Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/132

114 the girls has to stand on him in such a way that one shoe is over the eyes, with its heel pressing on one eye, while the other rests across his neck. In this position he endures the pressure of a person weighing about one hundred and fifty pounds for four or five minutes. The author speaks of dozens of similar cases that are known to him. Hammond presumes, with reason, that this man had become impotent for intercourse with women; that, in this strange procedure, he found an equivalent for coitus; and that, when the heels drew blood, he had pleasant sexual feelings, accompanied by ejaculation.

The ten cases of masochism thus far described, and the numerous analogous cases mentioned by those who report them, form a counterpart to the previously described group “c” of sadism. Just as in sadism men excite and satisfy themselves by maltreating women, so in masochism the same effect is sought in the passive reception of similar abuse. But group “a” of the sadists,—that of lust-murder,—strange as it may seem, is not without its counterpart in masochism. In its extreme consequences, masochism must lead to the desire to be killed by a person of the opposite sex, in the same way that sadism has its acme in active lust-murder. But the instinct of self-preservation opposes such a result; so that the extreme is not actually carried out. When, however, the whole structure of masochistic ideas is purely psychical, in the imagination of such individuals, even the extreme may be reached; as the following case shows:—

This case should be compared with the statements made under Case 44, according to which men find sexual pleasure in being lightly pricked with knives in the hands of women, who, at the same time, threaten them with death.

Such fancies, perhaps, give the key to an understanding of