d, has seldom depicted the
adult passion of a grown woman, but in the play which he has mainly
devoted to this subject he makes Cleopatra refer to "amorous pinches," and
she says in the end: "The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which
hurts and is desired." "I think the Sabine woman enjoyed being carried off
like that," a woman remarked in front of Rubens's "Rape of the Sabines,"
confessing that such a method of love-making appealed strongly to
herself, and it is probable that the majority of women would be prepared
to echo that remark.

It may be argued that pain cannot give pleasure, and that when
what would usually be pain is felt as pleasure it cannot be
regarded as pain at all. It must be admitted that the emotional
state is often somewhat complex. Moreover, women by no means
always agree in the statement of their experience. It is
noteworthy, however, that even when the pleasurableness of pain
in love is denied it is still admitted that, under some
circumstances, pain, or the idea of pain, is felt as pleasurable.
I am indebted to a lady for a somewhat elaborate discussion of
this subject, which I may here quote at length: "As regards
physical pain, though the idea of it is sometimes exciting, I
think the reality is the reverse. A very slight amount of pain
destroys my pleasure completely. This was the case with me for
fully a month after marriage, and since. When pain has
occasionally been associated with passion, pleasure has been
sensibly diminished. I can imagine that, when there is a want of
sensitiveness so that the tender kiss or caress might fail to
give pleasure, more forcible methods are desired; but in that
case what would be pain to a sensitive person would be only a
pleasant excitement, and it could not be truly said that such
obtuse persons liked pain, though they might appear to do so. I
cannot think that anyone enjoys what is pain _to them_, if only
from the fact that it detracts and divides the attention. This,
however, is only my own idea drawn from my own negative
experience. No woman has ever told me that she would like to have
pain inflicted on her. On the other hand, the desire to inflict
pain seems almost universal among men. I have only met one man in
whom I have never at any time been able to detect it. At the same
time most men shrink from putting their ideas into prac