And the sadistic Nietzsche puts in the mouth of an old woman in his "Zarathustra" the following statement: "when you go to women, don't forget to take your whip."
Other sadists remind us of the Russian woman's wail that her husband's love must be cooling off, because he hasn't beaten her in an age. Barring a number of exceptions, the fact remains that masochism in women is as abnormal as masochism in men, or sadism in men or women.
=Women Who Enjoy a Beating.= There are women who enjoy unconsciously being beaten by their husbands, much as they may resent the outrage consciously.
They are in every case hypothyroid and hypoadrenal types in whom the distribution of energy and the emergency production of energy are very subnormal. Nothing but a violent stimulus, physical or mental, whipping or insult, can make them feel strong and active.
The dreams of those women, like those of masochistic men, are often of the nightmarish type. They suffer in their night visions all sorts of torture. Analysis brings out the fact that every detail of those dreams is associated with energy, achievement, etc.
De Sade's wife belonged evidently to the masochistic type. She remained faithful to him to the end in spite of his perverse life, his prison record and the fact that he deceived her with her own sister. Her life of sorrow must have vouchsafed her, after all, a good many masochistic compensations of the neurotic variety.
=Famous Women Sadists.= As against the assumption that "all" women are masochists, we may mention many famous women sadists, several Byzantine and Roman Empresses, Frankish queens, two Russian empresses, the treatment meted out by women to Theroigne de Méricourt, tortured publicly by the Jacobine women in 1793, not to mention legendary characters like the Amazons and mythological goddesses who killed or tortured their lovers.
Sadism and masochism in love are pathological disturbances due to a neurotic attempt on the part of an inferior individual to dominate the sexual partner thru violence or weakness, and to assure himself against defeat in the sexual relationship.
=The Freudian Suggestion= that the sadist identifies himself with the powerful and apparently, brutal father, the masochist identifying himself with the weaker and submissive mother, applies to a too restricted number of cases to be of positive help in understanding the nature of those two perversions. Even when that explanation seems to fit the case, we must, nevertheless, fall back upon the Adlerian view of the neurotic temperament in order to understand why a child decides to identify himself with one parent instead of the other.