Sadomasochism or abuse what's the difference?

Answer 1

Abuse is often thought of by people as inflicting pain on an unwilling being or beings with the intention to cause physical or psychological harm to said being.

Sadism used as a sexual term describes a person who takes pleasure in inflicting some form of humiliation or pain on a person, usually consenting, with the intention of sexual arousal or stimulation to both persons. Masochism describes someone who takes pleasure in receiving the humiliation or pain from another consenting person and is often stimulated or aroused by it. Sadomasochism is is the combined term reffering to any persons who like to receive or inflict pain during sexual intercourse

Sadomasochism used as a psychological term describes someone who inflicts pain on themselves. Medically, sadomasochism is a mental disorder that describes the person as self destructive, and often suggests psychological therapy for the person.

There are of course many people who like sadomasochism during sex, and certainly do not to have any mental illness or psychological disorder and are very sane indeed. There are also many individuals who intentionaly inflict pain and distress on themselves to the point where they become selfdestuctive and are considered a danger to themselves and are certainly characterized as having a mental disorder.

Unfortunately, there are some individuals who take pleasure in abusing other unwilling persons and sometimes do it repeatedly, sometimes intentionaly causing physical and psychological pain to the person. These people may be considered to have anger or dominance issuses and even mental disorders. In history there have been many tragic incidents involving abuse, sadomasochism and insane individuals. Though there are times when sadomasochism and abuse go hand in hand, it is certainly not true that sadomasochism always involves abuse, intentional or not.