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Gilles Deleuze on Sacher-Masoch and Sade

A Bergsonian Criticism of Freudian Psychoanalysis


I. Introduction

In his famous testament from 1806, Donatien-Alphonse-Franois de Sade wrote that after
his death one should sow acorns on his tomb. He wanted his name and also his literary works
to be forgotten. Not long after his death in 1814, it was already clear that Sades wish would
not be honored. In 1834, for example, the eponym sadism was taken up in Dictionnaire
universel de la langue franaise, and over the next decades writers such as Charles Baudelaire
and Gustave Flaubert read Sades literature (Boiste, 1834: 225). This did not mean, however,
that Sades life and work were discussed thoroughly during the majority of the 19
th
century.
That changed at the end of the century, when sadism was introduced by Richard von Krafft-
Ebing as a clinical concept, and when several psychiatrists began discussing Sades life and
texts. One decade later, the French poet and writer Guillaume Apollinaire published Luvre
du marquis de Sade, the first comprehensive study on Sades life and work. Apollinaires
interest in Sade was followed by, among others, Maurice Heine, who found and published
several texts written by Sade, and Gilbert Lely, who wrote the first detailed biography of
Sades life. During the same years, the surrealists, too, were interested in the divine marquis,
as he was called by his French interpreters. Andr Breton and others interpreted Sade as an
intellectual companion in their revolt against bourgeois society.
One could hardly say that Sade dominated intellectual life during the 20th century, as
Apollinaire predicted he would in his Sade study in 1909. In a certain sense, however, this
prediction was partially fulfilled. In the two decades following the Second World War, the
Marquis de Sades novels were read and interpreted intensively and comprehensively by most
leading French philosophers.
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The reception of the Marquis in French philosophy reached its first climax in 1947. In that
year Pierre Klossowskis study Sade My Neighbor (Klossowski 1991 [1947]) and Georges
Batailles Le secret de Sade (Bataille 1947a and 1947b) were published. Twenty years later,
after Simone de Beauvoir (1953 [1951 and 1952]), Maurice Blanchot (1993 [1965]), and
Jacques Lacan (2005 [1966]) had released their Sade studies, a reworked version of
Klossowskis study
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and Roland Barthes Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1971 [1967]) appeared.
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Thus, in a relatively short period the best-known philosophers of the Parisian intellectual
scene took great interest in Sade.
In 1967 there also appeared Gilles Deleuzes Coldness and Cruelty (Deleuze 1991
[1967]). In the long line of French Sade studies, Deleuzes interpretation marks out a special
place. As the French title suggests, it is not Sades oeuvre but the work of Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch (1835-1895) that occupies the bulk of Deleuzes book.
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But Sade is far from
absent in Coldness and Cruelty. His literature features especially at the beginning and at the
end of Deleuzes study. The fact that Deleuze writes about Sades work and Masochs work
separately already reveals what is at stake in Coldness and Cruelty. By presenting a detailed
analysis of both the sadistic and masochistic universes, Deleuze, as he repeatedly stresses,
wants to make clear that the unity of sadism and masochism, as expressed in the clinical
concept of sadomasochism, is a false unity. Deleuze argues that sadism and masochism
cannot transform into one another because they represent two different worlds.
In this paper, we address Deleuzes arguments in some detail in order to show that the
crux of his criticism of the concept of sadomasochism is evidently in keeping with one of
Henri Bergsons basic rules of philosophical method. We then show that Deleuzes study
follows that same Bergsonian rule in working out another, broader criticism of something
else: Freuds general theory of sexual perversion. The latter criticism is less explicit, and to
our knowledge has not been noticed by other readers. It will make clear that already in
Coldness and Cruelty, six years before Anti-Oedipus, a non-Oedipal interpretation of clinical
phenomena of perversion in this case is already at work for Deleuze.
To gain insight into both Deleuzes explicit and his less overt criticisms, it is necessary to
closely analyze his interpretations of Sade and of Masoch, in the process showing how these
interpretations help him to distance himself from Freud. First, we explore (in section II) a
Deleuzian thesis that has not been addressed by those scholars who have recently discussed
Deleuzes interpretation of Sade: that the sadists sexual excitement is found not in torture but
in the free unfolding of pure thought.
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Already in this first move, we will see Deleuze
working against Freuds Oedipal account of the Super-Egos role in sadism. Then we take up
(in section III) Deleuzes reading of Masoch. Masochism, Deleuze says, cannot be
characterized by subjugation. The humiliation inflicted on others is not the goal of, but only a
condition for, masochistic enjoyment. Moreover, this kind of enjoyment, Deleuze argues
against Freud, is linked not to a genital relationship with the father but to a pregenital
relationship with respect to the mother. With these interpretations in mind, the Bergsonian
background of Deleuzes study can be unfolded (in section IV). Delineating this Bergsonian
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influence will make clear that Coldness and Cruelty is not only an explicit attack on the use of
the concept of sadomasochism in psychiatry and Freudian psychoanalysis; it is also an
implicit criticism of Freuds Oedipal thinking about perversion more generally.

II. Sade and the enjoyment of pure thought

Deleuze draws attention to the curious fact that, amidst descriptions of erotic scenes,
theoretical dissertations also emerge in Sades literature. The former, Deleuze claims, should
be understood from the perspective of the latter (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 19).
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A clarification of
this statement will shed light on the thesis that the sadist sexually enjoys pure thought.

Sades first and second nature

Since Sades work literally overflows with scenes evoking disgust, pity, and horror, and such
scenes are celebrated by the libertine heroes of the stories, one might think that titillation
through such obscenities is the whole point. According to Deleuze, the libertines need these
provocative scenes (Deleuze, 1991 [1967]: 25). The sadist, however, does not need these
scenes to stress his involvement in human affairs. These scenes in fact intend just the
opposite. They provide a platform from which the sadist can exercise his insensitivity or
apathy, which takes, Deleuze stresses, a central place in Sades universe.
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In Sade it is a
primary requirement that the libertine should be apathetic (Deleuze, 1991 [1967]: 29). This
requirement is clearly echoed in the following passage from Juliette, in which Clairwill says
to Juliette: If after you have done calculating you end by approving, as I am very sure you
shall, the extinction of all sensibility in a pupil, then the first branch to lop off the tree is
necessarily pity (de Sade 1968: 281). This apathy can best be learned through controlled
exposure to extreme situations that in ordinary life would evoke spontaneous emotions.
Ultimately, this exercise should lead to the sadistic act par excellence, namely, the apathetic
crime. This implies that the sadist is focused on wild but uninvolved destruction destruction
that continues itself uninhibitedly. Indeed, by committing murder apathetically, the sadist
explicitly refuses inhibition by emotions like compassion and disgust, since these emotions
express, respectively, self-involvement and involvement in the other.
In addition to the criminal scenes, Deleuze points out, Sades literature is characterized by
theoretical passages in which Sade presents his philosophy of nature. Deleuzes discussion of
these passages is based on a distinction between first and second nature, parallel to a
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distinction between a kind of purity and impurity (Deleuze, 1991 [1967]: 26-7).
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What
Deleuze means by Sades second nature can be grasped through a reading of Philosophy in
the Bedroom. In the third dialogue, Dolmanc and Saint-Ange teach the young Eugnie the
different parts and sexual functions of the human body. As the session proceeds, the subject
changes and they talk about those acts which are conceived in our culture as morally
reprehensible: theft, incest, and murder. The fact that society prohibits these acts is based,
Dolmanc says, on a wrong, anthropocentric idea. Dolmanc justifies murder by relating the
act to nature: Destruction being of the chief laws of Nature, nothing that destroys can be
criminal (de Sade 1965: 237-8). From a non-anthropocentric perspective, Dolmanc argues,
murder is not a crime because it is in line with natures destructive law.
Still, Dolmanc indicates that nature is not only characterized by destruction, since
creation is also fundamental. The ratio between these two laws is defined as follows:
[destruction] gives back to Nature the elements whereof the hand of this skilled artisan
instantly recreates other beings (de Sade 1965: 238). In Sade, destruction of the life of all
particular living beings does not imply that matter as such disappears. It is rather the case that
by being dismantled, matter first loses its current form and then lives further in a new guise.
Thus, at this stage of Sades thought, destruction is understood as de-organization, rendering
formless material that enables nature to continue her creative activity.
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This explanation
reveals what Deleuze means by second nature in interpreting Sades theoretical passages: he
means that one kind of destruction is impure because it is related to something other than
itself. More specifically, second nature refers to the endless cycle of life and death, in which
destruction is necessarily involved in the production of life and even requires living,
organized beings as the objects upon which it can operate. The very fact that destruction is
intrinsically related to life implies that the force of destruction cannot continue itself
unobstructedly.
Opposed to second nature is first nature, which is defined by Deleuze as pure negation
(Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 27). To illustrate what he means by first nature, Deleuze refers to two
passages from Juliette (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 28). In the first passage Juliette and her
companion, Clairwill, travel from France to Rome to visit Pope Pius VI. Shortly after their
meeting, both women are well aware that the Popes religion is a mask behind which he hides
his sexual urges. However, before they will satisfy his sexual needs, he must meet four
conditions. Oddly enough, the first is that he has to present his ideas about murder. The
central point of his reflection is as follows:
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Thus it is that these murders our laws punish so sternly, these murders we suppose the
greatest outrage that can be inflicted upon Nature, not only, as you very well see, do her
no hurt and can do her none, but are in some sort instrumental to her, since she is a great
murderess herself and since her single reason for murdering is to obtain, from the
wholesale annihilation of cast creatures, the chance to recast them anew (de Sade 1968:
768-9).

