For the sake of the light it throws on the relationship between love and pain
Too Long; Didn't Read
The Impulse to Strangle the Object of Sexual Desire—The Wish to be Strangled—Respiratory Disturbance the Essential Element in this Group of Phenomena—The Part Played by Respiratory Excitement in the Process of Courtship—Swinging and Suspension—The Attraction Exerted by the Idea of being Chained and Fettered.
There is another impulse which it may be worth while to consider briefly here, for the sake of the light it throws on the relationship between love and pain. I allude to the impulse to strangle the object of sexual desire, and to the corresponding craving to be strangled. Cases have been recorded in which this impulse was so powerful that men have actually strangled women at the moment of coitus. Such cases are rare; but, as a mere idea, the thought of strangling a woman appears to be not infrequently associated with sexual emotion. We must probably regard it as, in the main,—with whatever subsidiary elements,—an aspect of that physical seizure, domination, and forcible embrace of the female which is one of the primitive elements of courtship.