THE SADOMASOCHISTIC

PERVERSION
THE SADOMASOCHISTIC
PERVERSION
THE ENTITY AND THE THEORIES

Franco De Masi

~ ~ ~~o~;~;n~~~up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published in 1999, in Italian, La perversione sadomasochistica
by Bollati Boringhieri Editore SRL
First published 2003 by Karnac Books Ltd.

Published 2018 by Routledge

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Copyright© 1999 Bollati Boringhieri editore, Torino

Franco De Masi asserts the moral right to be identified as the author

of this work.

Translated from Italian by Philip Slotkin, 2003

English Foreword © 2003 Eric Brenman

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CONTENTS

FOREWORDS
Dr Eric Brenman vii
Francesco Barale XV

CHAPT ER ONE
Introduction 1

CHAPTER TWO
A precursor 9
CHAPTER THREE
Problems of terminology and definition 13
CHAPTER FOUR
Sadomasochism and depression 21
CHAPTER FIVE
Feminine masochism, or the case of the Wolf Man 25
CHAPTER SIX
Ascetic masochism 31
CHAPTER SEVEN
The clinical area of perversion 37
Perversion and perverse-<:ompulsive sexuality
A very private case history
A tragic and exemplary tale

v
Vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER EIGHT
Theories of sadomasochistic perversion 45
Psychosexuality
The first paradigm
The second paradigm
The third paradigm
Robert Stoller's trauma theory
Some reflections on the biological aspect
CHAPTER NINE
After the theories 75
Infantile sadomasochistic fantasy
The role of the imagination in perversion
The sadomasochistic monad and the unity of opposites
Sexualization in perversion
The nature of sadomasochistic pleasure
Cruelty in sadomasochism
CHAPTER TEN
Areas of contiguity 93
Borderline structures and perverse defences
Perversion and psychosis
Criminality and perversion
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Infantile trauma and perversion 105
CHAPTER TWELVE
Final notes on the three paradigms 111
Perversion as an outcome of infantile sexuality
Continuity of normal and perverse sexuality
Aggression in perversion
Recent theories
Perversion as an act of reparation of the self
Perversion as a psychopathological organization
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Psychoanalytic therapy of the perversions 129
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Evil and pleasure: a psychoanalytic view 137
Evil
Pleasure
Destructiveness
Irreparable evil
Regression and psychic destruction
R EFER EN CES 149
INDEX 157
FOREWORDS

Dr Eric Brenman

De Masi's book, is a detailed exploration of the sadomasochistic

perversion: a dynamic, which Freud considered to be very
important, a view that is also held by many contemporary
Psychoanalysts.
De Masi considers that this highly important condition has not
been given the study and exploration, which is warranted. He was
strongly dissatisfied with the quality of the literature on this subject
and what he considers as the absence of a full investigation of the
deeper meaning of the perversion itself.
This book attempts to address this imbalance with a scholarly,
wide-ranging and detailed study. He examines the terminology
used in the analysis of sadomasochism and surveys extensively and
in detail, the theories of other psychoanalysts. He further explores
the relationship between sadomasochism and depression; its
relationship to psychosis, borderline states, and many other
conditions. He leaves very few stones unturned. He discusses the
nature of evil-reparable and irreparable-in the broadest way
possible. The reader has a rare opportunity to increase his/her
awareness of the operation of sadomasochism in clinical practice,
drawing from many diverse views, as well as those of the author.