Nature, the Pope says, wants the total destruction of life. This reveals that in Sade destruction
is not only understood as directed towards life as is the case in second nature but also as
opposed to life. While for second nature destruction is a condition for creation of further life,
in first nature life is the object of generalized destruction. Thus, in first nature destruction has
detached itself from its dependent relation on life, and by consequence destruction can
develop its own force without hindrance. This first, wild nature echoes in the second
passage from Juliette to which Deleuze refers:
I would like, Clairwill answered, to find a crime which, even when I had left off doing it,
would go on having perpetual effect, in such a way that so long as I lived, at every hour of
the day and as I lay sleeping at night, I would be constantly the cause of a particular
disorder, and that this disorder might broaden to the point where it brought about a
corruption so universal or a disturbance so formal that even after my life was over I would
survive in the everlasting continuation of my wickedness (de Sade 1968: 525).

To summarize: first nature is defined by Deleuze as pure because destruction is here regarded
as a continuous process, a universal or formal disturbance that is not contaminated by
anything other than itself.
This explanation enables us to understand in which sense, following Deleuze, the
philosophical reflections of Sades characters shed light on the criminal and erotic scenes in
his writing. If the sadist is not murdering without pity, apathetically, then his actions
correspond to the metaphysical operation of second nature. Indeed, the destructive acts of the
non-apathetic or sensitive sadist cannot continue without hindrance because the sadist, just
like second nature, is involved in something other than himself, in this case the other persons
feelings. By contrast, through apathetic crime the sadist transcends second nature and lives in
accordance with first nature. Indeed, like first nature, the icy cold sadist is not inhibited by
any kind of involvement and endlessly continues his destructive tour de force. Apathetic
crime thus reflects the object of Sades metaphysical speculation, namely, pure destruction.
Put otherwise: according to Deleuze, the sadist is an emanation of the impersonal first nature
that expresses itself in the sadist.

