ravenously devours and covers with lust every impression coming from the beloved person.
The second and, indeed, the most important source of masochism is to be sought in a wide-spread phenomenon, which, though it is extraordinary and abnormal, by no means lies within the domain of sexual perversion.
I here refer to the very prevalent fact that in innumerable instances, which occur in all varieties, one individual becomes dependent on another of the opposite sex, in a very extraordinary and remarkable manner,—even to the loss of all independent will; a dependence which forces the party in subjection to acts and suffering which greatly prejudice personal interest, and often enough to offense against both morality and law.
This dependence, however, differs from the manifestations of normal life only in the intensity of the sexual feeling that here comes in play, and in the slight degree of will-power necessary for the maintenance of its equilibrium. The difference is one of intensity, not of quality, as in masochistic manifestations.
This dependence of one person upon another of the opposite sex, that is abnormal but not perverse,—a phenomena possessing great interest when regarded from a forensic stand-point,—I designate “sexual bondage;”[1] for the relations and circumstances attending it have in all respects the character of bondage. The will of the ruling individual dominates that of the person in subjection, just as a master’s does his bondsman’s.[2]
This “sexual bondage,” as has been said, is certainly an abnormal phenomenon. It begins with the first deviation from the normal. The degree of dependence of one person upon another, or of two upon each other, resulting from individual peculiarity in the intensity of motives that in themselves are
- ↑ Comp. the author’s article, “über geschlechtliche Hörigkeit und Masochismus,” in the Psychiatrischen Jahrbücher, Bd. x, p. 169 et seq., where this subject is treated in detail, and particularly from the forensic stand-point.
- ↑ The expressions “slave” and “slavery,” though often used metaphorically under such circumstances, are avoided here because they are the favorite expressions of masochism, from which this “bondage” must be strictly differentiated.
The expression “bondage” is not to be construed to mean J. S. Mill’s “Bondage of Woman.” What Mill designates with this expression are laws and customs, social and historical facts. Here, however, we always speak of facts having peculiar individual motives that even conflict with prevalent customs and laws.