vii
viii FOREWORDS

Although writing extensively on the diversity of sadomasochism,

the author attempts to establish a new theoretical basis of pure
sadomasochism, in which he vigorously challenges the theories of a
sexual basis of sadomasochism. He sets himself a formidable task,
and states that: "Metaphysically speaking my aim is the isolation
within a complex organism of a cell that I call the sadomasochistic
monad in which I place the mental experience of destructive
pleasure." He goes on to say that he attempts to locate a cell
containing constant basic characteristics.
De Masi recognizes the complexity and difficulty of his task. In
his criticism of the view of sexuality being the bedrock of
sadomasochism, he even goes so far as to raise the question of the
validity of an entire theory of psychoanalysis being based on
sexuality. He questions the ability of researchers to penetrate what
he calls "the intimate essence of sexuality". Later he says, "It is hard
to identify what is natural and what is learned in human sexual
behaviour." In short, he stresses the inevitable interaction which
takes place, whether we like it or not, and whether we know it or
not. His argument is compelling but I consider that this must apply
also to his attempt to isolate the sadomasochistic monad itself.
The problem I have is to work out where De Masi stands in his
evaluation of the dynamics of sadomasochism. I entirely agree with
his statement in Chapter 9 where he states "I myself regard
perversions in general, and the sadomasochistic perversion in
particular, not as the pathological accentuation of certain infantile
component drives, but as a distorted development not only of
sexuality but of the entire organization of the personality and the
mental structure. Sexualization as opposed to sexuality is equivalent
to a special kind of mental state, an early withdrawal from reality
and from relating to the world. Perversion is not a development of
infantile polymorphous sexuality but a flight and withdrawal that
begins in infancy through the production of sexualized mental
states." If this is true, as I believe it is then the isolation of the
sadomasochistic monad is a secondary consequence of the distortion
of sexuality and personality, which produces the soil from which
sadomasochism can flourish, isolated from human considerations.
The only other difference from my way of thinking, and perhaps
the thinking of many Kleinian colleagues, is that in our view, not
only is there a withdrawal from reality, but there is destruction of
 FOREWORDS ix

the perception of reality; such destruction is often exacerbated by

deprivation, which in tum stimulates further destructiveness, a
view which I believe DeMasi does actually share. It is a view, which
gives weight to the attacks on humanizing object relationships
however limited these may be. The other minor point which I
would like to add is that his reference to sexualized mental states
(quoting from Meltzer) might be more meaningfully described as
sensuous states which obliterate object relationships from aware-
ness, in such a way as to insist that human relationships play no
part. I say this because I very much applaud in his work, not the
isolation of the sadomasochistic monad, but the linking of
sadomasochism with the elimination of human object relationships.
At the same time I have in studying his work, come round to
seeing the value of an attempt to isolate this monad. In all sciences,
whether this is astronomy, biology or even theoretical physics, we
both isolate a factor and study interaction. No man is an island, yet
at the same time he is a unique individual. Pluralism and
individuality exist side by side.
The further complication in human behaviour is that two
systems also exist-the inevitable composition of our genetic
primitive nature together with the powerful forces of humanization,
love and concern and the awareness of the importance of what
seems to be ethical, right and true-and the conflict between them
which ensues. From my point of view I find this most meaningfully
expressed in the constant interaction between the paranoid schizoid
and depressive positions-the bedrock of Kleinian analysis. In this
we require an appropriate respect for each component- a respect
for the primitive, its position, its value and the realization of how
impoverished we would be without these passions, and equally, the
attachment to strong human values, which modify these primitive
processes, is of absolute importance. The consequence of this leads
to a limited resolvable task of being both full blooded with
minimum violation of precious values, and the pursuit of truth
without sanctimonious unreality. In this task, which is always
imperfectly resolved, reparation takes place with the knowledge
that a final unconflicting solution can never be achieved. I am
unable to pursue a study of perversion without this backcloth.
I cannot do justice to the extensive erudite account of perversion
so well presented in this book. I shall restrict myself to three main
X FOREWORDS

issues, which I consider to be important and invite comment.

