# Sadism > Sadism is taking pleasure in causing pain. In consensual play it means enjoying a reaction from someone who asked for it and can stop it at any moment. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/sadism/ - Section: A–Z - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. Taking pleasure in causing pain. It is the half of this that people find hardest to admit to, including me, and the half most often explained away as service to the other person. Some of it genuinely is not. --- ## In short - Sadism means pleasure taken in causing pain. In consensual play the pain is requested and can be stopped instantly. - The DSM-5-TR separates preference from disorder. A consensual adult interest is not a mental illness. - The word comes from the Marquis de Sade, by way of nineteenth century psychiatry. - The reliable test is whether you would stop the moment the other person stopped wanting it. Everything on this page concerns consenting adults over 18. ## What it means Sadism is enjoying the causing of pain. In this context that means enjoying the gasp, the flinch, the change in breathing, the reluctance, the way somebody holds still when they very much do not want to. It is the mirror of [masochism](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/what-is-masochism/) and the two are usually discussed together. The consensual version has one feature that changes everything about it. The person receiving asked for this, wants it, and can end it in one syllable. That is not a technicality. It is the whole difference between sadism and cruelty, and it is why a sadist in this sense is not a person who wants to hurt people. They want to hurt a person who wants to be hurt, which is narrower and considerably stranger. ## Where it comes from The word derives from the Marquis de Sade, the eighteenth century French writer, and entered clinical use through late nineteenth century psychiatry, where it was paired with masochism, named after Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Both terms arrived as diagnoses, which is why they still carry a faint smell of the case file. Modern practice has largely moved on. The DSM-5-TR holds the line between a paraphilia, which is a preference, and a paraphilic disorder, which requires either a non-consenting person or genuine distress or impairment. A consenting adult who enjoys this with another consenting adult is not a psychiatric case. ## In practice I will be straight about this because most writing on it is not. Part of what I get from topping is not altruism. It is not the satisfaction of a job well done for somebody else. It is the sound she makes at stroke eleven, and I want it, and there was a stretch in my thirties where I found that difficult to look at. What resolved it was noticing that the wanting is entirely bound up in her wanting it. Take away her consent and the appeal does not survive it. Every sadist I have talked to honestly says some version of the same thing, and the ones who do not say it are the ones to keep away from. So the practical test is simple. Would you stop, instantly and without resentment, the moment she stopped wanting it? If the answer arrives without hesitation, the rest is detail. If there is a pause, that pause is the thing to attend to. ## The usual mistake Assuming a sadist must be an angry person. In my experience the opposite is more usual. The people who are actually dangerous with an implement are not sadists at all, they are people who have not learned to notice anything. Confusing sadism with dominance. They are unrelated. There are dominants with no interest in pain and sadists with no interest in authority, and assuming one implies the other leads to some very poorly matched evenings. And denying it entirely, which is the commonest error among decent people. A top who insists he only does this to serve the other person is either not being honest or is missing information about himself. The honest position is easier to keep safe, because a person who knows what he enjoys can also notice when the enjoyment is starting to run the evening. > **If this troubles you.** Feeling frightened by your own appetites is common and it is not evidence of anything. If the distress persists, Samaritans are on **116 123**, free, any time, and Mind has information at mind.org.uk. See also [am I normal](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/am-i-normal/). ## Read next - [What is masochism?](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/what-is-masochism/) - [Top](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/top/) - [Am I normal?](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/am-i-normal/) - [Topping for the first time](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/topping-for-the-first-time/) ## Sources 1. American Psychiatric Association (2022). *DSM-5-TR*, sexual sadism disorder and the paraphilia versus disorder distinction. [psychiatry.org](https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm) ## Common questions ### Is it wrong to enjoy hurting someone who wants it? No, provided the wanting is real, informed and freely given. Consensual sadism is directed at a person who has asked for it and can stop it at any moment with a word, which makes it a different thing from cruelty. What matters is whether you are attached to the other person having a good time, and whether you would stop instantly if they were not. ### What is the difference between sadism and sexual sadism disorder? The DSM-5-TR distinguishes a preference from a disorder. A consensual interest between adults is a paraphilia and not a mental illness. It becomes a disorder only where the urges are acted on with a non-consenting person, or where they cause the individual significant distress or impairment in ordinary functioning.