Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

SEXUAL DEVIATIONdanger to the community. It has thus come about that,though algolagnic phenomena of this kind may be tracedfar back in the history of civilization, masochism was notregarded as a definite perversion until Krafft-Ebing presentedhis masterly exposition of its characteristics in hisPsychopathic, Sexualis. Sadism, closely related as it is tomasochism on the biological and psychological sides, has avery different social and medico-legal significance. Thoughat one end its variations range from so innocent and normala manifestation as the love-bite, they extend to themost serious and dangerous anti-social acts as illustratedby the notorious case of "Jack the Ripper,"the extremetype of a group of cases, not so very uncommon, which involvewounding from erotic motives, though by no meansalways murder. (This class of cases was especially studiedby Lacassagne.) In another important group of cases,schoolmasters, mistresses, and other persons in authorityover children and servant girls torture their charges fromsadistic motives.Sadism ismanifested both by men and women. Masochismis more especially found in men; this may be in partbecause in women a certain degree of sexual subjection,the primary stage of masochism, may fairly be regarded asalmost normal, and in part because (asMoll pointed out)masochism being largely due to an attempt to attain asubstitute or a stimulus for an enfeebled potency, women,who are normally more passive in the sexual act, do notrequire it.Sadism and masochism, as has already been said, do notexhaust the manifestations of algolagnia. In the largesense, algolagnia is a great sub-division of erotic symbolism,and it includes all the cases in which sexual pleasureor in simula-is associated, actively or passively, in realitytion or in imagination, with pain, anger, fear, anxiety,