A biography of Sacher-Masoch is given and the literature reviewed from Krafft-Ebing through Freud, in an effort to answer the questions: (1) Is pain the real end, or what is the source of gratification in masochism? (2) Why is the same name, 'masochism', given to the comparatively rare sexual perversion and to the very common, apparently non-sexual, moral masochism?

Berliner concludes: (1) The suffering is not an end in itself but is merely the price paid for gratification of the masochist's infantile desires due to pregenital fixation on blows from a love object. (2) The sexual perversion is a genitalized moral masochism.