Today my Japanese friend asked me if I was s or m.
I was a bit confused, and then she clarified: sadist or masochist.
I was a bit surprised by this question, but after a bit of prodding, she explained that its got nothing to do with sex. She told me "it's just words", and "a sadist picks on people with words" and "a masochist is picked on with words".
I was still utterly confused by what she was trying to explain to me. I tried searching google, but I wasn't able to find anything about what she was telling me about.

Anyone have a clue about this bizarre Japanese concept of S&M?

Don't think I've heard of it, but isn't it that company that makes curry roux and stuff?

This also happened to me, too. I was with a group of Japanese friends, and they asked me whether I was "S" or "M". Thinking that this was some kind of sexual thing, I said, "Uhhh...neither," and they looked at me like I was from another planet. However, I later figured out that "S" just means you have a mean streak and like bullying others or bossing them around and that "M" is the opposite: you like to be bullied or bossed around. That's all it is.

kusterdu Wrote:I said, "Uhhh...neither," and they looked at me like I was from another planet.

I got a kind of similar reaction. Are you "supposed" to choose one? Is it all that strange to say that you don't like being bossed around, nor bossing around others?

Zarxrax Wrote:

kusterdu Wrote:I said, "Uhhh...neither," and they looked at me like I was from another planet.

I got a kind of similar reaction. Are you "supposed" to choose one? Is it all that strange to say that you don't like being bossed around, nor bossing around others?

Just tell them you are ドN

kusterdu Wrote:This also happened to me, too. I was with a group of Japanese friends, and they asked me whether I was "S" or "M". Thinking that this was some kind of sexual thing, I said, "Uhhh...neither," and they looked at me like I was from another planet. However, I later figured out that "S" just means you have a mean streak and like bullying others or bossing them around and that "M" is the opposite: you like to be bullied or bossed around. That's all it is.

Right. So it's the old definitions, before the pervert crowd stole them.

I didn't know it was used in a less serious way. I usually ask about 肉食/草食, but I guess the nuance is different. S/M definitely is used in a sexual context (try googling S女), so I would have been a bit surprised too.

wccrawford Wrote:Right. So it's the old definitions, before the pervert crowd stole them.

I don't know, I think they were perverted to begin with. Masochism comes from Leopold von Sacher Masoch who wrote novels about characters that are sexually gratified from being abused, and sadism comes from the Marquis de Sade, after all.

Even if the original words were non-sexual, sadism is the joy of inflicting pain on others and masochism is the joy of having pain inflicted on oneself.
But in the last year or so, Japan has come to use the letters S and M to respectively denote people with dominant and submissive personalities.

Zarxrax Wrote:Anyone have a clue about this bizarre Japanese concept of S&M?

It`s just a modernized version of yin yang concept.

My Japanese friend does the exact same thing. At least for her, it has no sexual connotations, it just identifies your personality. It doesn't matter whether you answer "S" or "M," because they'll figure it out eventually. My friend goes back and forth depending who she's talking to. Supposedly I am an M with her (and she's the S), but this is still being debated.

When I asked my girlfriend this she just seemed embarrassed and said she hadn't thought about it.

Personally, I would answer her: "You have to figure it out yourself!"