Historical cases of masochism: Table of contents

Table of contents for the series of essays on historical cases of masochism, which unearths reports of submissive sexual fantasies in men from centuries past.

β, Ph.D.

Sep 07, 2024

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The serious study of human sexual psychology began at the end of the 19th century. The pioneers who undertook that research were particularly fascinated by sexual interests deviating from what was widely regarded to be the norm at the time. These “sexual perversions”, as they were known back then—or paraphilias, as they are known today—intrigued the scientific minds of men like Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Iwan Bloch, Magnus Hirschfeld, and many more.

These pioneers based their research on the numerous case reports of men and women who had paraphilias, reports which were carefully collected and studied in the published scientific literature of the time. Their efforts to understand these variations in human sexual psychology led to the production of numerous articles and books on the subject, publications which were well-known in their day but are now obscure and largely forgotten.

Even though some of the medical explanations in these old volumes have undoubtedly been superseded by modern scientific understanding, there is much in that literature that is still relevant today for the study of human sexual psychology, particularly the case reports contained in those works, short accounts which offer a window into the sexual fantasies and practices of the people of that time.

Case reports of submissive sexual fantasies, in particular, remain timeless. They provide valuable insight in the understanding of the sexual phenomenon of masochism, which has fascinated many scientific minds ever since Krafft-Ebing gave it its name in 1890.

I have perused numerous of these works in search for historical cases of masochistic fantasies in men. For this endeavor, I hunted down hard-to-find articles published in the old journals and obtained access to rare books, most of which have never been translated from their original European languages into English.

From the myriad case reports I unearthed, I have curated a selection which I present in this series of essays, covering the breadth of the various sexual interests that collectively make up the paraphilia of masochism. I present these cases with my commentary and analysis in light of what is known about the submissive sexual fantasies of men today.

The fantasies in these historical accounts are shaped in their superficial details by the regional customs and cultural norms of the time and place, as well as the technological advancement of the age. But although these elements undoubtedly influence and shape the superficial content of the fantasies, the ideas that lie at the source of sexual arousal—what might be called the “kinks”—are exactly the same today as they were in that early period of scientific inquiry.

The immutability of submissive kinks through markedly different cultures and societies, as will be seen in all the historical cases presented in this series of essays, suggests that masochism is not merely a social phenomenon but a paraphilia deeply rooted in our evolved human sexual psychology.