Firstly, the validity of an approximation to truth of the isolated
monad. Secondly, the value and consequence of being aware of this
monad, and thirdly the resolution or corruption which takes place
in the conflict between naked passion and human values.
1. Although I do not believe that we can isolate this monad with
total accuracy (and nor does De Masi in the later chapters of his
book), the operation of this propensity is clearly observable. The
pleasure of destructiveness albeit with different levels of intensity, is
ubiquitously present-for example the attraction of victorious
football teams and other competitive sports etc. are universal
operations, which ordinarily are practised within limits imposed by
human values. As with humour, which Freud linked with sadism.
It is generally agreed that the excess of pleasure in human
destructiveness may be in inverse proportion to the weakness of
love of human commitment as a concomitant. It does not seem
enough to say that the pleasures of triumph in beating the
opposition would not occur if there were full human development.
Not to enjoy some competitive rivalry (which may even be holier
than thou) would be an artefact. We would have to abandon our
belief in the Oedipus complex if this were so. For me the evidence
for the operation of this monad is ubiquitous. Those who are ardent
fundamentalists and who believe in absolute purity do enough
damage to those who do not agree with them! Those who postulate
that pleasure in triumph would not take place if absolute purity
were to be achieved are like those analysts who believe that one can
totally eliminate problems instead of the analysis strengthening the
self to cope and enjoy dealing with the vicissitudes of life-a claim
which Freud put paid to in Analysis Terminable and Interminable.
2. The main thrust of psychoanalysis is the task of getting to
know ourselves, where we learn that we are in some ways much
worse, and in some ways much better than we think we are. What is
particularly germane to this book is knowing about our sadistic
pleasure in triumph and destruction that in some way makes us
more alive, and in other ways can be the death of so much as well.
In Greek tragedy, the source and inspiration of much psycho-
analytic exploration, this matter is so aptly addressed in the Bachae,
Euripides last play, written when he was more than 80 years old,
Euripides deals with the advent of the appearance of the God,
 FOREWORDS xi

Dionysus, the god of lust, wine, triumph and destructive pleasure,

who declares that he must be acknowledged as a god, demands to be
worshipped and claims "You ignore me at your peril". The arrogant
King of Thebes, disregards him, with frightful consequences.
Disastrous consequences also result in those who indulge in the
Bacchanalian orgy; those carried away in uncritical indulgence. The
two wise persons, who escape this fate, are Cadmus and Thierisus,
who acknowledge the Bacchanalian rite, and retain their wisdom
and understanding, and have their feet firmly planted on the
ground. The moral is quite clear that we both need to know (+K)
and value and deal with our primitive drives and to keep alive our
belief in goodness. The philosopher, Nietzsche, in his celebrated
writing on the birth of tragedy, argued that tragedy was born out of
the primitive source of base human instincts, uninhibited and
expressed in Dionysean rituals. As we know he became taken over
by these ideas and danced naked in Pagan jubilation and never
recovered his sanity. It seems that he brilliantly reached contact
with the primitive but lacked a container /helpmate, which could
help him through to regain his sanity.
3. This cautionary tale is all important clinically-to expose
oneself to these primitive destructive forces one must have ones feet
firmly planted in another truth, namely the power and strength of
human relationships and understanding, and not have ones feet
firmly planted in the clouds, or planted in the belief that the
discovery of data and theory alone is sufficient to cope with the
powerful vicissitudes of life. To this thought I would like to give
Freud the last word with his references to having the strength to
meet the contingencies of life. In his seminal paper, Mourning and
Melancholia, he cites the difference between mourning and
melancholia, when he describes the mourner as going through all
sorts of destructive madness, but coming through in the end
because the mourner keeps alive (with the help of others) the good
object which is lost in the external world but is introjected and forms
part of the resources which heal and overcome destructive madness.
In contrast in melancholia (really manic depression) the subject does
not know what he has lost, and only has omnipotence, destruc-
tiveness available "to keep him warm".
It is clearly implied by Freud that whether the outcome is to be
the successful working through of mourning, or melancholia
xii FOREWORDS

