> There is utterly no control on the labelling
> process:
Psychoanalytic literature is a start (Freud's "The Economic Problem In Masochism" on feminine masochism, Lacan in _The Ethics of Psychoanalysis_: "The economy of masochistic pain ends up looking like the economy of goods. . . . the fact the masochism has been called by this name for so long by psychoanalysis is not without reason. The unity that emerges from all the fields which analytical thought has labeled masochism has to do with the fact that in all these fields pain shares the character of a good. (pp. 239-240)"
These examples are somewhat arbitrary for practical purposes; but they show that there are traditions with specific uses of S-M categories. Is your dispute more with the fact that as categories they smuggle in, if not downright endorse, structural theories of the psyche and behavior that *appear* to turn the social relations/ideology sequence on its head, like in the Providence example?
Alec
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