Desexualizing and auto-erotism
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It is towards the end of his study that Deleuze explicitly takes up Freudian terminology. One
of the central concepts of Freuds later thinking is the Super-Ego, by which he means the
intrapsychic heir of the law-giving, Oedipal father. In The Ego and the Id, Freud asks from
where the Super-Ego derives its excessive (one could say, sadistic) rigour in blaming the Ego.
According to Freud, it is not only the father who is the origin of the Super-Egos power. The
source, Freud says, also lies elsewhere. The Super-Egos aggressive accusations against the
Ego are a manifestation of a more fundamental death drive (Freud 1961 [1923]: 15). The
aggression targeted against the Ego is in fact a reversal of an original aggression that found an
outlet in being addressed to the father (as the sons rival) during the phallic stage of psychic
development. The dissolution of the Oedipus complex and the introjection of the image of the
father have as their consequence that the destructive drive can no longer take the father as its
object. Instead, it is grafted upon the Super-Ego and takes the Ego as its new object. Thus,
according to Freud, the Oedipal Super-Ego is the moral incarnation of an amoral destructive
drive an incarnation that arises when the death drive submits to a certain law limiting its
expression to intrapsychic conflict.
By contrast, according to Deleuze, in sadism the intrapsychic conflict between the Ego and
the Super-Ego plays no central role. Sadism must first and foremost be understood as the
omnipotence of the Super-Ego (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 124-5). The sadist is nothing but Super-
Ego. This does not mean, however, that the Ego is merely oppressed by the Super-Ego.
Rather, Deleuze says, the Ego disappears from psychic inner life. The sadist does not have an
Ego because he projects it onto his victims. The countless torture scenes, Deleuze says, should
be understood not as intrapsychic conflict but as interpsychic conflict between the Super-Ego
and the victim, wherein the latter reflects the sadists Ego. This implies, according to
Deleuzes psychoanalytic reading, that sadism reveals what the Super-Ego always was: a
destructive force. When the conflict between the Super-Ego and the Ego is not intra- but
interpsychic, then it becomes clear that the Super-Ego is not ever moralistic but only sadistic.
Put differently: in sadism the Super-Ego is not the heir of the fathers Oedipal law. It rather
represents a father who does not forbid the mother but kills her, as shown in the grotesque
final scene of Philosophy in the Bedroom, in which Eugnies mother, Mistival, is tortured
with the cooperation of Eugnies father.
Deleuzes claim that the Super-Ego plays a central role in sadism can be linked to his
interpretation of Sades dissertations. In order to understand this link, we can refer to a
passage from The Economic Problem of Masochism. In this text, Freud suggests that in the
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course of a persons development the Super-Ego, understood as the heir of the Oedipal father,
is transferred onto a range of figures who transcend the space of that individuals life history.
The strictness of moral consciousness is transferred onto teachers, leaders, or heroes, but also
onto less personal figures like God and nature. Fate, Freud says, is the last stage in the series
of transferences (Freud 1961 [1924]: 168). The movement described by Freud implies that
what we usually take to be the impersonal force of nature has its roots in childhood
experience. Nature evokes the contours of the figure of the Oedipal father. This
personification of nature, Deleuze says, is directly opposed to the movement taking place in
sadism. While according to Freud nature receives the traits of the father (in what could be
called a movement of personalization), sadism involves just the reverse, namely, the
depersonalization of the father.
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Imitating the pure destruction that is first nature, the sadist
destroys all that hinders unbridled apathetic destruction. These hindrances include, on the one
hand, the Ego, a stable gestalt from which a person organizes his activity with regard for the
laws of the reality principle; on the other hand, the mother, who as the first caretaker brings
the child into contact with the outside world and is a model for the movement of spontaneous,
natural involvement in something other than the child. In short, the father (as murderer) and
the sadistic Super-Ego (as persecutor) participate in first nature.
Deleuze adds, however, that the sadist does not fully succeed in his project. The reason, he
says, is that the sadist cannot leave the Ego and its involvement in (and submission to) reality
totally behind. The apathetic attitude cannot be sustained because emotions such as
compassion and pity return continuously. It is in this context that Deleuze refers to the
mediating role of thinking. One possible explanation for this reference would be that the
sadist falls back on thinking about apathetic crime because in action it is impossible for the
sadist not to be moved by the suffering of the victim. Thinking about apathetic crime would
then compensate for the sadists inability to suppress emotion and involvement with others.
This interpretation suggests that the advantage of thinking is situated on the level of the
content of the thinking process. The emphasis is on what is thought about. Deleuze, however,
emphasizes the activity of thinking itself and not the content of that thinking. The sheer act of
thinking itself matters more than whatever is thought. It is, Deleuze holds, by the unrestrained
activity of thinking that the sadist becomes one with first nature. In this, the Super-Ego fulfills
an important role for the sadist: it prepares the activity of pure thinking by ensuring
desexualization (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 127).
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How should we understand this? In what sense does speculative thinking enable the sadist
to become one with apathetic first nature? And what is the role of desexualization according
to Deleuze?
Deleuze understands desexualization in a Freudian sense. Clarification of this term can be
found in The Ego and the Id, where Freud is trying to show that his findings about
depression reveal something about psychic functioning in general (Freud 1961 [1919]: 22).
Melancholia is characterized as the replacement of the (erotic) bond with a real object by
imaginary identification with that lost object. In other words, after somehow losing access to
the object in the external world, the mourner introjects it into his Ego as a way of preserving
the connection. According to Freud, this identification, meant to compensate for a loss, is also
an important part of a persons psychological development in general. As a boy progresses
through psychosexual development and abandons his first erotic wishes for the mother, the
various objects of erotic attention that make up the mother will become part of the Ego. This
means that the Ego takes over the traits of the object and becomes itself the loved object.
According to Freud, this deflection of libido from the mother to the Ego, or the conversion of
object libido into narcissistic libido, goes hand in hand with desexualization. In Freuds
vocabulary, desexualization refers to the destruction of sexual aims, which then changes the
quality of the drive (since the drives are characterized by their aims). Deleuze paraphrases
Freuds reasoning as follows: A certain quantity of libido (Eros-energy) is neutralized, and
becomes undifferentiated and freely mobile (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 116). Desexualization has
a transformational effect on the drive, which thereby loses its specifically sexual character and
becomes neutral mental energy. But in sadism, this neutral energy is not bound to the Ego,
either. As we mentioned, according to Deleuze, sadism means that the Ego is driven away
from inner psychic life by the omnipotence of the Super-Ego. In short, then, in sadism the
Super-Ego frees indifferent energy that is not directed to the Ego; instead, it is invested in the
act of thinking. This statement needs further clarification.
If one wants to understand what Deleuze means by the central role of the activity of
thinking as such, a passage from Philosophy in the Bedroom can be taken as illustration.
Therein Dolmanc performs a longwinded monologue. However, it is not the content of his
talk which matters but the way he begins every sentence of his speech: Excellent! If it is
demonstrated that ... if man is thus proven ... if it is demonstrated that ... if it is proven that ...
if it is certain that .... Dolmanc finishes his talk as follows: if, I say, all that is admitted to
be proven, as incontestably it is, do you believe (de Sade 1965: 209-10). In this passage
the conclusion is derived formally from the given axioms. If the truth of the premise is
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established, then the conclusion follows necessarily and is guaranteed by the given starting
point. It is in this demonstrative way of arguing, Deleuze says, that the coldness of reason is
shown (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 18-9). The truth of a statement is determined by logical-
deductive thinking, which derives further ideas necessarily and which is insensitive to mans
spontaneous capacity for association. In other words, this reveals the image of reason as
automa spirituala in a Spinozistic sense. It is a moving, spiritual thing that is not affected by
the natural, accidental operations of imagination and that continues its operations of thinking
undisturbed. Thus, the activity of thinking is important for Sade because the unimpeded
development of cold thought renders the sadist insensitive to spontaneous tendencies. In short,
reason offers the sadist more than merely the ability to think about what is impossible
normally. Once the process of logical-deductive thinking is begun, the sadist participates in
apathetic natura naturans, which expresses itself in the activity of pure thinking. The object
of thought in which the sadist as such does not participate now folds itself into the very act
of thinking, and this process of thinking enables the sadist to participate in what he first
merely thought. This clarifies why the sadistic scene, following Deleuze, is a condition for
thinking. The young victims are called on stage in order to project the sadists Ego onto them.
This destruction of the Ego then delivers to the Super-Ego the neutral energy which feeds the
development of pure thought.
Along with the desexualization of the object, however, Deleuze claims that there comes a
second moment of resexualization. According to Deleuze, the sadist sexually enjoys the very
process of free thinking: The essential operation of sadism is the sexualization of thought and
the speculative process as such (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 127). Although the sadist at first
glance seems to be sexually excited by the destruction of second nature, the destructive acts
are only a condition for the emergence of the ultimate object of sexual enjoyment, namely
pure thought. Deleuze here stresses that this sadistic sexual enjoyment is not genital but
pregenital. The qualification pregenital means that sadistic enjoyment in thinking has its
roots in childhood sexual pleasure, as described by Freud in his Three Essays on the Theory of
Sexuality.
Freud attends in this text to childrens sucking activities (Freud 1953 [1905]: 179-183).
The first form of sucking involves the mothers breast as its object. The observation that the
childs bodily responses to this activity echo those of adult sexual enjoyment suggests to
Freud that sucking may be accompanied by some sexual, if not yet genitally organized,
enjoyment. According to Freud, the childs enjoyment is at least in part a consequence of the
milk which flows from the breast into the childs mouth. Thus the feeling of enjoyment is at
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first connected directly to the satisfaction of the needs for food and warmth. But it does not
seem to be limited to that satisfaction. Why not? Later, when teeth appear and the child can
chew food, the breast is no longer necessary. But Freud notes both that the child continues
sucking although it is no longer necessary for nourishment, and that the experience of
enjoyment does not disappear. The child continues by sucking on parts of its own body, so the
sexual enjoyment this arouses is described by Freud as auto-erotic. With regard to Deleuzes
interpretation, it is important that this sexual enjoyment is generated independently of the self-
preservative need. It is not only the self-preservative aim of sucking, namely nourishment,
which causes enjoyment. It is, rather, sucking itself and the uninhibited continuation of this
activity that arouses specifically sexual enjoyment. In sadism, then, this auto-erotic drive
source is reactivated, but only through a process of desexualisation and resexualization. Just
as with sucking for its own sake, the activity of thinking is not focused on something that lies
outside the activity itself. The sadist is directed to pure thinking, and this activity is grafted
upon a past pleasure lying at the source of all sexual enjoyment. Thus the sadist frees auto-
erotic enjoyment to invest the process of pure thinking, which can continue far more
uninterruptedly than sucking.
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This conception of sadistic enjoyment is close to Deleuzes interpretation of the sadistic
scene. Indeed, as we have already seen, the sadist does not identify with the Oedipal Super-
Ego. Now we see that sadistic enjoyment cannot be understood Oedipally, either. The reason
is that the relationship between repetition and enjoyment has been reversed (Deleuze 1991
[1967]: 120-1). In Sade, thinking is not aimed at the reclamation of forbidden enjoyment that
has been repressed. On the contrary, in the sadistic universe enjoyment is an effect which goes
along with the unleashing of pure, logical-deductive thinking. In other words, the sadist does
not seek to repeat an earlier enjoyment because repetition itself has become enjoyable.

III. Masoch and imagination

Deleuze notes that Masochs sexuality, in contrast to Sades sexuality, is expressed in all
domains of life. His sexuality is a lifestyle which characterizes his political, artistic, and
religious ideas. How should we understand this? What characterizes Masochs sexuality?
How is this sexuality related to the other spheres of life?

