“What distinguishes sadism from aggression is the sadist’s intense identification with his victim. Sadism is the form that aggression takes when it is fleeing its doom. […] Sadism is the joy of avoiding victimhood, though that puts it too passively. Sadism is the joy of having taken control of the experience of victimhood by inflicting it on another.”
— C. Fred Alford, What Evil Means to Us (via chthonic-cassandra)



















