Male Masochism

Masochism was a common and disturbing feature of Victorian masculinity. Victorian male masochism was marked by a sublimated anxiety that made it impossible for the male subject to recognize his complicity in his self-inflicted pain. This chapter argues that Masoch&s;s narrative actually only codifies a common feature of Victorian masculine subjectivity that was prevalent throughout the period. It traces the masochistic narrative through diaries, photographs and letters rather than directly through autobiographical narratives. Masochism is expressed in &s;private&s; venues like diaries, letters and journals much more readily than in published, formal autobiographies. The problem for male Victorian subjectivity lies in the necessity to be always dominant and masterful, at least in public. While contemporary theory has worked to deconstruct binaries, Victorian men were caught at the ideological level between stark dichotomies such as male and female, and dominant and subordinate.

Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology