celebrated, or notorious, French writer, C. P. Baudelaire, who died insane.
Baudelaire came of an insane and eccentric family. From his youth he was mentally abnormal. His vita sexualis was decidedly abnormal. He had love-affairs with ugly, repulsive women,—negresses, dwarfs, giantesses. About a very beautiful woman, he expressed the wish to see her hung up by her hands, and to kiss her feet. This enthusiasm for the naked foot also appears in one of his glowing poems as the equivalent of sexual indulgence. He said women were animals who had to be shut up, beaten, and fed well. The man displaying these masochistic and sadistic inclinations died of paretic dementia. (Lombroso, “The Man of Genius.”)
In scientific literature, the conditions that constitute masochism have not received attention until recently. All there is to mention is that Tarnowsky (“die Krankhaften Erscheinungen des Geschlechtssinns,” Berlin, 1886) relates that he has known happily married, intellectual men, who from time to time felt an irresistible impulse to subject themselves to the coarsest, cynical treatment,—to scoldings or blows from passive or active pederasts, or prostitutes. It is worthy of remark that, in Tarnowsky’s observation, in certain cases blows, even when they draw blood, do not bring the result desired (virility, or at least ejaculation during flagellation) by those given to passive flagellation. “The individual must then be undressed by force, his hands tied, fastened to a bench, etc., during which he fancies that he makes opposition, scolds, and pretends to resist. Only under such circumstances do the blows induce excitement that leads to ejaculation.”
O. Zimmermann’s work, “Die Wonne des Leids,” Leipzig, 1885, also contributes much to this subject,[1] taken from the history and literature.
Of late the subject has been given much attention.
- ↑ However, the domain of masochism must be sharply differentiated from the principal subject of that work, which is, that love contains an element of suffering. Unrequited love has always been described as “sweet, but sorrowful;” and poets have spoken of “blissful pain” or “painful bliss.” This must not, as it is by Z., be confounded with the manifestations of masochism, any more than the characterization of an unyielding lover as “cruel” should be. It is remarkable, however, that Hamerling (“Amor und Psyche,” iv, Gesang) uses perfect masochistic pictures, flagellation, etc., to express this feeling.
