Masochism

Masochism, a term introduced by Kraft-Ebing to denote a "peculiar perversion of psychosexual life" which consists of "the desire to endure pain, to submit to violence"; satisfaction of this impulse gives a sensation of voluptuousness. Named after the Austrian writer Sacher-Masoch, who suffered from this perversion and described it in his novels. However, like a number of other so-called sexual perversions, M. cannot always be distinguished from so-called normal sexual behavior, since not every desire to endure pain should be interpreted as a pathological impulse (see more details under Sexual Perversions).