Freuds Consideration Of Masochism English Literature Essay

Freuds Consideration Of Masochism English Literature EssayFreuds first detailed consideration of masochism appears in his handling of windual per recitations in trine Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. At this early date, Freud writes that sadism and masochism are inverse processs of a single sexual perversion centring on throe as an avenue to pleasure.1Sadism and masochism, at this point in Freuds theoretical understanding are inextricably bound the molder being the active, externally order version of the perversion the latter being its resistless, internally focused form. In fact, it is passivity that defines masochism, not a swear for perturb, humiliation or punishment.The term masochism comprises any passive attitude towards sexual life and the sexual object, the extreme instance of which appears to be that in which satisfaction is disciplineal upon suffering physical or mental pain at the hands of the sexual object.2Freud considers sadism and masochism to be the nea r common and most significant of all perversions.3Although he fails to elaborate the reasons for choosing the second adjective, the choice of the first is most likely related to an understanding of sadism as an exaggeration of the normal aggressive sexual sense in men.4Because there is, on Freuds understanding, an intimate connection betwixt cruelty and the sexual instinct an active or violent attitude toward the sexual object is to be expected it is only where sexual satisfaction is only conditional on the humiliation and maltreatment of the object that the term sadism, as a signifier of perversion of the sexual calculate, is entirely appropriate.5While Freud opines that masochism is further removed(p) from the normal sexual aim than its counter discriminate, the logic of the transformation of a single sexual instinct into an active and passive form means that masochism shares sadisms purported naturalness. Even if sadism, then, is delineated as an extension or exaggeration o f normal impulses and wants most likely because it is more(prenominal) comfortably aligned with a culturally normative understanding of masculineness as active and aggressive it is important to note that masochism, which is an intrinsic part of this pain-related perversion, inevitably shares in the normality afforded sadistic impulses, given the terms of the analysis.The other frisk of masochism from this early exposition that merits tending is Freuds description of the transformation from sadism to masochism. harmonize to Freud, masochism is often nothing more than an extension of sadism turned round upon the subjects own self, which takes the place of the sexual object.6Although Freud identifies the expurgation complex and the subjects sense of guilt as part of the mechanism that effects this transformation from sadism to masochism, masochism is at least partially motivated by some form of libidinal interest in ones own self as a sexual object, i.e., masochism is linked in some way with narcissism.In Instincts and Their Vicissitudes, written a decade after the first edition of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud explicitly describes the mechanism of transformation from sadism to masochism as being fuelled by narcissistic investing in ones own self.7Freud retains his understanding that sadism and masochism are inextricably bound and turn upon a single axis he continues to describe sadism as cruelty directed toward an other for the purpose of sexual satisfaction and masochism as the swear for cruelty directed toward oneself as a means of sexual satisfaction.8The presence of masochistic desire in sadistic practice complicates the picture of how the instincts mutate and transform.A sadistic child takes no account of whether or not he inflicts pains nor does he intend to do so. But when once the transformation into masochism has taken place, the pains are very well fitted to provide a passive masochistic aim for we realise every reason to bel ieve that sensations of pain, like other unpleasuable sensations, trench upon sexual excitation and produce a pleasurable condition, for the sake of which the subject go forth even willingly experience the unpleasure of pain. When once feeling pains has become a masochistic aim, the sadistic aim of causing pains can grind away also, retrogressively for while these pains are being inflicted on other people, they are enjoyed masochistically by the subject through his identification of himself with the suffering object. The pleasure of pain would thus be an aim which was originally masochistic, but which can only become an instinctual aim in someone who was originally sadistic.9Although Freud will fierceness some of these ideas, his notion that sadistic and masochistic desire hides other forms of desire will continue to develop.In his essay A Child is universe beat out(a) A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions, Freud attempts to clarify how masochistic d elusion and practice differ by gender by considering what he characterises as the very common envisage, two for those in analysis and those who are not, of a child is being beaten.10This short phrase is the only description of the fantasy Freud provides as he observes, those who indulge in the fantasy are often quite uncertain as to the identity and number of the victims or perpetrators of the beating, their own relationship to the victims and perpetrators, their localisation of function in the fantasy or even whether the pleasure derived from the fantasy is best described as sadistic or masochistic.11Freud reports that his manlike patients in both fantasy and performance always select a woman to perform the role of chastiser.12In addition, in both performance and fantasy, the male masochists invariably transfer themselves into the part of the woman