Receiving pleasure from pain has always been one of the controversial issues from many decades. While people pretend that nobody likes pain, there are some people around the world who tend to inflict pain or receive pain in order to get pleasure. In psychological terms these are what is called sadism and masochism. Although many people do not have enough knowledge about sadism and masochism, psychologists have studied that sadism and masochism has a huge impact on people’s lives and their romantic relationships. In the discussion of sadism and masochism, one controversial issue has been why do people are driven into receiving pleasure from pain. On the one hand, psychologists argue that it is our inherent unconscious drives which lead us to dangerous or self destructive behavior and we feel pleasure from it. On the other hand, general people contend that people don’t seek pleasure from pain. Whereas people want happiness and pleasure and that is why they seek love which sometimes causes painful situations in their lives. Others even maintain that it is the evil people who inflict pain and receive pleasure from it as well as it is the weak people who receive pain from others and think that it is love and thus they receive content or pleasure from it. My own view is we all have sadism and masochism on some level hidden inside us but very occasionally we might not recognize it .

In the novella “First Love,” Ivan Turgenev explains how people receive pleasure from pain. Zinaida being the most beautiful, gorgeous and young woman was loved by all the men who could do anything for her just to get her attention. She used to turn all the men round her finger and she knew that each of them was deeply in love with her. But she never cared about them. Moreover, she used to feel pleasure playing with their feelings. She continuously hurt some of them by her words and she never cared if they felt bad or not. Byelovzorov who was a hussar, Lushin who was a doctor, Meidanov who was a poet, Nirmatsky who was a retired captain and many other well-established men who was in love with her despite of knowing that she doesn’t love any of them was trying to impress her so that she might choose one of them to marry. Vladimir was also in love with her even after getting hurt by her several times. Zinaida could have chosen any of the men who was in love with her and could have lived a happy and luxurious life but she didn’t do it cause she doesn’t feel pleasure being with someone who treats her like a queen. Moreover, she feels pleasure by refusing their proposal, by turning them round her finger and inflicting them pain. Incidentally, she found a man who could master her and the man was no one but Vladimir’s father Pitrovitch. Pitrovitch was very cold to Zinaida and he had complete power over her. Pitrovitch was a married man who never really cared about her and he was very abusive to her. But this is probably what attracted Zinaida towards him. Zinaida deeply fell in love with Pitrovitch and this love was very self destructive to her. She knew the love she was in wasn’t good for her as well as she was hurt. But at the same time she had no control over it. Even though she was hurt, she felt pleasure from the pain being in love with him. 

There are some people who cause pain by hurting others and receive pleasure from it which is called sadism. Turgenev portrays sadism in his novella “First Love” where Zinaida used to inflict pain to all the men who were in love with her and receive happiness by doing this. In the novella “First Love,” Turgenev maintains that “Zinaïda continued to play cat and mouse with me. She flirted with me, and I was all agitation and rapture; then she would suddenly thrust me away, and I dared not go near her—dared not look at her. I remember she was very cold to me for several days together; I was completely crushed,” ( Page 18 ). In other words, Turgenev explains that Zinaida used to interact with Vladimir based on her mood. One day she used to show tremendous affection to Vladimir and the next day she used to behave very cold to him. Turgenev is surely right about this behavioral changes of Zinaida as recent studies have shown that people who like to inflict pain on others in romantic relationships tend to behave that they are so into someone one day and this behavior disappears the next day. Since Zinaida already understood that Vladimir was in love with her, she felt pleasure being cold to him and hurting him. Turgenev portrays another example where Zinaida caused physical pain to Vladimir encouraging him to jump from the height in order to prove his love for her. Turgeneve urges, “What are you doing up there at such a height?” she asked me with a rather queer smile. “Come,” she went on, “you always declare you love me; jump down into the road to me if you really do love me” ( Page 24 ). In this quote Turgeneve emphasizes how Zinaida was so careless and cold to Vladmir that she asked him to jump from the height. Furthermore, when Vladimir jumped from the height for real to prove his love to her, Zinaida was shocked and all of a sudden she started to kiss him saying “how could you do it, dear; how could you obey?… You know I love you…. Get up” ( Page 24 ) as if she was sorry about this whereas she was feeling content knowing that this guy didn’t even hesitate to jump from the fourteen feet high wall. Here Turgenev is pointing how Zinaida was a sadist to Vladimir. Turgenev’s example of sadism is extremely useful because it sheds light on the people who face violence by their significant other in a romantic relationship nowadays as it shows that sadists tend to hurt and abuse people in the name of love.

Where there are people who get pleasure from inflicting pain, there are some people who get pleasure by receiving pain which is called masochism. In the novella “First Love” Turgenev shows, “‘That the heart cannot choose but love,’” repeated Zinaïda. “That’s where poetry’s so fine; it tells us what is not, and what’s not only better than what is, but much more like the truth, ‘cannot choose but love,’—it might want not to, but it can’t help it” ( page 19 ). In other words Turgenev explains that Zinaida was hurt by Pitrovitch when she fell in love with him. But she had no control over this and she felt pleasure being in love with someone who has power over her and who hurts her. Adding to what Turgenev explained, I would add that psychologists have studied that our conscious minds drive us towards self destructive behaviour where we feel pleasure through pain. Another example where Turgenev shows that people can receive pleasure even when it causes physical pain is “Zinaïda sat up, and stretched out her arm…. Suddenly, before my very eyes, the impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from crying out; while Zinaïda shuddered, looked without a word at my father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red upon it” ( Page 39 ). In this quote, Turgenev urges how Zinaida was being physically abused by Pitrovitch and instead of being sad over this Zinaida was surrendering herself to Pitrovitch so that he could beat her with the whip. She received intense pleasure as she kissed her arm where he had beaten her up. This shows how people receive pleasure from things which are abusive and self destructive and it is because we all have sadism and masochism hidden inside us and it reveals when we face certain situations in life.

Yet some people may challenge my view by insisting that no one wants pain and no one tends to receive pleasure through pain. Some people might say that when a person falls in love with another, they come across many hardships and many ups and downs. Thus they fight for their hardships if they want to make their relationship last. While facing their struggles, they may go through pain. But it is because they have no other choice and as they are in love, they are ready to receive this pain in order to be with the person they are in love with. But that doesn’t mean that they receive pleasure from that pain. This is not true because as we see in the novella “First Love”, Zinaida was a sadist to all the men who were in love with her and a masochist when she fell in love with Pitrovitch. Just like her, we see many people in our society nowadays who choose a hard life or a difficult partner instead of going for a easy life or an ideal partner and this is how human nature is.

At first glance, some people might say that there is no such thing as receiving pleasure from pain. But on closer analysis, we can say that sadism and masochism do exist  throughout history. Psychologists also studied that it is our inherent unconscious desires which lead us to those things by which we receive or inflict pain in order to get pleasure and we also see these types of behaviours in modern day relationships too.

Work cited page 

Turgenev, Ivan, and Constance Garnett. First Love. Barnes & Noble Books, 2005.