All sexual relationships, heterosexual or homosexual, exhibit a dominance-submission pattern of ritual game playing: there is a “husband”(the dominant partner) and a “wife”(the submissive partner). It would appear that psychosexual sado-masochism is an exaggeration of the normal dominance-submission pattern in “normal” heterosexual and homosexual relationships. From the perspective of the dominant partner, the expression of sexuality is covertly or overtly associated with violence or otherwise some form of physical coercive pattern of behavior.

In the psychosexual constitution of the dominant partner, the penis as a symbol of an intromissive(“stabbing”) weapon is absorbed into the dominance-submission symbolism of physical postures in the coital act. It is a fact that the psychosexual constitution of the male or “husband” is such that sexual pleasure is associated with the submissive posture of the female or “wife” in sexual relationship.

The psychosexual drive to dominate may, however, become so pronounced or exaggerated is some individuals as to degenerate into frank sadistic behavioral disposition relative to the submissive partner.

In contrast, the submissive partner in sexual relationships(the “wife”) exhibits a psychosexual tendency which associates sexuality covertly or overtly with self-abnegating postures in sexual relationships. In plain language the submissive partner associates sexual pleasure with submission to a power and authority higher than “herself.” The extreme elaboration of this pattern of psychosexual orientation is masochism: the desire to be mastered by an “other” in an extremely coercive and humiliating manner

It has been observed that the pattern of behavior in courtship and mating among higher animals comes with a strong flavor of dominance-submission ritual game playing. Anyone who has lived on a farm would have observed the imperious flourish with which the cock claims his female; what better way for the male fowl to proclaim his mastery of his mate. Dominant females in a barnyard flock of laying hens will sometimes mount on females lower in the pecking hierarchy; an act which has no sexual significance, being wholly a ritual assertion of dominance.

The fact is that expression of power and dominance on the part of one and the elaboration of patterns of submissive response on the part of the other underlie patterns of heterosexual behavior even in human beings. To some extent Sigmund Freud was correct when he observed that a man is in his sexual elements with a female as a debased object of pleasure. Such statement may appear offensive and chauvinistic, but it reflects the long standing awareness of the element of dominance-submission ritualism inherent to sexual relationships; an awareness which compels a review of our understanding of the psycho-sexual phenomenon of sado-masochistic sexual relationships.

Sado-masochistic liaisons would appear to be exaggeration of the normal psycho-sexual constitution of sexuality. The dominant partner derives “his” kicks from the submissive behavior of his partner and the submissive partner, ironically, gets “her” kicks from being mastered and dominated.

The next two articles will examine the significance of extension of the sado-masochistic pattern to the relationship between the devotee and his god; religious behavior being characterized by the self-abnegating behavior of the devotee in the presence of an apparently aloof and sadistic deity.

Why did Christ have to die on the cross at Golgotha, if the extreme masochistic ritual at Golgotha had not been for the benefit of a sadistic deity?