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You mean if i am masochistic i am not submissive or vice versa?

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ORIGINAL: RiotGirl

Can a submissive be a masochist and not know it?

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ORIGINAL: MistressDREAD

woman: pinch your left arm
between your elbow and hand
very very hard and hold it for
two minutes. If you start to feel
your clitoris jump or get wet
you tend to be masochist in nature
and your body responds positively
to pain. If however you do NOT
feel any thing below you are NOT
masochist in nature and need NOT
be in volved with any S/M play as
it will not gain you any pleasures.

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ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster

Masochists are aroused not simply by pain, but by sexualized pain.

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(Or go to hogtied.com and see whether the videos arouse you--if you don't want to pay for access, you can see many free clips at bdsmvideos.net.)

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ORIGINAL: MemphisDsCouple

Just to set the record straight.....

While masochism is often associated with sexuality, I believe it is not necessarily so. For example, there are people with clinical-level problems who burn themselves with cigarets and otherwise torture themselves. My understanding is that punishing themselves through self inflicted torture makes them feel that they have made amends somehow for themselves, so they feel better. I think this is an example of nonsexual masochism. Some people go on "self-destruct" in their careers or personal lives on a consistent basis. I think these people are probably nonsexual masochists. I believe the diligent researcher will find this concept to be accurate.

My opinion, based on a good deal of study, observation and experience: I think masochism and sadism, as well as dominance and submission are personality traits found throughout the human species. In other words, we all have some of all four within us, just as we all possess (in varying degrees) such traits as leadership, herd mentality, kindness, cruelty..... and so on. The degree within each of us varies from person to person. How all these different traits coalesce is a big part of what makes us each a distinct individual. Just as we can be kind one day, and cruel the next - or even in the same day - so the existence of one trait does not preclude the existence of another within us.

Finally: I presume the post about pinching the arm and pulling the hair was written tongue-in-cheek as a joke. The thing is, we never know when someone will read something like that and actually believe it.

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Maybe the test was intended as a joke, but I've heard similar things that were meant seriously.

I don't agree with you about sadism and masochism for a couple of reasons. First, when the terms were invented (by the nineteenth-century psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, in his famous book Psychopathia Sexualis), they were intended to refer specifically to sexual pathologies, in other words sexual perversions. Someone who simply enjoys pain in a diffuse, non-sexualized way would never have been categorized as a "masochist." In fact, even enjoying pain during sex was also not necessarily enough; Krafft-Ebing, for example, believed that it was natural for women to be passive and submissive during sex, so (as far as he was concerned) it was normal for women to enjoy some measure of pain during sex. It became a matter of masochism, in other words pathology, only when the subject pursued painful sex for the pain itself. By his definitions, therefore, many of us on this site probably are sadists and masochists, but those people who also enjoy vanilla sex and occasionally dabble in S & M would not have been considered abnormal.

Now, you may respond that we're not obliged to follow the bizarre definitions of a nineteenth-century psychiatrist, but that raises another problem: the terms "sadism" and "masochism" don't really refer to anything absolute; they're simply cultural icons that have been used (and abused--"deployed," as Foucault would say) in various times by various people for various agendas. I personally don't think it makes much sense to call people who enjoy non-sexualized pain "masochists" because using that word obscures more than it explains. Unless you mean to say that someone is genuinely diseased--and I don't believe anyone on this site can truly believe that we're all diseased--"masochism" in today's speech doesn't really mean anything other than enjoying pain in a way that most other people don't. That's subjective and hugely confusing.

Lam

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ORIGINAL: MemphisDsCouple

Just to set the record straight.....

While masochism is often associated with sexuality, I believe it is not necessarily so. For example, there are people with clinical-level problems who burn themselves with cigarets and otherwise torture themselves. My understanding is that punishing themselves through self inflicted torture makes them feel that they have made amends somehow for themselves, so they feel better. I think this is an example of nonsexual masochism. Some people go on "self-destruct" in their careers or personal lives on a consistent basis. I think these people are probably nonsexual masochists. I believe the diligent researcher will find this concept to be accurate.

My opinion, based on a good deal of study, observation and experience: I think masochism and sadism, as well as dominance and submission are personality traits found throughout the human species. In other words, we all have some of all four within us, just as we all possess (in varying degrees) such traits as leadership, herd mentality, kindness, cruelty..... and so on. The degree within each of us varies from person to person. How all these different traits coalesce is a big part of what makes us each a distinct individual. Just as we can be kind one day, and cruel the next - or even in the same day - so the existence of one trait does not preclude the existence of another within us.

Finally: I presume the post about pinching the arm and pulling the hair was written tongue-in-cheek as a joke. The thing is, we never know when someone will read something like that and actually believe it.

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ORIGINAL: ShadeDiva

Memphis, thank you for doing the definitions as that was going to be my angle too lol.

Sexual masochism is not the same thing as masochism.

Pleasure does not automatically equate SEXUAL pleasure.

I'm a masochist. Even more, I'm an odd and from what I can tell, a rare masochist as in that I can process this on a conscious level, in other words I have the ability to take pain and change how my brain interpetes the signal.

I can make it a sexual thing or just a nice thing. I rarely decide to make it sexual but then BDSM isn't a sexual thing for me (and no - I do not see a difference between s/m and d/s unlike how the mass majority seems to prefer to do), and yanno maybe that makes talking with me that little bit more of an effort but hey *I* happen to think I'm worth it. *wink* hehehe

You can be a sadist and not realize it as you can be a masochist and not realize it (both apply to me and I was unaware of either really) - and there are levels and levels to being a sadist or a masochist, and news flash not all are limited to physical pain either.

You like pushing their buttons and making them squirm in torment of some type, chances are, you are a type of sadist. If they enjoy that, egads - they are a type of masochist. Nothing wrong with either, IMO.

Communication was never and will never exist to make things easier - it takes work, and always will.

JMO.

~ShadeDiva