![A man bites down on a staff while another pokes his skimpily covered genitals. Bound with his arms behind his back in a Japanese-style chest harness, his skin shows obvious signs of welting.
Masochistic desires are some of the hardest to depict accurately because the artists walk a line so close to false victimization. While subjective, many distinctions for me can be found in a bottom’s posture and pose, not their face. The man’s open legs and curled toes in this drawing are instant indicators that maybe he’s actually enjoying himself.
Sadly, rather than being considered legitimate, desires like masochism and submission have been pathologized by the simplistic view that pain is always bad and a loss of control is intrinsically weakening. The medicalization of this misguided belief began in 1886 when Austrian psychiatrist Krafft-Ebbing set the stage using words like “violence” in his influential work, Psychopathia Sexualis. He also segregated masochism and sadism into “active” and “passive” roles, terminology still widely used today:
The perfect counterpart of masochism is sadism. While in the former there is a desire to suffer and be subjected to violence, in the latter the wish is to inflict pain and use violence. The parallelism is perfect. All the acts and situations used by the sadist in the active role become the object of the desire of the masochist in the passive role.
I find this language flawed to the point of adulteration. BDSM relationships may be violent, but they do not embody violence. In disavowing the legitimate pleasure that is often found in pain (whether sexual or not), it casts focus away from a complex reality and onto a false dichotomy of violator and violated inappropriately imbued with a repressive morality. As Ranat explains, not even the addition of consent can fully reform this worldview:
Consent is a factor, not to be trivialized, but is not the defining factor.
[To] declare consent the defining factor between abuse and BDSM relationships is to say that abuse is the exact same thing as dominance, submission, bondage and sadomasochism, only without consent. And it is to say the reverse: That BDSM is the exact same thing as abuse, only with consent.
And itÿs not. [?] That the logistics of giving and obeying an order, of binding and being bound, of an object hitting flesh might superficially resemble each other, is irrelevant.
Despite the fact that earlier works such as the Kama Sutra contained references to “consensual erotic slapping”, Krafft-Ebbing’s writing encouraged generations to shame people with masochistic or sadistic desires into silence and, consequently, isolation. Pain is not so dissimilar from pleasure and a notion of letting go of one’s own control is a critical component of rejuvenating, healing experiences for many people in countless circumstances.
-maymay
derekisme:
japanese (homo)erotic, and s & m, art](https://web.archive.org/web/20160313061219im_/http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kuzyphOofj1qzs83zo1_r2_500.jpg)
A man bites down on a staff while another pokes his skimpily covered genitals. Bound with his arms behind his back in a Japanese-style chest harness, his skin shows obvious signs of welting.
Masochistic desires are some of the hardest to depict accurately because the artists walk a line so close to false victimization. While subjective, many distinctions for me can be found in a bottom’s posture and pose, not their face. The man’s open legs and curled toes in this drawing are instant indicators that maybe he’s actually enjoying himself.
Sadly, rather than being considered legitimate, desires like masochism and submission have been pathologized by the simplistic view that pain is always bad and a loss of control is intrinsically weakening. The medicalization of this misguided belief began in 1886 when Austrian psychiatrist Krafft-Ebbing set the stage using words like “violence” in his influential work, Psychopathia Sexualis. He also segregated masochism and sadism into “active” and “passive” roles, terminology still widely used today:
The perfect counterpart of masochism is sadism. While in the former there is a desire to suffer and be subjected to violence, in the latter the wish is to inflict pain and use violence. The parallelism is perfect. All the acts and situations used by the sadist in the active role become the object of the desire of the masochist in the passive role.
I find this language flawed to the point of adulteration. BDSM relationships may be violent, but they do not embody violence. In disavowing the legitimate pleasure that is often found in pain (whether sexual or not), it casts focus away from a complex reality and onto a false dichotomy of violator and violated inappropriately imbued with a repressive morality. As Ranat explains, not even the addition of consent can fully reform this worldview:
Consent is a factor, not to be trivialized, but is not the defining factor.
[To] declare consent the defining factor between abuse and BDSM relationships is to say that abuse is the exact same thing as dominance, submission, bondage and sadomasochism, only without consent. And it is to say the reverse: That BDSM is the exact same thing as abuse, only with consent.
And it’s not. […] That the logistics of giving and obeying an order, of binding and being bound, of an object hitting flesh might superficially resemble each other, is irrelevant.
Despite the fact that earlier works such as the Kama Sutra contained references to “consensual erotic slapping”, Krafft-Ebbing’s writing encouraged generations to shame people with masochistic or sadistic desires into silence and, consequently, isolation. Pain is not so dissimilar from pleasure and a notion of letting go of one’s own control is a critical component of rejuvenating, healing experiences for many people in countless circumstances.
japanese (homo)erotic, and s & m, art