A Brief Introduction to the Author of Sad Love Subculture

Li Yinhe's blood group A, 1952, was born in Beijing in February. Researcher and doctoral supervisor, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Ph.D. in Sociology, University of Pittsburgh, USA, and postdoctoral fellow in Sociology, Peking University. The main translations are: Sex and Marriage of China People, Fertility and China Rural Culture, Their World-A Perspective of Gay Groups in China, Marriage and Family in China and Their Changes, Sex and Love of Women in China, Homosexual Subculture, Sadistic Subculture and so on.

Professor Li Yinhe is the first research-oriented female sociologist in China and one of the most famous sociologists in China today. On 1999, she was named one of the 50 most influential people in China and Hongkong by Asia Weekly.

Sadism, known as sadomasochism (sm) in the west, refers to the consciousness and behavior related to sadism and abuse. The term "sadomasochism" was first put forward by Pan Guangdan, a sociologist of the older generation in China, but it was not until the end of the 20th century that Li Yinhe's "Sadomasochism Subculture" really filled the gap in this research for our country.

In the book Sadism Subculture, the author systematically introduces the phenomenon of Sadism in the West and its significance. The book is divided into six chapters: "Sadism subculture"-describing the scale, characteristics, historical changes and social conditions of Sadism. "Sad love cases"-According to gender differences, the cases of sadomasochism are divided into five categories and introduced respectively. Sad Works-This paper introduces and analyzes the description of sadomasochism from mainstream literature to underground literature. "Causes of sexual abuse"-This paper introduces and analyzes the explanations of sexual abuse by western scholars. "Sadism Politics"-This paper introduces the different political positions of westerners against Sadism. Enlightenment of Sadism-The author introduces the enlightenment of Sadism from many angles (power relations, religious spirit, sexual liberation, etc.). ).

The author's definition of sadism is: "It is a sexual activity that connects pleasure with pain, or a sexual activity that obtains pleasure through pain ... The so-called pain has two connotations, one is physical pain (such as the pleasure caused by whipping) ... and the other is mental pain (such as the painful feeling caused by humiliation in the relationship between domination and obedience)."

In the preface, the author thinks that "... there are two most revolutionary separations in sexual thoughts, one is to separate sexual pleasure from reproductive organs ... and one of the meanings of masochism is that it replaces pleasure and sexual pleasure, and the sexual behavior that really plays a reproductive role will be reduced accordingly. How to explain this phenomenon that is not conducive to the survival of biological individuals in evolution?

If the definition of sadism is changed to "sexual activity that links pleasure with humiliation", a hypothesis can be put forward on this basis. As follows: The human brain is a complex neural network with advanced associative learning ability, and usually likes to associate similar things. This is the meaning of the idiom "love me, love my dog". If something is usually related to sex, and sex is related to pleasure, then people will directly associate it with pleasure unconsciously, so that as long as it appears, people will have pleasure without having sex at all. For example, fetishism directly links underwear (objects in contact with sexual organs) with pleasure. Sadism is a kind of behavior based on shame, which is usually closely related to sexual activities, so people will unconsciously associate sadism with pleasure. Although the connection between sadomasochism and pleasure is not conducive to survival, if we want to eliminate this connection, we must eliminate the connection between humiliation and sexual activity, which is not conducive to human reproduction (as to why it is unfavorable and how much it costs, many books on the evolution of human nature have introduced it), because the cost of eliminating humiliation is greater than the cost of sadomasochism. Through long-term natural selection, human beings have retained a certain sense of humiliation, followed by sadomasochism.

This book embodies the consistent style of Li Yinhe's scholarship-rigorous and realistic, and does not make value judgments easily. The first time I heard Li Yinhe's name was because she was Wang Xiaobo's wife. But it seems that his talent and influence should far exceed Wang Xiaobo's.

Sadism is basically classified as abnormal in the eyes of China people, which is in sharp contrast with Japan, a neighboring country separated by water (the Japanese cartoon Crayon Shinchan contains sadomasochism). Therefore, the publication of this book is of great significance to the promotion of China's concept of human nature, and also provides a good springboard for domestic scholars' relevant sociological research.