What this essentially means is that instead of attempting to understand and accommodate for voluntary sadomasochism, the law typically views these incidences as cases of assault. This can be seen with the well-known case in Great Britain, where 15 men were trialed for a range of offences relating to sadomasochism. Samois, the earliest known lesbian S/M organization in the United States, was founded in San Francisco in 1978.Harsh acts of S&M may include consensual torture of the sensitive parts of body, such as cock and ball torture for males, and breast torture and pussy torture for females. Acts common for both genders may include ass torture (ex. using speculum), face torture (ex. nose torture), etc. In extreme cases, sadism and masochism can include fantasies, sexual urges or behavior which cause observably significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning, to the point that they can be considered part of a mental disorder. However, this is widely considered to be rare, as psychiatrists now regard such behaviors as clinically aberrant only if they are identifiable as symptoms or associated with other problems such as personality disorder or neurosis. There is some controversy in the psychology professions regarding a personality disorder referred to alternately as "self-defeating personality disorder" or "masochistic personality disorder", where masochistic behavior may not be in relation to other diagnosed mental disease.
In contrast to frameworks seeking to explain sadomasochism through psychological, psychoanalytic, medical, or forensic approaches, which seek to categorize behavior and desires, and find a root cause, Romana Byrne suggests that such practices can be seen as examples of "aesthetic sexuality", in which a founding physiological or psychological impulse is irrelevant. Rather, according to Byrne, sadism and masochism may be practiced through choice and deliberation, driven by certain aesthetic goals tied to style, pleasure, and identity, which in certain circumstances, she claims can be compared with the creation of art. Psychology
Historical perspective
Sadomasochism, or the use of pain as a sexual stimulant has been practiced since ancient times with some scholars suggesting that it is an integral part of human culture. There are even those who propose that it is already present among nonhuman primate and primitive human communities before emerging in ancient Egyptian, Indian, Oriental, and Arab cultures. One of the oldest surviving narratives that cited its practice was an Egyptian love song, sung by a man expressing a desire to be subjugated by a woman so he could experience pleasure as she treats him like a slave. The Roman historian Juvenal also described a case of a woman who submitted herself to the whipping and beating of the followers of Pan.The modern conceptualization of sadomasochism stemmed from the terms sadism and masochism introduced to the medical field by German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his 1886 compilation of case studies Psychopathia Sexualis.