(manic/ depression), depends upon the access to valued good

loving experience or not. This in tum depends upon whether the
person in question knows that such a humanizing object is needed.
Applying this understanding to DeMasi's account of sadomaso-
chistic practice could be useful. De Masi writes: "In sadomasochism
by contrast to ordinary sexuality which is bilateral, only one
protagonist must experience all the pleasure; the more the sadist's
partner has no pleasure or experiences unpleasure, the more
satisfied he is. The sadist is aroused by domination and the
masochist by submission." De Masi states that he introduces the
sadomasochistic monad to describe the fusional fantasy of one party
having all the experiences and the other identifying with the sadist.
It does seem to me that one party has all the meaning and the other
is of no significance.
The monad (ultimate unity, the deity) is not in life a thing in
itself, which totally generates all fulfilments. This monad does not
have intercourse in the give and take sense and there is no cross
fertilization and subsequent creativity. Indeed whatever the claims
of the sadist may be in having it all and being it all he needs another
to validate the corruption that he the sadist is everything and
entitled to be supplied with everything: a corruption that
concomitantly asserts that the masochist is worthless and con-
tributes nothing and who only becomes worthwhile by identifying
with the sadist.
The pervert, perverts the truth and the course of justice. He
steals the love of the other whose judgement is perverted to believe
that the cruel manic triumph is far superior to the human creative
intercourse; it is this creative intercourse which achieves mutual
appreciation. In clinical practice the analyst is the target of the
pervert's propaganda and is designated the role of giving up the
analysts belief and worshipping the false monad/God.
This power cannot be over estimated. It occupies the role of the
harsh superego, sometimes called the super superego. In this case
the judgement of the superego is to demand unconditional
surrender to this edict and the depressed person is not helped to
repair damage but to declare his worthlessness and unfitness to live.
No one completely escapes this, and I agree with De Masi who I
understand considers that no one is without this pleasure in
destruction. It is knowing this and realistically valuing the
 FOREWORDS xiii

achievement of loving intercourse, which modifies this corrupting

monad.
Still giving Freud the last word, I want to link this with De
Masi's work on the corruption of the truth. In favourable
circumstances, the struggle between love and hate, good and bad,
may hopefully result in the good gaining ascendancy. The
consequence is guilt, partial reparation, mourning and rebuilding.
The task, which we all have to face, is coping with the corruption.
De Masi implies that a corruption takes place under the flag of
sexuality which has creation and loving implications, but this
becomes corrupted in sensual delight which harnesses the omni-
potent destruction, where the sadist appropriates all significance
and denies meaning in the other.
This book covers such a wide range, which provokes creative
thinking, an essential feature that enables us to explore the power of
sadomasochism, with the recognition of the need for and efficacy of
creative endeavour. It is a truly revealing study, which is a
considerable contribution to the understanding of the omnipresent
factor of sadomasochism.

Dr Eric Brenman,
former President of British Psychoanalytical Society.
Francesco Barale

"Hate, as a relation to objects, is older than love"

Freud, 1915c, p. 139

''Dell'Amor piu desto e l'odio

le sue vittime a colpir,
[Hate is quicker than love
to strike down its victims,]
Somma, libretto of Verdi's opera Un ballo in maschera,
Act 1, Scene 1 (aria: "Alia vita che t'arride . . .")

"Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You

can't reduce me to a set of influences. You've given up good
and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You've got
everybody in moral dignity pants-nothing is ever any-
body's fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to
say I'm evil? Am I evil, Officer Starling?"
"I think you've been destructive. For me it's the same
thing." "Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's
that simple [. ..]."
Harris, 1988, p. 16

