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I suggest a number of factors which, in the course of feminine development, predispose to erotogenic or moral masochism. These include: (1) early identification with a mother who has a negative or depreciatory attitude toward her body, genitals, and femininity; (2) the narcissistic injury generated by the discovery of genital differences from the male with the concomitant fantasy that the female is deficient in that respect; (3) the anatomical closeness of the genital and rectal-anal area contributing to confusion, uncertainty, and displacement of attitudes about anality to the female genitals, with consequent devaluation of the female genitals and the sensations and pleasure derived therefrom; (4) greater parental and societal controlling attitudes, excessive frustration and interference with self-assertive and autonomous behavior of females (this would be especially significant during the separation-individuation process); (5) inner-directedness with special reference to aggression and sadism.
The objection may be raised that all I have said restates earlier positions regarding the development of masochistic tendencies in women and is based on the ubiquitous unconscious myth and concept of women as inferior, castrated males. It may further be claimed that my suggestions are based on clinical material derived from the analyses of neurotic and therefore not normal women. It is true that we derive much, but not all, of our clinical understanding of what constitutes the normal personality and its development from a study of the failures of normal development, but it does help us to recognize lesser degrees of those elements in the "normal" personality, to define the continuum between normality and pathology and the more or less adaptive outcomes of feminine development. As