Addicted to Pain: A Preliminary Model of Sexual Masochism as Addiction
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 19, 2026

A Conflict Model of Reward-seeking Behavior in Male Rats
Published on: February 20, 2019
11 Private Practice, Jerusalem, Israel.
Abstract:
An exploratory, qualitative, phenomenological study focused on the experience of pain while participating in sexual masochistic acts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine individuals (four female, five male) who regularly participate in sexually masochistic acts and point to pain as central to their experience. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed several key characteristics of the participant's experience: the first time, intoxication, craving and withdrawal, tolerance, pain as control, and the pain inducing partner. The findings indicate that the way pain is experienced while mitigated through masochistic behavior creates an addictive process that coincides with a chronic behavioral spin contextualization. This article presents a preliminary model of addiction to physical pain in light of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5) definition of substance-related and addictive disorders and the behavioral spin theory.
Related Concept Videos
Drug Dependence
Drug Abuse and Addiction: Pharmacological Phenomena
Analgesia and Pain Management
Primary Motives: Sleep, Sex, and Pain Avoidance
Sleep is a fundamental physiological drive that fosters a state of restfulness crucial for several bodily functions. It facilitates body restoration, the process by which the body repairs, rejuvenates, and maintains itself during sleep, including memory...
Psychosexual Stages of Personality: Oral
Weaning, typically occurring around the age...
Psychosexual Theory of Development
The Five Stages of Psychosexual Development
Freud's psychosexual...