XV
xvi FOREWORDS

Hate-the hate of the first two of the above quotations-is indeed

very far from the sadomasochism of Franco DeMasi's study, one of
whose many theses is that hate, a strong feeling directed towards an
object, does not lie at the root of the sadomasochistic perversion, and
is not even a component of it.
It is not hate that fuels sadistic destructiveness.
To the true perverse sadist, absolutely nothing matters about his
victim as such-except, precisely, that he should be nullified and a
victim. The true sadist does not hate that victim nor, through him
and in his stead, and by some mysterious transference or false
connection, does he hate any other more or less primal object.
In this respect (apart from the importance of "trauma", which is
admittedly recognized but in no way held to be "fundamental"), Dr
De Masi's thought diverges radically from other prominent
contemporary theories; for example, those of an author such as
Stoller (who sees perversion as the "erotic form of hatred"), to
which they bear some (but not many) resemblances.
However, sadomasochism involves still less the passions of
melodrama-let alone those of Verdi's plots-which are replete not
only with hate but also with love, jealousy, power, longing, and the
like.
Indeed, what is perhaps even more unexpected-at least to a
reader unfamiliar with Franco De Masi's tenacious exploration of
the perverse dimension, which has extended over many years-is
that, in his view, neither love nor sex seems to have anything to do
with it. Any theatre of the passions, be they "red" or "black",
already lies, in his view, outside the boundaries of the perverse
scene proper.
Dr DeMasi's theory of the sexual perversions, or at least of the
sadomasochistic perversion, is paradoxically not sexual, not erotic
and, I would say, not object-related.
The innovation here, although one might be inclined to believe
otherwise, does not lie in his placing the roots of sadomasochism
outside the realm of sexuality. That is in fact an old idea: from the
beginnings of psychoanalysis, when the first edition of Freud's Three
Essays on the Theory of Sexuality was published in 1905, the problem
of destructiveness, cruelty and hate (and the associated problem of
sadomasochism) had seemed to Freud to be metapsychologically
non-reducible to that of sexuality.
 FOREWORDS xvii

Freud never solved the problem of sadomasochism within the

Sexualtheorie, even before the turning point of 1920-1924: "love and
hate[... ] do not after all stand in any simple relation to each other.
They did not arise from the cleavage of any common entity, but
sprang from different sources, and had each its own development"
(Freud, 1915c, p. 138).
The excess of infantile cruelty and sadistic destructiveness in
relation to sexuality gave rise to a number of different notions and
conceptualizations in the development of Freud's thought.
This is not the place to review these changes of perspective. As it
happens, Dr De Masi alludes to them himself in his study,
emphasizing in particular the major turning point of 1920-1924
(Beyond the Pleasure Principle and "The economic problem of
masochism")-that is, the central position that Freud gradually
came to assign to the death drive when he found himself unable to
derive these phenomena from any "psychological" source. How-
ever, he also contends that this turning point is not reflected in the
subsequent literature, apart from a few Kleinian and post-Kleinian
developments. The specificity of Franco DeMasi's theory lies rather
in his radical separation of sadistic destructiveness from the
development of psychosexuality (and of the relational world).
In the Freudian vision, sadistic destructiveness, which is not
reducible to psychosexuality (and to the construction of the world of
relationships, of which psychosexual development is the matrix), is
in itself essentially "silent". It is expressed through "numerous
links" with sexuality, which it places in its service (although the
converse is also the case); it is therefore found mixed with sexuality
in infinitely varying proportions, contributes to the characterization
of the various libidinal phases, and plays an important part in the
construction of the relational world and its vicissitudes. Mixed with
sexuality, it becomes a fundamental ingredient of mental life, of the
intersubjective dimension and of fantasy.
In the vicissitudes of object cathexis, in the form of "appropria-
tion" and domination of the object, it paradoxically contributes to
the possibility of binding excitation and working through trauma.
In metapsychological terms, this constitutes the link with the later
"relational" and traumatic theories of sadomasochism (what Dr De
Masi calls the "second paradigm" adduced to explain the
sadomasochistic perversion, the first being the Sexualtheorie). This
xviii FOREWORDS

