to subdue absolutely the object of desire, even to destroy or kill it.[1][2]
If both these constituent elements occur together,—the abnormally intensified impulse to a violent reaction toward the object of the stimulus, and the abnormally intensified desire to conquer the woman,—then the most violent outbreaks of sadism occur.
Sadism is thus nothing else than an excessive and monstrous pathological intensification of phenomena,—possible, too, in normal conditions in rudimental forms,—which accompany the psychical vita sexualis, particularly in males. It is, of course, not at all necessary, and not even the rule, that the sadistic individual should be conscious of his instinct. What he feels is, as a rule, only the impulse to cruel and violent treatment of the opposite sex, and the coloring of the idea of such acts with lustful feelings. Thus arises a powerful impulse to commit the imagined deeds. When the actual motive of this instinct is not comprehended by the individual, the sadistic acts have the character of impulsive deeds.
When the association of lust and cruelty is present, not only does the lustful emotion awaken the impulse to cruelty, but vice versâ; cruel ideas and acts cause sexual excitement, and in this way are used by perverse individuals.[3]
- ↑ The conquest of woman takes place to-day in the social form of courting, in seduction and deception. From the history of civilization and anthropology we know that there have been times, as there are savages to-day that practice it, where brutal force, robbery, or even blows that made a woman powerless, were made use of to obtain love’s desire. It is possible that tendencies to such outbreaks of sadism are atavistic.
- ↑ In the Jahrbücher für Psychologie, ii, p. 128, Schäfer (Jena) refers to the reports of two cases by A. Payer. In the first case states of great sexual excitement were induced by the sight of battles or of paintings of them; in the second, by cruel torturing of small animals (vide Case 24). Itis added: “The pleasure of battle and murder is so predominantly an attribute of the male sex throughout the animal kingdom, that there can be no question about the close relation existing between this side of the masculine character and male sexuality. I believe, too, that by unprejudiced observation I can show that, in men who are absolutely normal mentally and physically, the first indefinite and incomprehensible precursors of sexual excitement may be induced by reading exciting scenes of the chase and war,—i.e., they give rise to unconscious longings for a kind of satisfaction in warlike games (wrestling), in which, also, the fundamental sexual impulse to the most perfect and intense contact with a companion is expressed, with the more or less clearly defined secondary thought of conquest.”
- ↑ It sometimes happens that an accidental sight of blood, etc., is what first excites the preformed psychical mechanism of the sadistic individual, and awakens the instinct.
