djaleksandr
Posts: 203
Joined: 3/10/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
technically speaking .... no He wasn't ... Masochism .. named after Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch ... wasn't an independent concept until the 1860's at the very earliest.... much later than de Sade was writing. It was coined by The term masochism was coined in 1886 by the Austrian psychiatrist von Krafft-Ebing after reading Masoch's literary works describing his "perversion". Technically speaking .. even "Sadism" isn't all that old The German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing introduced the terms "Sadism" and "Masochism" into the medical terminology in his work Neue Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Psychopathia sexualis ("New research in the area of Psychopathy of Sex") in 1890. quote:
As 'softness' points out, the Marquis was a writer of fiction. He was politically and, perhaps, monetarily motivated. A minor league aristocrat he also had a goal of poking fun at religious hypocrisy. His torture references, and stories, were inspired from the Inquisitor's Handbook. The fact that he sexualized torture and admitted that giving and receiving pain aroused him was what made him unique. That is, 'unique' is writing about it, and publishing it for the 'masses'. In his time sexual torture and hedonistic pleasures of the flesh was a franchise limited to the hierarchy of the Church and the ruling class. His crime was letting it be know to the general public. You can say he was the Larry Flint of his day. Creating 'buzz' for his work by making its politically incorrect subject matter. Random side-note threadjack, but a really interesting literary/psychoanalytic approach to masochism and sadism as per presentd by Sacher-Masoch and de Sade is Gilles Deluze's Coldness and Cruelty. It's in a handy dandy volume titled Masochism, and it's that essay with Venus in Furs. Not necessarily stuff I'd apply to the practice of sexual masochism and sadism in real life (though some of it, sure), but it really digs in to the political and aesthetic implications of Sacher-Masoch and de Sade's work as a form. Really great stuff. Though the hetero-normativity of Deleuze's psychoanalytic interpretation of Leopold's 'masochism' makes me kind of angry, but I digress....
< Message edited by djaleksandr -- 9/7/2008 11:30:58 PM >
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'is simplicity best, or simply the easiest? the narrowest path is always the holiest. so walk on barefoot for me, suffer some misery, if you want my love.' [ depechemode judas ]
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