The Five Faces of Masochism

The Five Faces of Masochism would, understandably, suggest to the reader that there are but five - no more and no less - forms or manifestations of that certain peculiar facet of human behavior, or misbehavior, to which Richard von Krafft-Ebing in the latter part of the nineteenth century gave the name of masochism. Such a suggestion, it should be stressed at the very outset of this work, is not intended to be anything other than one of convenience - the "masochistic scale" of five simply meaning to reflect the degree or severity of masochistic tendencies and should not be allowed to dominate the reader's thought as anything other than a comparative aid. Suffice it to say that, in the opinion of this author, the majority of people - the psychological median, so to speak - would probably fall within "masochism one" and "sadism one" range. Somewhere between these two, at "zero," the masochistic and the sadistic inclinations are in a state of equilibrium, or, to put it in other words, are both weak and simultaneously equal, thereby canceling each other out. As one ascends, or descends, the abstract scale in either direction toward "severity five," the misbehavioral aspects of the individual's condition rapidly approach a psychopathological state. A condition of extreme masochism or of extreme sadism - "severity five," that is - is a relatively rare state of psychosis and is not included in this work. It would not be improper to say that those unfortunate souls who fall within those narrow ranges of psychopathology are seldom available to a private-practice psychiatrist, primarily because "masochist five" is quite often dead, whereas "sadist five" is either in the asylum or is incarcerated.