Venus in Furs (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Most of us are familiar with the term "masochism," but few have read the scandalous story that gave a name to the fetish: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's novella Venus in Furs (Venus im Pelz), first published in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1870. A sensational depiction of an erotic passion that defies the norms of nineteenth-century sexuality and gender, the story charts the stages of masculine obsession and collapse, leading a cultivated European aristocrat from his fantasy of abasement at the hands of a domineering woman to a climax of brutal physical violence. It remains a foundational work of modern culture, defining a sexual perversion while also offering a critical lens through which to view persistent structures of masculinity and power.