A review by obsessioncollector
The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination by Jessica Benjamin

informative reflective

5.0

"Masochism can be seen, therefore, not only as a strategy for escaping aloneness, but also as a search for aloneness with the other: by letting the other remain in control, the masochist hopes to find a 'safe' open space in which to abandon the protective false self and allow the nascent, hidden self to emerge... The masochist’s wish to be reached, penetrated, found, released—a wish that can be expressed in the metaphor of violence as well as in metaphors of redemption—is the other side of the sadist’s wish to discover the other. The masochist’s wish to experience his authentic, inner reality in the company of an other parallels the sadist’s wish to get outside the self into a shared reality."