Who needs to be a masochist when your kitty is a sadist?

In Pulp Fiction, Mia (Uma Thurman) says she has a theory that when it comes to important subjects, people can only answer two ways. Which way they answer tells you what kind of person they are. Her example of this is that there are only two kinds of people in the world: Beatles people and Elvis people.

Okay, only a loosely related intro into my talk about the complementary (or lack there of) relationship between masochism and sadism. Let's start with a simple Wikipedia definition:

Sadism refers to the infliction of pain or humiliation upon or by another person. Masochism refers to gratification in the infliction of pain or humiliation upon oneself.

So, logically speaking, you would assume that Masochists would search for Sadist mates and vice versa. I mean, logically, you would assume someone interested in inflicting pain would seek out one who enjoys pain. But according to social psychologist, Erich Fromm, when these two types get together it results in a weak and shallow bond. This is where I become conflicted. Part of me feels that people need to find someone who fills their holes and completes/compliments them. I mean, two hot headed individuals will have lots of trouble working things out. On the other hand, I've read psychological studies that say that couples with the most similarities have relationships that tend to last the longest.

But maybe the problem is that Sadism is not really the opposite of Masochism. Maybe the Masochist only finds pleasure in the pain when they inflict it on themselves and not when Sadists inflict pain on them. Perhaps, Masochists find the real gratification not in the pain but in the control over their own body. This would conclude that Masochists and Sadists are not complementary but are actually a poor match. I would say a relationship between these two would be beneficial to the Sadist but cause the Masochist the opposite of gratification. They would feel helpless instead of that feeling of control they were searching for in self infliction.

Of course, to be fair, I should finish explaining Mia's theory. She says: "Beatles people can like Elvis, and Elvis people can like Beatles but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice." I completely agree; nothing is ever as simple as black and white. We may tend to have both masochistic and sadist tendencies but can we ever have them equally? Perhaps that is the real question.

Food for thought