Sexuality is more than just stroking, kissing, in and out. Human sexuality has countless varieties that go far beyond what can be seen in close-up in every porn movie. For example, there are people who experience sexual climaxes when they humiliate and beat others or are humiliated and beaten themselves. You meet them in clubs, at parties, at scene events.

There, men act as masters, while the women play the maids, servants and slaves and let themselves be led around by the collar. Or vice versa. The web is full of scenes in which schoolgirls are chastised, wives are punished and secretaries are put over the table. And if there is one area of the porn scene that is really flourishing, it is films with a good dose of aggression.

But where were these people in the past? Where were they in the 19th century when there were no fetish clubs? How did they live out their addiction in the 20th century, when pornography was still strictly forbidden and at best traded under the counter? What has changed here and, above all, why is this the case?

I have my own personal opinion and an explanation that seems plausible to me.

Sexuality is not just what everyone knows. It is not just an instinct that is there to ensure that nature can take its course and that there are always enough offspring to ensure the continuation of the human race. Sexuality is also the desire to dominate, the desire to subjugate and the desire to exercise power. Sexuality is not only tenderness and desire, but also aggression and even open violence. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that even among the oldest pornographic depictions that have come down to us, there are always scenes in which canes, rods and whips meet exposed female buttocks.

In the Middle Ages, there was no need for S&M parties to act out such urges. Back then, there was a violent society that extended from the ruling class right down to the family. Those who enjoy it today. Putting women in chains to whip them and attaching metal clamps to their nipples was a way of getting hired as a jailer and extorting confessions. Anyone who enjoyed wielding a cane or rod to live out their power fantasies could do so at will as a husband or master in earlier times.

At some point, the ideals of liberté, egalité and fraternité came to dominate Europe. But a maid was still a maid and the farmer was the absolute ruler on his farm. A wife owed her husband marital duties, while he had the right to impose rules on her and punish her for any infringement. Just as the children were kept subservient and knew exactly what would happen to them if the master of the house was angry.

In other words, men with flagellant tendencies have had a wide range of activities in which to act them out for thousands of years.

Industrialization brought forth new masters. And a new kind of servant, who now called themselves workers and used all their labor for earnings they could barely live on. However, the downward chain of authority remained intact. A worker was at the bottom of the social ladder. But within his family, even he could play the master. His wife and children were still one rung lower. This gave him the opportunity to pass on his frustration as a disenfranchised worker directly to them.

Today it’s called corporal punishment and assault. Back then it was called discipline and order. Today it lives on in the form of role-playing games at scene parties. Back then, it was the socially accepted authority of the little man. Whereby the need for power on the one hand is obviously matched by an equally strong need for submission on the other. Today as in the Middle Ages, in the 19th century or two generations ago.