A comment about Gilles Deleuze and Wanda Sacher-Masoch

I must admit that I’ve read a lot about Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and the Marquis de Sade. What I did not know and subsequently learned in the forward to Gilles Deleuze’s was that Masoch’s first wife, Wanda (Angelika Aurore Rumeline), had written a book called in which she details her experiences with Masoch.

“In their (subsequent biographer’s) opinion, the image she offers of herself is much too innocent, and they assumed her to be a sadist, since Masoch was a masochist,” Deluze explained, and it was this statement that had my mind whirling with curiosity about this woman.

While she was married to Masoch for about ten years, her biography is said to suggest that she was much more of a reluctant dominant than anything else, and that she remained in the relationship for economic reasons since in the 1800’s women rarely worked beyond roles as servants or seamstresses. In reading excerpts from her book it almost appears as if she was coerced and manipulated by Masoch to play a domme role and this completely fascinates me.

I’ve always believed that sadists and masochists don’t have much in common and I find it difficult to really even see them as opposites of the same coin. Deleuze confirms my own thought that, “it is too readily assumed that the symptoms only have to be transposed and the instincts reversed for Masoch to be turned into Sade.”

Admittedly, I know much more about sadism than masochism, but the study by Deleuze and the confession of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch have me curious as to what masochism is if good old Leopold was a top from the bottom? It certainly gives a new spin on the whole masochistic role. I can’t wait to read the rest of these books to find some answers or at least ask more questions.