There is, indeed, on the whole, a point of difference.  In that abnormal sadism which appears from time to time among civilized human beings it is nearly always the female who becomes the victim of the male.  But in the normal sadism which occurs throughout a large part of nature it is nearly always the male who is the victim of the female.  It is the male spider who impregnates the female at the risk of his life and sometimes perishes in the attempt; it is the male bee who, after intercourse with the queen, falls dead from that fatal embrace, leaving her to fling aside his entrails and calmly pursue her course.[106] If it may seem to some that the course of our inquiry leads us to contemplate with equanimity, as a natural phenomenon, a certain semblance of cruelty in man in his relations with woman, they may, if they will, reflect that this phenomenon is but a very slight counterpoise to that cruelty which has been naturally exerted by the female on the male long even before man began to be.

FOOTNOTES: 

[83] Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation of tenth German edition, pp. 80, 209.  It should be added that the object of the sadistic impulse is not necessarily a person of the opposite sex.

[84] A. Moll, Die Kontraere Sexualempfindung, third edition, 1899, p. 309.

[85] Fere, L’Instinct Sexuel, p. 133.

[86] P. Garnier, “Des Perversions Sexuelles,” Thirteenth International Congress of Medicine, Section of Psychiatry, Paris, 1900.

[87] E. Duehren, Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit, third edition, 1901, p. 449.

[88] See, for instance, Bloch’s Beitraege zur AEtiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, part ii, p. 178.

[89] Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation of tenth German edition, p. 115.  Stefanowsky, who also discussed this condition (Archives de l’Anthropologie Criminelle, May, 1892, and translation, with notes by Kiernan, Alienist and Neurologist, Oct., 1892), termed it passivism.

[90] Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii, section 2, mem. iii, subs, 1.

[91] “Aristoteles als Masochist,” Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, Bd. ii, ht. 2.

[92] Die Kontraere Sexualempfindung, third edition, p. 277.  Cf.  C.F. von Schlichtegroll, Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus, p. 120.

[93] See C.F. von Schlichtegroll, loc. cit., p. 124 et seq.

[94] Iwan Bloch considers that it is the commonest of all sexual perversions, more prevalent even than homosexuality.

[95] It has no doubt been prominent in earlier civilization.  A very pronounced masochist utterance may be found in an ancient Egyptian love-song written about 1200 B.C.:  “Oh! were I made her porter, I should cause her to be wrathful with me.  Then when I did but hear her voice, the voice of her anger, a child shall I be for fear.” (Wiedemann, Popular Literature in Ancient Egypt, p. 9.) The activity and independence of the Egyptian women at the time may well have offered many opportunities to the ancient Egyptian masochist.