The masochistic ideal

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As is well known, Platos Socrates is on a permanent search for interlocutors, whom he asks
to define things like justice or virtue. Socrates then calls for a more precise description in
order to come finally to a definition that indicates how things are essentially. The goal seems
to be that the discussion partner would abandon his contingent opinion and direct his mind to
the truth of the Idea. Thus, Socrates partner seems to have a central role in the dialogue,
while Socrates himself merely is a passive listener. Arguably, however, Socrates ignorance is
feigned. In reality, the roles are reversed: Socrates is the one who leads the conversation
actively. He discovers the others errors by asking pointed questions and demanding
clarifications of a definition until the Idea comes to light.
According to Deleuze, this method also characterizes masochism. Masoch should be read
from a Platonic perspective, since, just as in the Socratic dialogue, the relations between the
masochistic characters are different than they appear at first glance. The beginning of Venus
in Furs, Masochs best-known novel, illustrates this well. The novel opens with the
introduction of the two main characters, Severin and Wanda von Dunajew, and goes on to
illustrate the relationship between them. Severin is described as throwing himself before
Wandas feet and saying solemnly, while she lays her hand on his neck, that his desire is to
be the slave of a woman, a beautiful woman whom I love and worship (von Sacher-Masoch
1991 [1869]: 180). Severin offers to commit his life to Wanda, but on the condition that she
embody a certain ideal (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 42-3). Wanda agrees, and the rest of the story is
a longwinded educational process wherein Severin instructs Wanda on how she can live up to
his ideal. As in the case of Socrates, Masochs irony is that Severin seems submissive, but in
fact he takes the active role of educating Wanda.
Deleuze points out that the women in Masochs literature all share some physical and
psychic characteristics. They are all supercilious, violent, muscular, and dominant (Deleuze
1991 [1967]: 47). Nevertheless, distinguishable beneath these similarities, Deleuze claims, are
three different types of women. He shows that all these types can be found in Venus in Furs,
in a progression following the parts of the novel. The first type of wife appears at the
beginning, the second kind in the middle, and the third at the end of Masochs novel.
How does Deleuze understand the first type? Venus in Furs opens with a dream told by
the storyteller to Severin. In this dream, he finds himself in the company of the goddess of
love, who complains about a Christian mentality from the North. Over there, the goddess
claims, one is only interested in duties and virtue. By contrast, the goddess is excited by
sensuality and cheerful love. A little later on, when Severin tells his history with Wanda, she
corresponds in the first part of his story to the image of the goddess from the dream of the
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storyteller. Neither the goddess nor Wanda (in the first part of the book) is bound to a man,
and both protest against marriage. They move from one to another short-lived relationship in
which they search for fiery excitement. This characterizes the first type of woman, which
Deleuze names the pagan nymphomaniac (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 48-9).
Turning to the end of the novel, we find the third type of woman, performed by Wanda
with the assistance of a Greek man. In the final scene, she binds Severin, who is thrashed by
the Greek. The voluptuous Wanda has now made way for the woman who sexually enjoys
inflicting pain. While she clung at first to riotous love, now she is more vicious: Men who
wish to live as the gods of Olympus did must have slaves to throw in their fish ponds and
gladiators ready to do battle for them at their feast. Little do they care if they are spattered by
the fighters blood (von Sacher-Masoch 1991 [1869]: 267). According to Deleuze, the first
and third wives share the fact that their lives are sensual: either by excessive love, or by
sexually enjoying cruelty. This lustful love and cruelty express the sensual nature of the
masochistic universe.
Nevertheless, the first and third types of wife do not embody Severins ideal. Wanda
realizes this ideal only in the middle of the novel. Situated between the first and the third type,
she must act both severely and as a caregiver (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 66-7). Care and rigour
are mild forms of, respectively, riotous sensuality and cruelty. To put it differently, in Masoch
the ideal of a nourishing but strict mother takes center stage: this version of Wanda is a
woman who both loves and punishes her children. Not only is the motherly ideal located
between the first and third types of woman, but it does not participate in their sensual nature.
Indeed, Wanda does not experience sexual excitement and does not act genitally, although
while he is lying on her naked breast, she rubs Severins head, and while he tells her sweet
stories, she kisses his hand. Masochs universe is characterized not by sexual excitement but
by a charming atmosphere. In Masochs world it is required that genital sexuality disappear
into the background. This coldness with regard to genital aims is accentuated atmospherically
by frequent sneezing, and by the fur cloak the motherly figures wear.
The observation that Wanda is educated by Severin to be a cold mother without genital
desire means, Deleuze says, that fetishism plays a central role in masochism (Deleuze 1991
[1967]: 31-2). The concept of fetishism to which Deleuze refers comes from Freuds essay on
the topic (Freud 1961 [1927]). Here Freud understands fetishism Oedipally, meaning that he
starts from the assumption that the confrontation with the absence of the penis in the loved
object (the mother) constitutes an important moment in the childs development. According to
Freud, this confrontation is weighted for the little boy with the threat of castration: that he
13
might be made like his mother if he continues to threaten his father by desiring her. The
confrontation is thus normally resolved by repressing these Oedipal desires. In contrast, the
future fetishist does not repress his desires; he instead disavows his knowledge of the female
genitals by replacing the penis with a fetish. This sexualized thing often an article of
clothing allows him to keep the belief in the female penis alive in his imagination (Freud
1961 [1927]: 152-154). We can see this quite clearly echoed in Masoch. For him, the
involvement with the other is not demolished (as it would be for Sade), but sexual relations
are deflected, and the female genitals are covered by, as the title of Masochs most famous
novel indicates, a fur cloak. According to Deleuze, however, this masochistic fetish is not a
reaction against a problem or deficit in reality (the missing penis) and hence is not meant to
support a subsequent fantasy of completeness, as Freud claims that it is. Masoch should be
understood, rather, starting from the phantasm
11
of a complete mother, which is expressed in
the fixation on a fur cloak and the prudish stopping of the movement towards the female
genitalia.
12
In Masochs literature, then, the photographic scenes, the suspense, and the frozen
poses are the literary expressions of this cessation of sensual nature. Phantasy here is original,
rather than a substitute to preserve the mothers integrity.
13

The central position of the cold mother in masochistic phantasy has far-reaching
consequences for the father. Normally, according to Freud, the confrontation with the female
genitals (which the boy takes to be the results of castration) motivates the child to take the
fathers threat seriously. But the consequence of the disavowal of the absence of the penis is
that the fathers threat loses its weight. Hence in Masoch, Deleuze indicates, the father is
absent and the law he represents has no meaning. The masochistic ideal evokes memories of
matriarchy. Since this artificial situation (the meaninglessness of the law) does not lie within
the bounds of human nature, the danger for the masochist is that spontaneous relationships
resurface again. The law (and the father) may reassert itself at any time, and the phantasm
must be protected against this eventuality. Therefore, Deleuze explains, Wanda and Severin
sign a contract in which they promise unconditional allegiance to masochistic phantasy. In
accordance with the phantasm including both the subjugation to the motherly ideal and the
rejection of the father the function of the contract is double. First, the contract must ensure
that the woman adheres to the ideal image. Wanda must be strict and charming at the same
time, without, however, sexually enjoying this. Secondly, the contract ensures that
masculinity and everything that recalls the Oedipal father disappear. This involves not only
Wandas calling in other lovers for the sole purpose of brutally expelling them, but also her
taking up the whip and beating Severin. Crucially, then, the mothers flagellation is not a
14
satisfaction of any need of Severins for punishment, according to Deleuze, nor does it
express any feeling of guilt on his part caused by a forbidden desire. The only guilt Severin
has is not moral (a matter of illicit desire) but results from the observation that he, just like his
father, still possesses a penis. This similarity with the father is the true object of the
flagellation by the mother. This means that in masochism the father is not behind the mother,
as Freud had proposed (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 60-1).
14
Rather, it is the fathers image in the
masochist that is beaten. The enjoyment it arouses is not caused by humiliation but is an effect
of what the castrating mother brings about:
15
the rebirth of an a-phallic man from the mother
alone, without the fathers intervention.
16