that is to say, their masochistic attitude coincides with a feminine one.13While the figure of woman appears to play an important r ole in male masochistic fantasy, it is the induce who is central. Freud contends that the fantasy of a woman chastiser is a translation of a prior, now unconscious fantasy of being beaten by the father. This unconscious, now repressed, fantasy get by and accessible only to the analyst-author Freud pees a further disavowal of an even earlier longing to be loved by the father.In the male phantasy the being beaten also stands for being loved (in a genital sense), though this has been debased to a lower level owing to regression. So the original form of the unconscious male phantasy was not the provisional one that we have hitherto given I am being beaten by my father, but rather I am loved by my father. The phantasy has been transformed by the processes with which we are now familiar into the conscious phantasy I am being beaten by my mother. The male childs beating is therefore passive from the very beginning, and is derived from a feminine attitude towards his father. The beati ng-phantasy has its origin in an incestuous attachment to the father.14Freud fails to elaborate on the character of the transfer to the feminine or the features of the attitude that mark it so. Given the distinction he has drawn among an active sadism and a passive masochism, it may be the passive status of the male masochist alone that renders his fantasy/performance feminine. The meaning of passivity is troubled, however, if we remember that the male masochist conjures the fantasy or seeks the sexual encounter. While passivity has come to mean a willingness or desire to be penetrated in certain male transgendered cultural codes, it is unclear whether the transfer to the womans role is meant to imply this, given that the chastiser in the masochistic fantasy is always a woman.The incestuous desire for the father link up the boys and girls beating fantasies. One way to read this common desire is to understand it as a longing to be daddys little girl whether one has a penis or a va gina. On the other hand, this commonality, while marking the boy as feminine, secures the fathers role as the only legitimate object of libidinal connection, even in masochistic fantasies. In other words, even in fantasy structure where it appears the male child is assigning some form of respect or sur rendition some bit of power to the mother/woman, Freud explains that the fantasy, ultimately, when unravelled, is all about the significance and desirability of the father and that this feature of the fantasy is the only one divided up across gender. Although the masochistic fantasy necessarily entails an adoption of a feminine attitude and identity on the part of the male child, this attitude and identity work to reinforce the primacy of the paternal position.Echoing his understanding of the fetish, Freud explains that the conscious masochistic fantasy the translation from love to violence, from father to mother enables the male child to evade homosexuality.In the case of the gir l what was originally a masochistic (passive) situation is transformed into a sadistic one by means of repression, and its sexual quality is nigh effaced. In the case of the boy the situation remains masochistic, and shows a greater resemblance to the original phantasy with its genital significance, since there is a difference of sex between the person beating and the person being beaten. The boy evades his homosexuality by repressing and remodelling his unconscious phantasy and the remarkable thing about his later on conscious phantasy is that it has for its issue a feminine attitude with a homosexual object-choice.15Like the complicated relationship between fetishistic and homoerotic desire, masochistic fantasy and performance has an uncertain and unstable relationship to heterosexual identity. To state it somewhat differently and more pointedly, this supposed evasion is a retention. Moreover, this homoerotically focused retention, despite its instantiation of the boy in a posi tion of femininity and passivity, creates a bond between the boy and the father and makes men, the masculine ideal, the paternal signifier and male-to-male relationships the primary figures of desire and desirability. According to Butler, Freuds constant conjoining of the evasion of homosexuality with an admission of the homoerotic character of heterosexual male identity forecloses the possibility of masculine homoerotic desire. According to Butlers reading of Freud, desire is always represented as heterosexual, where it appears homosexual, the gender of the desiring subject is refigured so that the heterosexual dynamic can be preserved.16This re-signification, on Butlers view, depends less on the character of the desire in question than on cultural prohibitions of homoeroticism.Finally, in The Economic Problem of Masochism, Freud seeks to understand how to square masochistic desire with his understanding of the pleasure principle a basic instinctual impulse. In this essay, Freud di stinguishes three types of masochism feminine, erotogenic and honourable.17Feminine masochism, the most easily observable form, is found in male patients, who, like those considered in A Child is Being Beaten, conjure fantasies or seek sexual activity in which they are gagged, bound, painfully beaten, whipped, in some way maltreated, forced into unconditional obedience, dirtied and debased.18These masochistic fantasies broadly speaking signify, according to Freud, being castrated, or copulated with, or giving birth to a baby.19Erotogenic masochism, which underlies and supports the other forms, is characterised by a libidinal pleasure in pain.20In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud had rejected the notion that the extreme and exceptional stimuli of painful experiences