Radical Depictions of Female Sadomasochism in El Hor/El Ha's Literary Sketches

This study examines how the Austrian Expressionist author El Hor/El Ha contributed to the male-dominated discourse surrounding women’s sexuality in fin de siècle Europe. Although research on literary depictions of sadomasochism has expanded in recent years, El Hor/El Ha remains largely unknown. Her literary sketches challenge the common or “essentialized” (Byrne) thinking of her time and illustrate the complexity and vitality of female sexual desire. I provide a close reading of some of her texts that depict violent eroticism and sadomasochistic acts and analyze the implications of these encounters for gendered power relations and women’s position in society. While El Hor/El Ha’s fictional literature provides a space in which women may explore female sadomasochistic desire, I argue that she implicitly warns readers about enacting such fantasies in real life, as they may ultimately result in disempowerment.