Phantasm and nature

Deleuze reminds us that Masoch had read Das Mutterrecht, written in 1861 (Deleuze 1991
[1967]: 52). In this groundbreaking study, the Swiss anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen
presents a curious, Hegelian perspective on history, which is broken up into three phases.
More specifically, Bachofen is the first to present the (more recently rejected) hypothesis of
an earlier matriarchy that came after hetaerism and anticipated modern patriarchy. According
to Bachofens theory, the first, hetaeric phase the period of Aphrodite, goddess of love and
sexuality was dominated by nomadic Berbers, like the Garamantes and the Nasamones from
Libya. These people, Bachofen says, were characterized by the absence of fatherhood. At the
head of each nation there was a tyrant who declared that every man could have sex with every
woman. No woman was restricted to only one man. The result was that the identity of the
father of the children who were products of this promiscuous sexuality was unknown.
According to Bachofen, this lifestyle is reflected by the wild life of plants in the swamps
(Bachofen 1967 [1861]: 97).
Between the first and the next phase, two dramatic events occurred: first the ice age,
draining the swamps and producing the steppe; second the revolt against the tyrant by the
Amazons, a nation of female warriors. In the second, gynocratic phase, then the period of
Demeter, goddess of agriculture agricultural, sedentary society emerged. The wild swamps
gave way to planted farmland. This focus on fertility, as Bachofen says, went along with the
emergence of matriarchal power. In the second phase, man was subordinated by woman, who
was no longer a public object of lust but was oriented toward the conception of new life.
Finally, the third, Apollonian stage led to patriarchal victory over matriarchy. Woman was
15
subjugated, and her possibilities were limited to family life and marriage (Bachofen 1967
[1861]: 109-110).
According to Deleuze, Masoch did not read Bachofen primarily out of intellectual interest.
The reason for Masochs reading is to be found, rather, in his personal life history. As
Deleuze puts it: Here the phantasm finds what it needs, namely, a theoretical and ideological
structure which transforms it into a general conception of human nature and of the world
(Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 53). According to Deleuze, then, what Masoch reads in Bachofens
Das Mutterrecht meets a personal need, the need to communicate and justify his phantasm by
generalizing his ideal.
What exactly does Deleuze mean by a phantasm, and what does this mean in Masochs
case? What does this phantasm gain from a theoretical foundation? And in what sense does
Bachofens curious theory meet this need?
These questions can be answered with the help of Masochs short text A Childhood
Memory and Reflections on the Novel, included in Deleuzes Coldness and Cruelty as the
first appendix (von Sacher-Masoch 1991 [1888]: 273-6). In this text, Masoch maintains that
every artist is characterized by a disposition that personalizes him and segregates him from
his surroundings (von Sacher-Masoch 1991 [1888]: 273). In Masochs case this finds
expression during his youth via his interest in prints of executions, legends of martyrs, and in
the fairy tales told by his Ukrainian nurse, Handscha. During puberty, this sensitivity to
cruelty is expressed in an obsessive idea, which arises as a reaction to a specific event.
When Masoch was ten years old, he lived for a time in the same house as the countess
Znobie. On one occasion, Masoch was playing hide and seek with her children and hid in her
bedroom behind a heavy coat rack (von Sacher-Masoch 1991 [1888]: 273). He had only just
hidden when the countess, dressed in a Gallic fur cloak, threw her lover onto the canap in the
same room and proceeded to make love. Suddenly, Znobies husband entered the room, but
before he could express his indignation, she punched him in the face. At the same time, the
coat rack fell down, so that Znobie noticed Masoch. She was very angry and threw him on
the ground, pressed her knee on his shoulder, and spanked him. Not unlike Jean-Jacques
Rousseaus confession that he enjoyed Lamerciers punishment, Masochs pain was mixed
with enjoyment. Then the count, Znobies husband, returned and threw himself at Znobies
feet to ask her forgiveness. Masoch ran out of the room, but, driven by curiosity, he remained
listening at the door briefly. He thus heard the sound of a whip and the moaning of the count.
This specific event is not a trauma in the sense that it overwhelms Masoch unexpectedly and
resists integration with his understanding of the world. Rather, the reverse is the case. In
16
Masochs text about the novel we read: then the authors own experience intervenes and
provides him with the living being whose prototype already exists in his imagination (von
Sacher-Masoch 1991 [1888]: 273). The scene with Znobie does not so much derange
Masochs psyche as fit smoothly with his disposition. Undergoing, seeing, and hearing
Znobies violent actions arouse Masochs drives and provide material in which they can
express themselves. This results in an obsessive image of being beaten by a caring but strict
mother. Deleuze calls this image, which fragilely unifies the drives in a way that is
fundamentally incommunicable, a phantasm,
17

In 1861, Masoch started a four-year love affair with Anna von Wasserzieher. This relation
is described in The Divorced Woman: The Story of an Idealists Passion. He was happy when
she slapped him in the face after a quarrel, and Anna noted that he made love with noticeably
increased masculinity after she first had punished and insulted him. Just like Masochs
numerous sexual relations later on, this relationship was an attempt to realize his phantasm.
The picture reappears both in Venus in Furs, which, according to Masochs biographers, goes
back to his relationship with Fanny Pistor, and in Das Volksgericht, which describes the
relationship between Kyrilla and Feodisia, a despotic woman who chooses a rich landowner
instead of her husband. In short, Masochs sexual life is governed by the obsessive phantasm
of a cold, tyrannical woman.
In the text in which he reflects on the novel, Masoch writes nevertheless that he, just like
any writer, doesnt know where this image comes from or why it has surfaced (von Sacher-
Masoch 1991 [1888]: 276). The fact that this disposition singularizes him is a riddle for
Masoch. According to Deleuze, Masochs reading of Bachofen offers a solution to this
problem. In Bachofens three-part sketch of history Deleuze calls it mythology Masoch
identifies the contours of his own phantasm: the parturient mother, the Demeter figure from
the second phase, reflects Masochs ideal; the two extremes between which this ideal is
located, namely, the nymphomaniac and the male sadist, are foreshadowings of Aphrodite
and of the Apollonian, the cruel patriarchate, respectively. Masoch finds in Das Mutterrecht
what he needs. Bachofens mythology offers him the theoretical foundation or the objective
framework that both masks and enables him to communicate his strange disposition.
18
In
other words, Masoch interprets his motherly ideal as an expression of the cold steppe and
Demeter. This means that Masoch deals with his phantasm in a way distinct from traditional
psychoanalytic treatment. Rather than relating his phantasm to his personal history in order to
understand it, he detaches it from its individual embedding and understands it as the
actualisation of an impersonal history. This depersonalization explains why the masochistic
17
ideal is transferrable to other domains of life besides sexuality.
19
The mythologizing offers a
broad scope that allows Masochs sexuality the power to express itself further. Informed by
the reading of Bachofen, Masoch can express his ideal in, for example, a divergent
Christology, in which the father is crucified and the son is taken from the cross by the mother,
or in a utopia of a communist matriarchy based on agriculture and surrounded by vast fields.

IV. Deleuzes criticism of psychiatry and Freudian psychoanalysis

Henri Bergsons analysis of the comic in Laughter is punctuated with numerous illustrations.
Bergson opens his book with the comical situation where a man runs along a footpath and
suddenly falls because a stone is in the way (Bergson 1998 [1900]: 12). According to
Bergson, the bystanders would not have laughed if the man had fallen without the presence of
the stone. This means that not the fall itself is comical but the awkwardness of the man and
the fact that he did not notice the irregularity. One laughs, Bergson says, with the lack of
mans flexibility to adapt to an unusual situation and the rigidity of his step. Another example,
mentioned by Bergson, is the comic facial expression (Bergson 1998 [1900]: 31). Some
persons are characterized by a tic: ones eyes blink or ones ears move constantly. The reason
this arouses laughter is that the face loses its normal shape and that this distortion is
maintained. It is as if the face is driven by an automatic mechanism that prevents the face
from returning to its original form. The comic quality of both the falling man and the facial
expression is explained by Bergson in the same way. For Bergson, a situation or person is
comical when flexibility is compromised by a rigid automatism.
In his famous study on Bergson, called Bergsonism, Deleuze holds that Bergsons
philosophical method contains three rules. The first rule is that false problems should be
condemned; the third one, Deleuze writes, holds that problems should be solved in terms of
time and not in terms of space. However, it is only the second rule that matters here. This rule
requires that philosophical thinking has to notice ontological distinctions between things
which are mixed in experience. For Bergson, Deleuze says, philosophy must obviously not
proscribe the coexistence of substantially different things, but it should search for traces of
things that are mixed in experience but differ nevertheless ontologically. Deleuze writes:

According to Bergson, a composite must always be divided according to its natural
articulations, that is, into elements which differ in kind. [...] Bergson is aware that things
are mixed together in reality; in fact, experience itself offers us nothing but composites.
But that is not where the difficulty lies. For example, we make time into a representation
18
imbued with space. The awkward thing is that we no longer know to distinguish in that
representation the two component elements which differ in kind, the two pure presences
of duration and extensity. (Deleuze 1991 [1966]: 22)

Bergsons interest in the comic should be understood from this point of view. The comic
offers an example of how two separate lines intersect during their actualization. Laughing
with the falling man, Bergson says, originates from the crossing of flexibility and rigidity, but
both are representative respectively of the lightness of the soul and the gravity of the matter,
which are distinguished ontologically.
20

Deleuzes Coldness and Cruelty should be read from this Bergsonian perspective.
21

Deleuzes study is Bergsonian in the sense that its goal is to differentiate between two
ontologically different phenomena, namely sadism and masochism, which are mixed in
experience.
22
Deleuze holds that in both Sade and Masoch sadism and masochism coexist
(Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 38). For example, in the final scene from Venus in Furs, Wanda is a
sadistic woman who instructs her lover to thrash the poetry out of Severins body. In 120
Days of Sodom the libertines regularly organize sessions in which they are mistreated. But this
does not mean that sadism and masochism hang together essentially. First of all, according to
Deleuze, sadism does not belong to the core of masochism but marks its end. At the end of the
novel, Wanda falls out of her role as a rigorous, cold mother, and (together with the Greek)
the rejected father returns. This henchman does not destroy the fathers likeness but Severins
masochistic phantasy: the sadistic Greek heals Severins masochism (Deleuze 1991 [1967]:
64). Secondly, masochism does not belong to the core of sadism. After having tortured his
victim, the sadist wants to know whether he has gone far enough. The requirement to be
mistreated himself, then, is only a means for verification. The harshness with which his victim
mistreats him assures him that he has gone far enough; a mild mistreatment means he could
have done more (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 39). In short, masochism and sadism can cross each
other, but and this is Deleuzes Bergsonian thesis Masochs and Sades worlds are
fundamentally different. While in sadism the father, reason, philosophy, and apathy are
central, in masochism the mother, imagination, mythology, and coldness are dominant.
Deleuzes claim that sadism and masochism are incompatible despite appearing together
is opposed to at least two different conceptions. As representatives of the first conception,
Deleuze mentions two pioneers of modern sexology, the British doctor Havelock Ellis and the
German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 38). In his
Psychopathia Sexualis, the latter writes: Masochism is the opposite of sadism. While the
latter is the desire to cause pain and use force, the former is the wish to suffer pain and be
19
subjected to force (von Krafft-Ebing, 1906 [1886]: 131). Like Ellis, von Krafft-Ebing
understands sadism to mean that one sexually enjoys inflicting pain or subjecting others to it;
the masochist, on the other hand, enjoys the pain inflicted upon him or submission to it.
23
But
this means that masochism is just the passive variant of sadism. The claim that they are
opposites simply means, for von Krafft-Ebing and Ellis, that they are complementary, not that
they are incompatible. For both syndromes share the central symptom of enjoying pain. Von
Krafft-Ebings and Elliss conception of sadism and masochism holds that both share the
couple pain-enjoyment, of which sadism is the active and masochism the passive
expression.
24
It is precisely this conception which is criticized by Deleuze. Deleuze claims
that such a view fails to recognize that, as clinical phenomena, sadism and masochism have
nothing to with each other.
25

