SADISM
AND MASOCHISM
Sadists derive sexual pleasure
from inflicting pain, usually on their sexual partners. They want to prove
their strength or virility by being aggressive or, for example, by emulating
domineering fathers who used to punish them. Sadism may be expressed in forms
other than sexual deviation. Teasing may be one. Children may be sadistic in
their drive to assert themselves, though some seemingly sadistic actions by
children are due to curiosity and lack of understanding. Thus, a child who
pulls the wings off insects may have no idea that he is being cruel, since he
may be acting from the same impulses that make him examine rocks and other
inanimate objects. Masochists derive sexual pleasure from being treated
cruelly, from being hurt physically or emotionally, or from hurting themselves.
They may unconsciously wish to be punished for some "sin." Sadism has
been called neurotic aggressiveness; masochism, neurotic submissiveness. Both
spring from similar maladjustments and both may exist in the same individual.
Masochism actually appears as a character attitude more frequently than it does
as a sexual deviation.
SEXUAL CRIMINALITY
The term sex maniac is an unscientific
one used to describe people who commit violent sex crimes such as rape. These
are people with serious emotional disorders; however concealed they may have
been before a crime was committed. The fact is that many of us have peculiar
sex impulses; they are usually fleeting and we do not actually consider acting
upon them any more than we do acting upon other transient notions that pop into
mind, such as jumping from the top of a tall building. In some sex criminals,
however, the control mechanisms that normal people possess are defective or
break down. In others, deep-rooted feelings of guilt, inferiority, or
insecurity may divert sexual instincts in abnormal directions that are socially
dangerous.
Psychoses
People who suffer from the neuroses and other emotional illnesses previously
described usually have a grasp on reality. They live in the real world and
usually are able to get along in it, even if in awkward, suffering fashion.
Psychotics-those who suffer from any of the several illnesses called
psychoses-are farthest removed from rational behavior. They can no longer cope
with reality or can do so only intermittently. They make up the greatest
portion of the more than half-million persons in state, federal, and private
mental institutions. Their actions often are absurd or grotesque, occasionally
dangerous.
