What does an (S) and (M) relationship stand for?

Answer 1

Sado-Masochistic, i.e, one partner takes pleasure in inflicting pain and the other finds pleasure in receiving it, So-called after the Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. The two men did not know one another, Sade died before Sacher-Masoch was born. Both were of noble birth.

DE SADE
Donatien Alphonse François, le Marquis de Sade (June 2, 1740 – December 2, 1814) was a French aristocrat and writer of philosophy-laden and often violent, sexually taboo works, as well as some strictly philosophical works.

His is a philosophy of extreme freedom, unrestrained by ethics, religion or law, with the pursuit of personal pleasure being the highest principle. Much of his writing was done during the 29 years he was incarcerated. His reputation, although much based on rumor, for sexual cruelty led to the term "sadism" being named after him.

Numerous writers and artists, especially those concerned with sexuality, have been both repelled and fascinated by de Sade.

Simone de Beauvoir (in her essay Must we burn Sade? and other writers have seen Sade as a precursors of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis in his focus on sexuality as a motive force. They also attempted to locate traces of a radical philosophy of freedom in Sade's writings, preceding that of existentialism by some 150 years. The surrealists admired him as one of their forerunners, and Guillaume Apollinaire famously called him "the freest spirit that has yet existed".

SACHER-MASOCH
Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (January 27, 1836–March 9, 1895), writer and journalist, was born in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (now L'viv, Ukraine). He was the son of the police director in Lemberg and Charlotte von Masoch, a Ukrainian lady of noble birth.

During his life, Sacher-Masoch was well known as a man of letters, who was seen by some as a potential successor to Goethe. He was a utopian thinker who espoused socialist and humanist ideals in his fiction and non-fiction.

Venus in Furs is his most famous novel. (Venus im Pelz is the original title in German).

This novel tells of a man, Severin, so infatuated with a woman, Wanda, that he requests to be treated as her slave, and encourages her to treat him in progressively more degrading ways. Severin describes his feelings during these experiences as suprasensuality.

The relationship arrives at a crisis point when Wanda herself meets a man to whom she would like to submit. At the end of the book, Severin, humiliated by Wanda's new lover, ceases to desire to submit, stating that men should dominate women until the time when women are equal to men in education and rights: an ending that can be viewed as both misogynist and feminist.

The novel expressed Sacher-Masoch's fantasies and fetishes (especially for dominant women wearing fur), which strongly influenced his other works. He did his best to live his fantasies out with his mistresses and wives.

The term masochism was coined by the 19th century psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing with Sacher-Masoch and his writings in mind. Sacher-Masoch was not pleased with this development.

I don't imagine the aristocratic von
Masoch family were exactly chuffed at the family name being so besmirched, either!

Answer 2

Single and married

Answer 3

Sadism and masochism

Answer 4

It stands for:
she Snores, i Masterbate