Who Could Be a Masochist?

The masochist is a conscious manipulator, not a victim. The romantic masochist is looking for, and will initiate, a controlled scenario that includes bondage (real or imagined) and pseudo-domination. The male masochist always remains a man even after intense erotic humiliation, and a man’s involvement in masochism could be a symbolic way to put his masculinity into danger, just in order to test and possibly fulfill himself as a man. Mens unacknowledged masochism is an undiscovered underworld, waiting for the arrival of the Lady Sadist and her exploration, and benign exploitation, of him.

Masochists are frequently people of great inner strength, people with ideals, strong egos able to "cope." and with a great sense of individual responsibility. These are the very qualities that would make their masochism a necessary and understandable balancing mechanism in their psyche. In metamorphosing pain or humiliation into pleasure, we can help prevent a one-sided attitude: too much belief in our own competence, too much faith in our own abilities. Some people call this attitude one-sided arrogance; others, pride. The ancient Greeks called it “hubris” and considered it an offense against their gods. Can we consider masochism, then, to be a cure for the hubristic, for those with one-sided egos, and for people who are about to drown in their own accomplishments? Shouldn't we then look at masochism as a cathartic experience rather than an unnatural desire? Could we also say that masochism is a natural product of the soul, which will bring forward its own vision and subsequent cure?

Masochism is not about what people do on their own; for masochism to be effective, it must involve another person, real or imaginary. It must have collusion to be realized. It is about an alternative kind of logic, an atmosphere charged with dangerous seduction. The masochist seeks someone or something that embodies all the things that seem bigger than he is, someone or something worth worshiping. A person with a very successful career or happy life may occasionally want to feel how small he is. Masochism is a sexual state as well as an emotional one, and masochistic fantasies include rape fantasies, resistance scenes, unrequited love, desires for sexual encounters with a person who can physically overpower one, or the "Cruel Woman" or "Lady Sadist" fantasies.