Masochism In Modern Man Quotes

“The original restrictive meaning of sexual aberration which derives satisfaction from a passive relation to the partner has been retained. Masochism, however, has come to mean also a particular attitude toward life or a definite type of social behavior: of enjoying one’s own suffering or one’s own helplessness. The word has outgrown its narrower, sexual meaning and become desexualized.”
― Theodor Reik, Masochism In Modern Man

“Masochism, however, slowly passes on not only to thwarting another will through complete submission, but to exhibiting and proving this failure in a peculiar way. Here is one phantasy as an example: A young man had been refused a new car by his father, in place of his old damaged one. One of the son’s daydreams dealt with the possibility that, while driving this broken-down car, he would be involved in an accident in front of his father’s shop. The car would run right into the show windows and he, covered with blood, would be carried into his father’s office. Don’t say that this only shows that in masochism the tendency prevails to “cut one’s nose to spite one’s face.” It is not only one’s own face that is damaged in such phantasies, it is the other one’s too. He "loses face” as the Chinese would say. He loses prestige. The father in this phantasy was to be convinced that his refusal was nonsensical and his behavior absurd. There is the concealed hope: It will hurt him more than me. By pursuing the course prescribed to him to the very end, the masochist demonstrates that it is the wrong course. It is like the hara-kiri of the Japanese. It is incorrect to assume that masochism is introverted sadism, a violent instinctual inclination that later became directed against the ego. In spite of all and at the bottom, its object remains the other person. We could rather term it sadism put on its head, violence upside down.”
― Theodor Reik, Masochism In Modern Man