Sadism and masochism in fiction
In general, the depiction of sadism and masochism in fiction tends to be portrayed from the viewpoint of masochistic fantasy. Note: the lists in this article are sorted in chronological order.
The role of Sadism and masochism in fiction has attracted serious scholarly attention. John Kucich has noted the importance of masochism in late-nineteenth century British colonial fiction (see Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class by John Kucich, Princeton University Press, 2006). This article provides a list of appearances of Sadism and masochism in not just literature, but various works of fiction in multiple forms of media. An esthetics of masochism? The author wonders if the curators of an Austrian exhibition on masochism in art erred in taking an overly literal approach to their subject From Art in America (4/1/2004) by Barry Schwabsky. Barbara Steele's Ephemeral Skin: Feminism, Fetishism and Film by Lecturer Patricia MacCormack of Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge. Sadism, Masochism, Food and Television.
Novels
Titles are sorted in chronological order.
- Fanny Hill by John Cleland - Includes a detailed description of a mutual flagellation scene between Fanny and an English client.
- The 120 Days of Sodom, Justine (1791) and Juliette (1797) by Marquis de Sade - Are written from an extreme sadistic viewpoint.
- Anti-Justine (1793) by Nicolas-Edme Rétif A response to de Sade's works, using a very similar style to describe a directly opposite political point of view.
- Venus in Furs (1870) by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - Is essentially one long masochistic fantasy, where the male principal character encourages his mistress to mistreat him. Many of Sacher-Masoch's other works include themes of sadomasochism and female dominance.
- The Torture Garden (1899) by Octave Mirbeau - Has been interpreted as an allegorical examination of western society and human condition.
- Les Onze mille verges (The eleven thousand rods) by Guillaume Apollinaire - written around 1906-1907 (the publication is neither signed nor dated).
- Histoire de l'oeil (Story of the Eye) (1928) by Georges Bataille - A short novel.
- The Story of O (1954) by Pauline Reage - Another classic masochistic novel, this time written by a woman. In this novel, the female principal character is kept in a chateau and mistreated by a group of men, one of them her official lover. Later, she resumes her normal life while secretly becoming the property of one specific man, a friend of her lover's.
- L'Image (1956) by Catherine Robbe-Grillet, (under the pseudonym Jean de Berg) another French woman. It was made into a 1975 film, The Image, also known as The Punishment of Anne.
- Gordon (1966) by Edith Templeton
- Je... Ils... (1969) by Arthur Adamov, with stories like Fin Août. The author's stories revolve around masochism, which he regarded as "immunisation against death", but does not aim at erotic arousal.
- Horror novelist Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart (1986), offers an extreme, gruesome study of sadomasochism, illustrated rather graphically by the brutal rituals of its infamous demonic antagonists.
- Die Klavierspielerin (Reinbeck, 1983) or The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek.
- The Ties that Bind (Le Lien) (1993) by Vanessa Duriès
- Matriarchy: Freedom in Bondage, (1997) by Malcolm McKesson (a member of the Outsider art movement) - It tells the story of a Harvard undergraduate dominated by his mistress and forced to dress in women's clothing.
- Marketplace series of novels by Laura Antoniou
- Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey - belongs in the fantasy fiction and BDSM fiction genres, along with its subsequent sequels.
- Writer Anne Rice has produced a number of examples of sado-masochistic fiction, including Exit to Eden and Belinda as well as The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty and its sequels, Beauty's Punishment and Beauty's Release. The Sleeping Beauty books were written under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure.
- The Fifty Shades Trilogy by E. L. James (2011): Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.
Specialist publishers of S/M fiction
Mainstream films
Consensual BDSM is not generally depicted accurately or sympathetically in mainstream films, to say the least; however, film-makers often find some way to incorporate BDSM imagery into many films. The following films feature BDSM as a major plot po
