1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910458052903321

Autore

Noyes John K (John Kenneth), <1955->

Titolo

The mastery of submission : inventions of masochism / / John K. Noyes

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca ; ; London : , : Cornell University Press, , 1997

ISBN

1-5017-3204-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (viii, 265 p. ) : ill. ;

Collana

Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry

Disciplina

306.77/5

Soggetti

Masochism

Sadomasochism

Sexual dominance and submission

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-253) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Inventions of Masochism -- I. Beaten Women, Biology, and Technologies of Control -- 2. Reason, Passion, and Nineteenth-Century Liberalism Kraffi-Ebing and Sacher-Masoch -- 3. Technologies of Punishment, Penance, and Pleasure -- 4. Imperialist Man, Civilizing Woman, and the European Male Masochist -- 5. Narratives of Mastery, Fantasies of Failure -- 6. Beyond the Death Instinct -- 7. Disappearing and Reappearing Subjects -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Individuals sometimes derive sexual pleasure from submission to cruel discipline. While that predilection was noted as early as the sixteenth century, masochism was not codified as a concept until 1890. According to John K. Noyes, its invention reflected a crisis in the liberal understanding of subjectivity and sexuality which continues to inform discussions of masochism today. In essence, it remains a political concept. Viennese physician Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the term masochism, based on the work of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Noyes analyzes the social and political problems that inspired the concept, suggesting, for example, that the triumphant expansion of European colonialism was in part animated by an ambivalence in masculine sexuality. Noyes documents the evolution of the concept of masochism with scenes in literature from John Cleland's Fanny Hill through Sacher-



Masoch's Venus in Furs and Pauline Reage's Story of 0. Analysis of Freud's vastly influential rereading of masochism precedes an exploration of the work of his successors, including Wilhem Reich, Theodor Reik, Helene Deutsch, and Karen Horney. Noyes suggests that the thematics of feminine masochism emerged only gradually from an exclusively male concept.