M

"Masochism is deriving pleasure from the high sensation most often referred to as pain, be that physical or emotional," Ortmann says. So, if you enjoy being spanked, humiliated or spit on, you might be a masochist. The term is named for Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, a nineteenth-century Austrian author who wrote the book Venus in Furs, which details what's now considered a typical BDSM "master-slave" relationship (he allegedly was the "slave" in his own such arrangement with his mistress). The flip side of masochism is sadism (named after an eighteenth-century French nobleman), in which someone derives pleasure from inflicting pain of a physical or emotional nature.