could carry a sufficient libidinal charge to explain the origin of masochism. In this later essay, Freud turns to the death instinct to find the origin of what he now concedes is a primary masochism, one t hat does not depend on the transformation of a prior sadistic instinct. According to Freud, one task of the libido is to meet the death instinct and render it innocuous It fulfils the task by diverting that instinct to a great extent outwards towards objects in the external world.21When this will to power is sexualised, it becomes sadism proper.22 Part of this instinct, however, remains inside the organism and becomes libidinally bound there. It is in this portion that we have to recognise the original, erotogenic masochism.23Freud admits that analysis can explain neither the precise nature of the interaction between sexual and death instincts nor the precise reasons why the death instinct becomes externalised or internalised. The internalisation of a libidinised death instinct, however, manifests in a desire to be beaten, a fascination with castration and a focus on the fuck and anus as erotogenic zones.24Moral masochism, the third form that Freud considers, is chiefly remarkable for having loosened its connection with what we recognise as sexuality.25All other masochistic sufferings carry with them the condition that they shall emanate from the loved person and shall be endured at his command. This restriction has been dropped in moral masochism. The suffering itself is what matters whether it is decreed by someone who is loved or by someone who is indifferent is of no importance. It may even be caused by impersonal powers or by circumstances the true masochist always turns his cheek, whenever he has a chance at receiving a blow.26As Freuds discussion reveals, however, this desexualisation and depersonalisation is only apparent. Moral masochism is characterised by anxiety stemming from unconscious guilt or severe demarcation in light of moral sensibilities.27According to Freud, the super-ego, the agency that serves as the conscience, comes into being through the introjections into the ego of the first objects of libidinal impulses namely, the two parents. 28The punishing force whose attention the masochistic ego seeks, therefore, has a personal identity. As Freud notes elsewhere, the father is the primary figure so-and-so the super-ego. Along with the retention of a personal identity behind the masochistic relationship to the super-ego, the connection between the masochistic ego and the paternal super-ego also retains a sexual charge.We now know that the wish, which so frequently appears in phantasies, to be beaten by the father stands very close to the other wish, to have a passive (feminine) sexual relation to him. If we insert this explanation into the content of moral masochism, its hidden meaning becomes clear to us. Conscience and morality have arisen through the overcoming, the desexualisation, of the Oedipus complex but through moral masochism morality becomes sexualised once more. Masochism creates a temptation to perform sinful action, which must then be expiated by the reproaches of the sadistic conscience or by chastisem ent from the great agnatic power of Destiny.29In a manner similar to the analysis of the beating fantasy of feminine masochism, this description of the mechanics of moral masochism, while representing masochism as both contrary to the interests and perhaps even threatening to the existence of the subject, functions to aggrandise the site of paternal authority and mark the father as the focus of desire.30Moral masochism, the form among the three that seems most impersonal and non-erotic, turns out, upon analysis, to (also) be about sexual desire for the father. In addition, similar to the way in which the discussion of the beating fantasy introduces homoerotic desire as a feature of heterosexual identity, this description of the homosexualised substratum of conscience and morality complicates the notion of the masochists sexual identity. More interestingly, perhaps, insofar as moral masochism is only an exaggerated form of the normal course of development of the id, the conscience g enerally.This account of the critical potential of masochistic fantasy depends on the ability of much(prenominal) fantasies to emphasise the conditions of lack that are part of male subjectivity, the ability of such fantasies to challenge the dominant fiction that links the penis to the phallus thus rendering the actual father and by implication all men equivalent to the symbolic father. Although Freuds description of the male masochists fantasy and practice emphasises the feminine position that the fantasist adopts (toward the father) inwardly the fantasy and even draws attention to the male masochists fascination with castration, his account also creates a closed circuit of male-to-male desire that underlines the desirability of both the father and the paternal position and strongly intersects the male child who longs to acquire the phallus with the paternal figure who is understood to possess it. Feminine conduct within this fantasy castration, copulation, nativity while p utatively inscribing lack on the male subject also functions to displace the woman from the fantasy space. While undergoing an imaginary experience of castration may be the price of admission to the masochistic scene, in this arena the son becomes the object of the fathers desire, the source of his sexual satisfaction and the bearer of his children. Far from emphasising universal conditions of lack and red facing all subjects, the masochistic fantasy has as much potential to render female subjects irrelevant, reducing the world to fathers and sons by circumscribing desire to male homoerotic negotiations and aggrandising male subjects by marking the father as the ultimate object of virtually all desire.