ABSTRACT
The inferiority complex is linked with a strong susceptibility to shame. For persons with serious inferiority complexes, open rivalry is often linked with shame. Any appearance of deficiency becomes a cause for shame, plunging one into an abyss of humiliation and self-loathing. Humiliation is felt more acutely than embarrassment or shame-desire. But even when a person experiences a pleasurable reaction or satisfaction to humiliation, pain, and subjugation, he may still suffer intense shame over his masochism. In sexual masochism, while pleasure is sought by means of pain, whipping, bondage, and enslavement, these perverse wishes may at the same time be invested with shame. Masochism of a more mental and psychosocial nature often requires a rationalization or an idealized goal in order to be permitted by the ego. Autonomy and free will can also be burdensome responsibilities whose delegation to someone who knows better can be very comfortable for some people's egos.