The second conception Deleuze opposes is Freuds (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 37-46, 103-
110). In his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud holds that sadism and masochism
are combined in one and the same person: every sadist is a masochist, and vice versa (Freud
1953 [1905]: 158-9). In Instincts and their Vicissitudes, Freud elaborates his thesis more
thoroughly. The fantasy animating sexual masochism, Freud claims, presupposes two earlier
phases (Freud 1957 [1915]: 127-9). The primal phase is marked by sadism, first understood
not in a sexual sense but simply as a drive to overpower another.
26
In the second phase, both
the object and the aim of this overpowering are transformed. It is no longer another who is
fantasized as the tormented object but oneself, and this reflexive torment is experienced from
the perspective of the self as recipient. This second phase, Freud says, can be summarized as
I am tormented by myself. The deflection onto ones own person and the shift from an
active to a passive drive aim also characterize the third phase, wherein sexual masochism is
central. In this phase, however, the masochist does not inflict pain on himself but fantasizes
being beaten by another person. The masochist enjoys this role of a victim because he can
imagine himself taking the active position that he had before in the first phase and which now
is occupied by someone else. A fourth and final phase contains real sadism in its clinical
sense. Here, sadism means that one sexually enjoys abusing rather than overwhelming others.
But this kind of enjoyment is only possible as a consequence of the third, masochistic phase.
The sadist enjoys the pain inflicted by himself on the other because he can identify with the
victim that he himself was in the third phase. In summary: masochistic enjoyment implies,
according to Freud, an original sadistic drive to overwhelm; sexual sadism is only possible
after passing through the masochistic phase. In 1920, when he formulates the hypothesis of
the death drive, Freud revises his thesis of primary sadism and claims that masochism is the
20
starting point (Freud 1955 [1920]: 54-5). Nevertheless, the underlying idea remains the same:
one sexual perversion is derived from the other. The basis changes first sadism, later
masochism but the thesis remains that sadism and masochism are reducible to each other.
Although Deleuzes criticism is the same in both cases, he mentions von Krafft-Ebing and
Ellis only in passing. Coldness and Cruelty is primarily an explicit criticism of Freud, who
assumes the reversibility of sadism and masochism and therefore misunderstands the essential
distinction between the two syndromes. This supposed unity leads, according to Deleuze, to
the incorrect observation that in masochism, just as in sadism, the father is central (Deleuze
1991 [1967]: 59). But a more accurate symptomatology, like that which Deleuze works out,
reveals that in masochism the father is absent, beaten and driven out by the mother. Above all,
such a study reveals that sadomasochism is absurd as a clinical category.
In advancing his systematic criticism, Deleuze characterizes Freud as having betrayed
both the latters own literary sensibilities and psychoanalytic principles. By emphasizing what
is shared in the etiology of sadism and masochism rather than the specific shape of differing
symptom-constellations such as would be revealed by a study of Sades and Masochs
respective writings Freud acts more like the natural scientists of his day than like the author
that explored Leonardo da Vinci, creative writing, and E.T.A. Hoffmann, among other literary
and artistic influences (Freud 1957 [1910]; Freud 1959 [1908]; Freud 1955b [1919]).
Furthermore, Deleuze claims that with respect to sadomasochism Freud forgets the radicality
of psychoanalytic research, instead simply taking over as assumptions pre-Freudian thinking
which relied on hasty assimilations and faulty etiological interpretations (Deleuze 1991
[1967]: 133). So, for example, Freud simply accepts that sadism and masochism occur in the
same individual, that they are dependent on the same experience, and that their relation is one
of the transformation of drives (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 43-4). With respect to this third
assumption, Deleuze calls it remarkable that in his treatment of perversions Freud seems to
admit of a polymorphous system with possibilities of evolution and direct transformation,
which he regards as unacceptable in the field of neurotic and cultural formations (Deleuze
1991 [1967]: 45). In other words, Freud is usually much more careful in his thinking.
Each of these assumptions thus leads to problems, according to Deleuze, and it would not
be too much to say that these are problems that repeatedly plagued Freuds thinking. The
polymorphous system to which Deleuze refers raises the difficulty of how many kinds of
drives are required to produce the psychic conflict Freud encounters clinically, a problem to
which Freud returned again and again (Freud 1955 [1920]; Freud 1961 [1930]). The second
assumption, of the identity of experience between sadism and masochism, gives rise to the
21
problem of which formation is primary, about which Freud likewise changed his mind more
than once. And, finally, Freuds assumption that sadism and masochism both occur in a single
person raises the question of an excessive abstraction, according to Deleuze: Even though the
sadist may definitely enjoy being hurt, it does not follow that he enjoys it in the same way as
the masochist; likewise the masochists pleasure in inflicting pain is not necessarily the same
as the sadists. [S]ome syndromes merely attach a common label to irreducibly different
disturbances (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 46). Deleuze seems to be saying that Freuds normally
more cautious manner of distinguishing between various influences in a visible phenomenon
(on display, for example, in his emphasis on the overdetermination of symptoms) is
abandoned in this case for a too-quickly assumed unity the unity of the Oedipal explanation.
Perhaps because he posits Freud as betraying his own principles, Deleuzes counter-
portrait of sadism and masochism picks up and exploits particular lacunae in Freuds
observations, especially from the essay The Economic Problem of Masochism. Freud
mentions there that mutilations are rarely included in the content of masochistic fantasy, and
then only subject to strict limitations (Freud 1961 [1924]: 162), but he does not say anything
about these limitations as such. Deleuze, by contrast, emphasizes the importance of the
contract to specifically the masochistic phantasm, since it protects against the threat from the
reality principle inherent to that phantasm (Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 65-6). Freud also mentions
that the nature of the masochists crime is left indefinite. He connects it to infantile
masturbation in other words, to the Oedipus complex and castration but also to the
feminine (passive) position, speaking of a superimposed stratification of the infantile and the
feminine (Freud 1961 [1924]: 162). Deleuze then attends at length to the various figures of
the feminine in Masochs writing, concluding (as we saw above) that the crime for which the
beaten man is punished is that of being like the father: being sexually male.
Finally and most tellingly, in his discussion of moral masochism, Freud himself
acknowledges that he has previously conflated an unconscious extension of morality with
moral masochism. The former, he now sees, emphasizes the heightened sadism of the Super-
Ego to which the Ego submits which is precisely the intrapsychic description of sadism
that Deleuze interprets as interpsychic while the latter emphasizes the Egos own desire for
punishment, whether from the Super-Ego [the father in Masochs story] or from the parental
powers outside [the various adopted mother-figures] (Freud 1961 [1924]: 169). This split that
Freud himself introduces, Deleuze will later use as a wedge to pry apart the universe of
sadism from that of masochism. Although Deleuze does not mention the more or less
immanent nature of these criticisms, his explicit discussions of desexualization, defusion, and
22
resexualization make plain enough that he is reading Freud against himself, even in the
process of retheorizing sadism and masochism from the ground up.
In the background of Deleuzes study, one can read the same kind of Bergsonian criticism
of yet another aspect of Freuds theory of sexual perversion. This critique is not explicitly
formulated as such by Deleuze, but we will show that it can be derived from Deleuzes
interpretation of Sade and Masoch. In order to get a good picture of this second criticism, we
can refer to Freuds text A Child is Being Beaten (Freud 1955a [1919]).
As Freud indicates in the subtitle of this text, his purpose is explaining the very emergence
of perversion.
27
Therefore, he takes six case studies, four women and two men, all of whose
sexuality is structured by the fantasy a child is beaten.
28
That particular structure of the
fantasy, Freud claims, is constructed out of two preceding phases. At first, the image my
father beats the child I hate is central. This mental image is based on the loving bond of the
girl to her father and her jealousy of a newborn little brother or sister to whom the father pays
a great deal of attention. The girl thus fantasizes her father beating the hated brother or sister.
The message is that the father only loves her. At the end of the first phase, this early,
incestuous love is converted into a genital desire for the father. This desire is then repressed
under the pressure of the Oedipal prohibition.
The second phase cannot be remembered and is a construction by Freud himself in the
course of the analysis. During this stage it is still the father who beats. The object of his
actions, however, is no longer the girls brother or sister but the fantasizing child herself.
Freuds explanation of this masochistic fantasy is twofold. On one hand, the fantasy satisfies a
need for punishment that arises as a consequence of a feeling of guilt for the repressed genital
desire for the father. On the other hand, the masochistic fantasy nonetheless satisfies the
desire for the father. The repression of genital sexuality, Freud says, produces a regression to
pregenital, anal-sadistic sexuality. The genital fantasy from the first phase (father only loves
me) changes into the pregenital, sexually arousing presentation father beats me. Finally, the
child encounters the scenario a child is being beaten. The girl observes how a schoolteacher
beats a group of boys. These boys act as substitutes for the fantasizing girl herself. For Freud
at this point, then, the enjoyment accompanying the masochistic fantasy has to be understood
not in a sadistic but in a masochistic sense.
In A Child is Being Beaten, just as in Freuds previously mentioned texts, sadism and
masochism are reduced to one another. Yet one can perceive in this text still another reduction
that is more fundamental. It is remarkable that Freud understands masochism here in the first
place as a transgression of the incest-prohibition and as a return to the first love-object. This
23
reveals that Freud conceives masochism primarily on the basis of an Oedipal scheme.
According to Deleuze, however, in masochism it is not a prohibited, genitally desired Oedipal
parent but a caring, sweet, and non-genital parent who plays the crucial role, in this case the
mother. This observation, however, does not imply that the masochistic and the Oedipal
universe cannot cross each other. It means, rather, that both should be considered separately.
To be sure, the masochist exceeds the Oedipal law, but this transgression itself is not his
explicit goal: he does not seek to bypass the conflict between desire and law in a regressive
and peculiar way. Masochism is not a reaction formation or an answer to an Oedipal
prohibition. It expresses itself primarily in the relationship to the asexual mother, and the
rejection of the Oedipal law is just a side-effect, not a goal, of this relationship.
29

In short, while Deleuzes study from 1967 is a lengthy frontal attack on the non-entity
sadomasochism and Freuds idea of the reciprocity of sadism and masochism, this text also
already presents the more basic kind of criticism we find later in Deleuzes and Guattaris
anti-Oedipus project.
30
The criticism is not only that Freud reduces sadism and masochism to
each other, but that he also, in his later texts, reduces perversion in general to a neurotic
(because Oedipal) problem.
31
Deleuze thus argues against Freud that perversion is not the
inverse of neurosis; rather, they differ ontologically, even if they are mixed in experience.
This is why Deleuzes second, less overt criticism is also grounded in his reading of
Bergson.
32
The difference between perversion and neurosis can be revealed through a close
reading of Sades and Masochs literature, according to Deleuze, but not through reading
Sophocless Oedipus Rex. While this tragedy may be instructive in order to understand
neurosis, it does not get us very far in understanding perversion.
33


V. Conclusion

Unlike the modernists and the nouveaux romanciers of his time, Deleuze does not consider
Sades and Masochs literature to be an autonomous object, something to be interpreted as an
alternative to lived reality. But that does not mean that for Deleuze the primary importance of
literature is its reference to the writers own private life. Deleuze is not interested in Masochs
and Sades literature because therein Sade and Masoch tell about their desires, memories,
worries, experiences or their dirty little secrets (Deleuze 1997 [1993]: 2). Nor is he
convinced by an Oedipal reading of Sade and Masoch. He is primarily interested in their
literature insofar as it testifies to an external, clinical referent. The assumption on which the
entire claim of Deleuzes study is based is that both writers function as a kind of doctor or
24
symptomatologist. Sade and Masoch are pioneers, according to Deleuze (Deleuze 1991
[1967]: 16). For the first time in clinical history, they grouped together in a coherent way the
signs and symptoms of sadism and masochism, respectively. This is why their work teaches
us something about clinical reality: it reveals what is overlooked by most psychologists,
psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts.
Although Deleuze and Freud in some sense share this latter premise, the main thrust of
Deleuzes study is a double criticism of Freud: sadism and masochism on the one hand,
perversion and neurosis on the other, have nothing essentially to do with one another. This
also illustrates the intertwining of philosophy and literature in Deleuzes thinking.
34
Unlike
Plato, Deleuze argues that writers are not liars in the second degree; unlike for Sartre, for
Deleuze literature is not a vehicle for making his abstract ideas more concrete. For Deleuze,
literature is an ally, in the clinical arena and in line with Bergson, for recognizing those things
which are mixed in experience but nonetheless differ ontologically.




