Sadomasochism - Fiction

Fiction

Many of Marquis de Sade's books, including Justine (1791), Juliette (1797) and The 120 Days of Sodom (published posthumously in 1905), are written from a cruelly sadistic viewpoint. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's novel Venus in Furs (1870) is essentially one long masochistic fantasy, where the male principal character encourages his mistress to mistreat him.

In Pauline Réage's novel Story of O (1954), the female principal character is kept in a château and educated by a group of men using a wide range of BDSM techniques. "O"'s submission is depicted as consensual. A particular revelation of the story is that it is possible to gain power over someone as their victim.

Isaac Julien's short dialogue-free film The Attendant (1993) was originally created for the BBC series Time-Code at the beginnings of New Queer Cinema. In the film a museum attendant is caught up in sado-masochistic fantasies inspired by a 19th century painting of slaves in chains, Auguste François Biard's Scene on the Coast of Africa. He remembers his past as a singer, and delivers Dido's lament from Purcell's opera.

As with many sexual interests, sadomasochism is a popular subject in erotica. While S&M erotica is often about consensual humiliation and power exchange, consent is often abandoned as serves fantasy. The contemporary novelist Anne Rice, best known for Interview with the Vampire, wrote the sadomasochistic trilogy The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983–85) under the pseudonym of A. N. Roquelaure and Exit to Eden (1985) under the pseudonym of Anne Rampling.

In Jonathan Larson's musical Rent, one of the main characters, Mimi, is an S&M dancer at a local club.

Pop singer Madonna released two songs about S&M in 90s', the first was "Justify My Love" in 1990 and the other was "Erotica" in 1992. She became interested in the concepts of S&M to the degree of even adding these concepts to her coffee-table book, Sex which was released in 1992, which caused storms of controversy but also became a selling sensation. She even added the S&M concept in her music video for "Human Nature" released in 1994.

The German Industrial Metal band Rammstein made a song in 2009 called "Ich Tu' Dir Weh" (I hurt you), which is about S&M.

Rock band 30 Seconds to Mars's music video Hurricane had an explicit version released that shows very vivid images of S&M. Pop singer Christina Aguilera's music video, Not Myself Tonight, also has some scenes about S&M. Rihanna released a song titled "S&M" in 2011, which describes a woman's love for BDSM.

In the collection of Gary Fisher's work, Gary In Your Pocket: Stories and Notebooks of Gary Fisher, a short story titled "Arabesque" centers around the power of passivity as embodied by the sadist.

Perhaps the ultimate exploration of SM on film is Secretary, in which the female character, Lee, is able to connect with her desire for punishment by making intentional mistakes in the letters she types for her boss, Mr. Grey. His red pen correction marks become pleasurable to Lee (with no reference to teachers' similar practices) and eventually he spanks her, clearly to her masochistic pleasure. Mr. Grey also reluctantly finds his sadistic dimensions and pleasure in them. The film also explores the "reverse control" the masochist has on the sadist. The film was positively reviewed due to its honest and non-sensational treatment of these themes and the idea that one can become satisfied with what one really is and find love in the bargain. Rivaling the above film is the extremely popular manga and anime (both ongoing, 2011) series Nana to Kaoru, which seriously and comedically (mostly) explores BDSM in general along with a deep look into emotional aspects as well as touching on the control structure between the "dom" and "sub" (both forward and reverse control). However this series is based around soft-SM (usually tying, collars, gags, and humiliation) and is more graphic than the film above (not pornographic but perhaps classifiable 17+), the genre classification including ecchi and mature.

Japanese manga Ichi the Killer focuses on a traumatized sadistic hitman and his masochist yakuza target.