Masochism and Femininity in Lou Andreas-Salomé's Eine Ausschweifung

Beginning with a close reading of Lou Andreas-Salomé's Eine Ausschweifung (1898) within the contexts of her other work and of turn-of-the-century understandings of masochism, this article then explores the text's contradictory depiction of feminine masochism in the light of Deleuze's theory of the pre-oedipal origins of the phenomenon. Its originality lying in its locating of patriarchal power structures within women's subjectivities, the text's puzzling affirmation of masochism in women (despite the simultaneous cataloguing and condemnation of its pathological symptoms) is interpreted as offering resistance to oedipal repression. (BH)