love that inflicts suffering and love which craves suffering are travesties on love, for normal love gives joy and craves joy.
yet, it may be that a too perfect adaption, one vouchsafing constantly to the mates the security they seek in each other's arms would soon pall on them. they might not remain attached to each other any longer than the animals who, in the majority of species, part as soon as they have fulfilled their biological mission.
a perfectly normal couple might die of boredom. what makes animals, when they have not been slightly perverted by contact with human beings, so uninteresting, is their absolute normality.
a very slight touch of "perversion" in at least one of the mates, seems necessary if the novelty of the relationship is not to wear off too soon.[pg 213] maybe i should not say perversion, but perverseness.
the normal husband who would die rather than hurt his life mate cannot compete with the romantic, lover, a little mysterious, unreliable, suspected of flirting with other women, who "keeps a woman guessing," pretends at times to be indifferent and has to be won over and over again.
the normal husband whose affection is taken for granted and who always says the proper thing at the proper time, remembers all anniversaries and celebrates them officially, pales in comparison with a tender, masochistic lover, whom every unkind gesture seems to wound deeply, whose affection is tinged with a melancholy longing, who treasures little sentimental memories which his earnestness makes at times rather poignant.
the sadistic lover carries a woman off her feet by the daredevil things he may indulge in when away from her. the masochist touches deeply the motherly chord in her by the acts of kindness and devotion he may perform for others, by his charitable or professional activities.
the vamp. how much the world, especially the world of art, owes to the slightly sadistic, "vampish" woman, who, if she is endowed with much physical[pg 214] beauty sets, a little cruelly, all the males competing for her favors. how many flaming poems of passion, what priceless canvasses, statutes and monuments has she conjured up out of her admirers' minds. even the perverse female beasts of the italian renaissance made love infinitely romantic.
on the other hand, what worshipful tenderness meets even the memory of the patient aude who silently closed her eyes and died when roland was brought home dead, of solvejg, waiting with saintly resignation for the return of the rover peer gynt. of course the sadistic braggart earns much hatred and the whimpering masochistic male much scorn. the sadistic vamp gets shot by jealous lovers and the clinging masochistic vine is called a pest. to the lovers who are not unbearably normal and whose slight pituitary instability causes them to do and say the unexpected, love owes its poetry, the love life its charm and its inspirational power.
all other things being equal, when a slightly sadistic male, seeking as his mate the image of a pliant mother, meets a slightly masochistic female who seeks the image of the powerful, domineering father, there are many chances that the match will, for a long period of time, retain its original qualities.
[pg 215]
the sadistic female, on the other hand soon emasculates the masochistic male. sadistic mates and masochistic mates land in the divorce court, the former throwing at each other charges of cruelty, the latter, for unfaithfulness of one or both mates, who seek in adultery relief from the monotony of their too peaceful existence.
