Uses of Perversity: Commentary on Saketopoulou’s “To Suffer Pleasure”

Abstract

This commentary on Avgi Saketopoulou’s article develops her startling claim that sexual perversion may be psychically useful. It does so by elaborating the twin concepts of ébranlement (shattering) and enigmatic signifier that Saketopoulou derives from the metapsychology of Jean Laplanche in order to consider an analogy between the work of perversion and the work of psychoanalysis. If sadomasochism holds a psychically transformative potential comparable to that of clinical analysis, then on what grounds should one practice be prioritized over the other?

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