A summary of
Elizabeth Ehrmann (2005) Sadomasochism according to Freud’s psychosexual stages of development theory, Culture, Society and Praxis, 4(1). Article 8
by Aidan Sunassee
May 10, 2024
Whips, chains, leather, and riding crops – the iconic accouterments of sadomasochism have long been depicted with a mixture of intrigue and scandal in movies, music videos, and fashion spreads. This controversial sexual practice of deriving pleasure from inflicting or receiving pain and humiliation is often dismissed as merely deviant behavior. But new research suggests there may be deeper unconscious origins rooted in our earliest childhood experiences.
In a thought-provoking analysis, scholar Elizabeth Ehrmann examines the underpinnings of sadomasochistic tendencies through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s influential theory of psychosexual development. The founding father of psychoanalysis believed our sexual behaviors, interests, and personality traits are indelibly shaped by the formative psychosexual events that unfold across five distinct stages of early childhood – the oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital phases.
According to Ehrmann’s interpretation of Freudian concepts, the roots of sadomasochism can potentially be traced to psychosexual fixations and conflicts experienced during the phallic stage around ages 3 to 6. It was during this phase that Freud claimed children first become aware of the pleasure derived from their genital regions. He also theorized that the phallic stage is when the controversial Oedipus complex emerges – with children experiencing unconscious desires toward their opposite-sex parents that become repressed.
Freud believed these repressed Oedipal longings could find circuitous outlets through unconscious childhood fantasies of being beaten or disciplined, which he saw as coded wish-fulfillment. For young girls, he outlined a three-phase evolution – first a wish for the father to punish a sibling rival for the mother’s attention, followed by an unconscious desire to be beaten by the father bringing masochistic pleasure, before culminating in a conscious fantasy of being disciplined by an authority figure standing in for the father.
While Freud’s theories have been extensively criticized and debated over the decades, Ehrmann’s paper argues they still provide a valuable psychological framework for potentially understanding how early childhood experiences and unconscious conflicts, filtered and transformed by the psyche over the years, could ultimately manifest in outwardly “deviant” sexual behaviors and interests like sadomasochism in adulthood.
The research acknowledges other perspectives as well, including the view that for some individuals, sadomasochism may simply represent an innate physiological requirement for receiving intense sensory stimulation in order to become sexually aroused. However, it suggests that developing a deeper grasp of sadomasochism’s possible unconscious origins and underpinnings through a Freudian psychological lens could foster greater understanding, reduce social stigma, and increase acceptance of this still highly misunderstood and marginalized arena of human sexuality.
By analyzing the motivations and mind of the sadomasochistic practitioner through the illuminating prism of Freudian concepts like the psychosexual stages, repressed desires, and the Oedipal complex, Ehrmann’s paper aims to reframe the traditional view of this realm. Rather than simply writing off sadomasochists as aberrant or “deviant,” it makes a case that probing the unconscious origins of their proclivities for whips, chains, and subjugation can reveal fascinating insights into the intricate depths of the human sexual psyche.
Delving into the unconscious underpinnings that could potentially drive some toward the negotiated pain and power dynamics of the sadomasochistic underworld holds the promise of demystifying this taboo subject. With greater understanding, the perceived transgressions of the sadomasochist may be seen not as willful perversion, but as extreme outliers on the vast continuum of human sexual diversity, that may – or may not – spring from the most fundamentally formative wellsprings of childhood.