link has indeed been neglected, since the "relational" theories have
largely abandoned the drive-based and economic standpoint (as
well as metapsychology).
By instead presenting a radically non-erotic theory of perversion,
Dr De Masi proceeds backwards along Freud's route, as it were
undoing his progress step by step. The sadomasochistic perversion
is unequivocally detached from the background of Freud's
Sexualtheorie (and indeed also from the "development of the libido"
as described by Abraham (1916), who attributed such importance to
the sadistic, anal, and oral dimensions and to ambivalence towards
objects; Franco De Masi is, as it happens, an eager student of
Abraham).
In fact, Dr DeMasi points out that the explanatory basis of the
Sexualtheorie, from Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
right down to its most up-to-date versions, is misleading: precisely
the thesis of the fusion of the drives has facilitated the adoption of
"continuist" and "minimalist" positions on perversion, thereby
making it possible to avoid a serious theoretical and clinical
confrontation with the problems posed by perverse destructiveness
as an entity fundamentally antagonistic to sexuality and object
cathexis.
That is no small matter. After all, the Sexualtheorie is the back-
ground against which psychoanalytic consideration of the perverse
dimension arose and developed, under the banner of the discovery
of a continuity between the vicissitudes of psychosexuality-the
neuroses and the perversions-and of the realization that the roots
of our mental life lie in the experience of pleasure and that the
perverse nucleus is omnipresent in human sexuality (which, by its
very nature, takes the form of an excess or discrepancy, "something
over and above" the pure biological function).
A climate replete with humours and passions is thus not
discernible in Dr De Masi's descriptions of the universe of the
sadomasochistic perversion. There is no mixture of libido and
destrudo; no human dialectic of life and death, of objects that are
controlled or manipulated or hated or attacked or faecalized or even
destroyed because they are also loved and necessary; no primal
scene, no dominating but impossible Oedipus complex; no regres-
sion or fixation to ambivalent positions; and no contiguity between
"normal" and "perverse" sexuality. The tragedy does not, as in the
 FOREWORDS XiX

well known line from Verdi's opera Un ballo in maschera, turn into
comedy.
Dr De Masi often cites the dissolute world of the Marquis de
Sade and the later perverse contract of Sacher-Masoch as literary
examples (but perhaps, with regard to the pleasure of the pure, cold
domination of others, the pleasure of the destructive sexualized
triumph over relationality, dependence and love-a very important
theme in his theory-he could also have mentioned Choderlos de
Laclos's extraordinary Dangerous Acquaintances). Here, though, we
are if anything in the world of Diirrenmatt's Durcheinandertal-the
"valley of chaos" pervaded by a primary, irremediable destruc-
tiveness that lies just beneath the apparent order of things.
Franco De Masi's research thus possesses an originality that
distinguishes it from the psychoanalytic tradition in general and
from the work of the Italian analysts who have delved into
perversion in recent decades. In his view, the assumption of any
continuity between sadomasochistically tinged relationships and
actual sadomasochistic perversion is confusing. The confusion
results precisely from the "continuist" and "minimalist" attitude,
and conceals the difficulty of confronting the destructive essence of
the sadomasochistic perversion proper.
However, acceptance of this discontinuity would force us to
embrace the difficult task of questioning many of the idees re~ues of
psychoanalysis. Dr De Masi's voice certainly stands out from the
chorus and deserves a hearing.
The theoretical and clinical implications are far-reaching. If the
sadomasochistic perversion is deemed radically different in its
essence, origin, development and consequences from sexuality and
from the construction of the world of objects (and indeed radically
opposed to them), then it cannot be held to possess any significance
in terms of development from prior phases or positions, or of
regression when the onward path is blocked, or of a defensive
anchorage against the slide into something worse.
From this point of view, no legitimacy can be accorded to a
statement such as the following (by Ismond Rosen), which Dr De
Masi cites as an example of the "minimalist" mistakes resulting
from the theory of the "mixture" of libido and destrudo and of the
mitigation of cruelty by sexuality (as well as from the confusion
between "aggression" and "destructiveness"): "Danger occurs