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Masochism, a many leveled, controversial, much investigated concept in psychoanalytic theory, initially viewed by Krafft-Ebing19 solely in terms of sexual perversion, ultimately perceived by Freud13 14 as an essentially instinctual or biological phenomenon, explored by others as embedded in cultural,15 17 defensive,4 23 28 adaptive,5 even normal6 8 29 processes insofar as motivational pattern is concerned—permeates a massive portion of human behavior.
Whether sanctified in religious practices as embodied in aspects of the Christian ethic, in mortification and its most extreme variant, asceticism; or institutionalized in the passively endured personal and mass desolation of warfare; or evidenced in the tenets of medieval court chivalry wherein “courtesy” demanded complete acceptance of the unattainability of the female, in elaborate rituals of unrequited love, clearly the precursor to modern, romantic love; or exalted in the lyrical, though morbid, often necrophiliac torrents of the Romantic movement; or inhering in the very texture of western civilization wherein, in its beginnings, society was so structured that some groups of men were submissively obeisant to other groups in power, which had its full flowering in the fascist ideology—masochistic phenomena remain a disturbing accompaniment of the human condition.
Masochism as a psychological concept was first described by Krafft-Ebing, who, in his investigation of deviant sexual behavior, considered masochism a perversion, one in which erotic pleasure is obtained from one's passive, willing acquiescence, or even seeking out of brutal, humiliating responses from another. The term had been