotic logics. But in Three Papers on Sexual Theory (1905), Freud observed that sadism and masochism often come together (no pun intended). Finally, in 1913, the psychoanalyst Isidor Sadger married the terms.
Freud understood sadism as a distortion of the aggressive component of the male sexual instinct, and masochism as a form of sadism directed against the self—and a graver ‘aberration’ than simple sadism. He remarked that the tendency to inflict and receive pain during intercourse is ‘the most common and important of all perversions’ and ascribed it (as much else) to arrested or disordered psychosexual development. He paid scant attention to sadomasochism in women, either because he thought of sadism as a problem of men, or because he thought of masochism as the natural inclination of women.
In Studies in the Psychology of Sex, the physician Henry Havelock Ellis argued along similar lines that there is no neat divide between sadism and masochism. By restricting sadism and masochism to the sphere of eroticism, he severed their historical link with abuse and cruelty.
The philosopher Gilles Deleuze pushed back against Freud and Havelock Ellis. In his essay Coldness and Cruelty (1967), he contended that sadomasochism is an artificial term, and that sadism and masochism are in fact separate and distinct phenomena. Deleuze provided fresh accounts of sadism and masochism, which, despite being fluent in French, I struggled to comprehend. His point, I think, is that the sadist seeks a victim, whereas the masochist seeks—and in an important sense creates—a despot. For the sadist, a masochist is not a genuine victim.
Sadomasochism Explained
If the experts agree on anything, it is that sadomasochism is one of the great mysteries of the human condition. Here, I propose a number of explanations, none of which are mutually incompatible.
Most obviously, the sadist may derive pleasure from feelings of power, authority, and control, and from the ‘suffering’ of the masochist.
The sadist may also harbour a conscious or unconscious desire to punish or desecrate the object of sexual attraction (or a stand-in for the object of sexual attraction, or for an original object of sexual attraction) for having aroused his desire and thereby subjugated him, or for having frustrated his desire or aroused his jealousy.
Sadism can also serve as a defence. By objectifying a partner, the sadist does not need to handle his or the partner’s emotional baggage, and is able to discount the sex as next to meaningless: a mere act of lust rather than an intimate, vulnerable, and pregnant act of love. The partner becomes a trophy, a mere plaything, and while one can own a toy and knock it about, one cannot fall in love with it or be hurt or betrayed by it.
In some cases, sadism might also represent a species of displacement, in which uncomfortable feelings such as anger, shame, and guilt are discharged onto a third party, who serves as a scapegoat.
For the masochist, taking on a role of subjugation and helplessness can offer a release from stress or the burden of responsibility or guilt. It can also evoke infantile feelings of vulnerability and dependency, which can serve as a proxy for trust and intimacy. Moreover, the masochist may derive gratification from earning the approval of the sadist, fulfilling his fantasies, commanding his undivided attention, and, in that sense, controlling him.
For both the sadist and the masochist, sadistic or masochistic desires may arise through conditioning, if domination or submission becomes associated with sexual arousal.
For the couple as a unit, sadomasochism can be seen as a means of intensifying normal sexual relations (pain releases endorphins and other hormones), leaving a mark or memory, testing boundaries, rebelling against social norms and expectations, giving form and expression to psychological realities, building trust and intimacy, or simply playing.
Sadomasochism in Ordinary Life
And what about you, dear reader? It’s easy to think that this sort of stuff only applies to a handful of ‘deviants’, but the truth is that we all harbour sadomasochistic tendencies. Just think, for example, of casual, ‘normal’ behaviours such as love-biting, tickling, or teasing.
Sadomasochism can also play out on a psychological level. In every relationship or almost, one partner is more attached or dependent than the other. Characteristically, the more attached partner is ‘the one who waits’.
Thus, the philosopher Roland Barthes (d. 1980):
Am I in love? —yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn’t wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover’s fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits. (L’identité fatale de l’amoureux n’est rien d’autre que: je suis celui qui attend.)
The likely outcome of this asymmetry of desire is that the less attached partner (A) becomes dominant, while the more attached partner (B) becomes submissive in a bid to please and seduce. Sooner or later, A feels stifled and takes distance, but if he or she ventures too far, B may threaten to go cold or give up. This in turn prompts A to flip and, for a time, to become the more enthusiastic of the pair. But the original dynamic soon re-establishes itself, until it is once again upset, and so on ad vitam æternam.
Domination and submission are elements of every relationship or almost, but that does not mean that they are not tedious, sterile, and, to echo Freud, immature. Instead of playing at cat and mouse, lovers need to be able to rise above that game, and not just by getting married. By learning to trust each other, they can dare to see each other as the fully-fledged human beings that they truly are, ends-in-themselves rather than mere means-to-an-end.
True love is about respecting, nurturing, and enabling—whatever else may happen on a Sunday—but how many people have the capacity and maturity for this kind of love?
And, of course, it takes two not to tango.
Continue Exploring
If this essay spoke to you, you might look into For Better For Worse, an unconventional exploration of romantic love, marriage, and lasting relationships. For a broader exploration of love, desire, jealousy, and the emotions that shape our lives, see Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions.
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