Most Masochists are Male

I’d say about 3/4 of the masochists in my local scene are female.

As a straight sadistic domme, I’d be delighted to be able to believe this stat… But as far as I can tell, it’s a much more even split than this quote would imply.

I don’t beleive it. My real time experience with females other than me is zilch, but most online communities show a healthy number of female masochists.

I refuse to believe I’m singular.

It would be very strange if there was truly a gender split like this. It might be that it is politically incorrect for modern women to admit that they are submissive. I certainly am very careful who I admit this to as I still have to maintain my position in society as a strong woman.

These “statistics” don’t even make sense:

Research has shown that 95 per cent of sexual masochists are men and that only 5 per cent of women derive sexual pleasure through pain.

If 5% of women derive sexual pleasure through pain (which seems like a pretty high number, actually), and yet they only make up 5% of masochists, then basically almost all men must derive pleasure from pain. That doesn’t seem to be the case at all.

I haven’t seen any evidence (research or in my own experience) to suggest that fewer women are masochists than men are.

Krafft-Ebing defined masochism as primarily a male malady, or rather, the problem of female behavior in men. Women were supposed to be masochistic, though K-E did include 4 cases of female masochists.

In personal experience, I see a roughly equal split of male and female masochists in the local scene. I’d hazard such estimates as the above are based on those who patronize pro-dommes.

Oh yes, I have an opinion. It’s not just those bizarre figures. The whole reply is very strange indeed. For instance it’s suggested that men become sadists because they are obsessively dominant, and women become sadists because of difficult childhoods and low self-esteem. And we probably become kinky because of feeling pleasure when watching punishment as children (so which is it? Low self-esteem, or childhood arousal? And why does it affect men more than women?). To top it all, the reply isn’t even relevant to the reader’s question, apart from a couple of sentences near the end.

(I did comment but can’t see my comment here, so apologies if this a duplicate).

I found the whole reply very odd. It’s not just those strange statistics. The doctor seemed to believe that male sadists are obsessively dominant, while female sadists (like masochists) have difficult backgrounds and low self-esteem. Very little of the answer had anything to do with the question the reader was asking.

I haven’t conducted a survey, but on the basis of my limited personal experience, I’d say they are a load of old tosh. Firstly, I’ve been surprised by the high percentage of my girlfriends who got explicitly sexual pleasure from being spanked hard - even if they weren’t into any other aspect of D/s….is this masochism or not? It’s certainly a long way down that path. Secondly, the ascribing of different motivations to men and women becoming top/bottom Dom/me/sub says far more about the bias and preconceptions of the writers - what we would now consider outdated and unacceptable sexism - not because we don’t accept difference between men and women but because there’s no scientific evidence for this attribution of motivation. Personally I never witnessed any corporal punishment as a child - my siblings were much older and I never received any myself. So just how I became so “sickly perverted” must be down to my own imagination and wickedness :D