Notes


1
For a more extended overview of the reception of Marquis de Sade, see Delon 2007: 105-133 and Laugaa-Traut
1973.
2
In Klossowskis Sade My Neighbor from 1967, some essays from the first edition were either deleted or
reworked. In this second edition, The Philosopher Villain also appears, which is a version of Klossowskis
lecture on the conference Signe et perversion chez Sade that was organized in 1966 by Tel Quel.
3
Deleuzes study also contains the French translation of Masochs novel Venus im Pelz. Deleuze discusses
Masoch thoroughly in three other texts. See Deleuze 1997 [1993]; Deleuze 2004 [1961]; Deleuze 2004 [2002].
The latter is almost the same text as the introduction of Coldness and Cruelty. However, many interpreters hold
that both texts are literally the same, which is not true. For a general review of the texts wherein Deleuze refers
to Masoch in passing, see Gelas et Micolet 2007: 576.
4
Despite some recent excellent work on Deleuzes interpretation of thinking and reason (Banham 2010;
Kazarian 2010; Sigler 2011) no attention is paid to Deleuzes remark that the sadist sexually enjoys the activity
of pure thinking. This thesis concerning the sadist is itself defended in Le Brun 1986: 254-6. However, Le Brun
does not refer to Deleuze in this context.
5
This thesis is also defended by Bataille and Klossowski.
6
Bataille, Klossowski, Blanchot, and Lacan also stress the sadists apathy.
7
The distinction between first and second nature is based on an early, psychoanalytically oriented text of
Klossowski (1933).
8
Cp. Deleuzes later thinking of the body (or matter) without organs.
9
This interpretation is in line with Deleuzes and Guattaris study on Kafka: The judges, commissioners,
bureaucrats, and so on, are not substitutes for the father; rather, it is the father who is a condensation of all these
forces that he submits to and that he tries to get his son to submit to. (Deleuze and Guattari 1986 [1975]: 12)
10
This means that sadism, according to Deleuze, is not a sublimation in a Freudian sense. While, according to
Freud, sublimation goes along with the destruction of sexual goals, for Deleuzes Sade, sexualization increases
as desexualization continues. The more energy is freed, the more the sadist is sexually excited because the
activity of thinking can continue itself uninterruptedly. Cp. Aristotles argument for the pure pleasure of thinking
in Nicomachean Ethics X.
25

11
We use fantasy/fantasize to designate the Freudian concept and phantasm/phantasize to designate
Deleuzes concept, which is heavily influenced by Klossowski. See Smith 2005: 13-16 for an account of
Klossowskis concept that is informed by a Deleuzian perspective.
12
In this context Deleuze refers to Theodor Reik, who also holds that fantasy in addition to provocation,
demonstration, and suspense characterizes masochism. See Reik 1962 [1941]: 44-58.
13
For a reading of original fantasy as a problematic in Freuds own work, see Laplanche and Pontalis 1968
(1964).
14
Here Deleuze refers to the second phase of masochistic fantasy as described in Freuds text A Child is Being
Beaten. This will be clarified below.
15
Deleuze also refers to the masochists humor: while according to Freud, beating is a consequence of a
forbidden enjoyment, in Masoch being beaten is a condition for enjoyment. See Deleuze 1991 [1967]: 88-9.
16
This implies that Deleuze understands the masochists incestuous desire in a Jungian sense. In this context
Deleuze refers to Jung explicitly. See Deleuze 2004 [1961]: 43. For Deleuzes Jungianism, see Kerslake 2004.
17
It is what lies behind our loves, according to Smith 2005: 14.
18
This would be what Klossowski names a simulacrum. The phantasms basic incommunicability is what
makes it the subject of endless repetition. It can only be made actual through a dissimulative mask that at the
same time signifies it: the simulacrum. See Smith 2005: 16-17.
19
The direction of movement here is the reverse of the depersonalization of the father articulated in section II.
There, the general vision of the world came first, of which the father was seen as an echo. For Masoch, the
personal scene (the ideal or the image) comes first, and is then generalized (depersonalized) into a vision of the
whole world. This is why the phantasm (fixation to the image) is crucial for masochism, on Deleuzes reading,
while logic (deduction from general principles to particular instances) is central for sadism. We should note, too,
that where there seems to be an echo of the sadistic structure in Masoch (since the condition for his interpretation
of his personal experience with Zenobie as an obsessive image is that it fit with his already existing disposition),
there remains a characteristc difference: he does not have a theory of the world but a singular disposition,
precisely what the sadist seeks to remove through apathy.
20
Besides the ontological difference between soul and matter, there are numerous other Bergsonian dualisms:
duaration-space, memory-perception, instinct-intelligence, etc.
21
Cp. Socrates strategy with regard to pleasure in Platos Philebus.
22
It should be stressed that Deleuzes study is called Bergsonian here only in the sense that it concerns itself
with the relation of two ontologically different worlds. For the relation between Bergson and Deleuze in general,
see for example Gunter 2009: 167-180 and Lefebre 2008: 88-142.
23
The fact that Krafft-Ebing stresses subjugation and that Ellis stresses pain is of secondary importance here.
24
Currently, this conception is also central in the DSM, the instrument for clinical diagnosis. See American
Psychiatric Association 2000: 572-7.
25
We mention only the agreement between von Krafft-Ebing and Ellis here because it is only this part of their
sexology to which Deleuzes criticism refers. There may be reasons to doubt the accuracy of that criticism. For
example, is it appropriate for Deleuze to use the literary universe of Sade and Masoch in order to criticize a non-
literary and clinical reality, namely sexual perversion? Such a question moves quickly into the problem of the
relation between life and literature. This central problematic for Deleuze is beyond the scope of this paper, but
see the concluding section (V, below) for an opening onto it. For a more extended discussion of Deleuzes use of
Sade and Masoch, see Moore 2009.
26
Reik also writes: In the meantime we have to rest satisfied with looking at masochism as a transformed
instinctual expression of a sadistic kind and derivation (Reik 1962 [1941]: 189).
27
The subtitle is A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions.
28
The differences Deleuze perceives between the fantasy of women and the fantasy of men is of secondary
importance. Here we only discuss the female fantasy to which Freud pays most attention.
29
Deleuze refers (Deleuze 1991 [1967]:104, 138) to a lecture of Bla Grunberger, who also proposes a non-
Oedipal interpretation of masochism but who, Deleuze holds, nevertheless negotiates on the central role of the
mother. See Grunberger 1954.
30
Therefore, it is not remarkable that A Child is Being Beaten is also discussed in Anti-Oedipus. See Deleuze
and Guattari 2004 [1973]: 66-69.
31
The subtitle of his text from 1919 suggests that Freud applies his analysis of masochism to perversion in
general.
32
In the same year as Deleuze publishes his study, Lacan claims that you must radically distinguish the perverse
act from the neurotic act (Lacan 1966-1967: 12). Speaking of Lacan, another way to make Deleuzes point
would be to modify Lacans terminological distinctions: while neurosis involves repression (Verdrngung),
perversion does not simply involve disavowal (Verleugnung); rather, masochism is shaped by disavowal while
sadism involves a more straightforward negation (Verneinung).
26

33
Like Deleuze, Lacan holds that we should read Masoch in order to understand masochism. For example, in his
seminar on the ethics of psychoanalysis, Lacan says to his students: Read Mr. Sacher-Masoch (Lacan 1992
[1986]: 239).
34
Deleuze 2004 [2002]:183.

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