What is a Sadist?

[revlis87]

A friend and I just had this heated conversation. We were talking about fraternity hazing, and I suggested that a funny thing to do would be to make pledges lie down in the snow in boxers for 20 seconds. My friend interjected that he was not a sadist and that was sadistic. My arguement was that there was a difference between 20 seconds and 10 minutes because 10 minutes was a matter of extreme pain and 20 seconds was not going to cause serious physical pain. For the purposes of the arguement it might as well be 2 seconds - the purpose is that it makes the individual uncomfortable.

The question is not so much about the individual instance as it is about the concept of sadism. Here is what dictionary.com says...

1 : The deriving of sexual gratification or the tendency to derive sexual gratification from inflicting pain or emotional abuse on others.
2 : The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from cruelty.
3 : Extreme cruelty.

Acccording to my friend's definition, it is the act of getting pleasure from anyone's uncomfort that constitues sadism. He has agreed that by his definition practical jokes whereby someone is fooled into thinking, for example, that they are going to have to spend time with someone they dont like, for even a matter of seconds is sadism as long as the person pulling the joke is getting pleasure out of it.

My opinion is that sadism involves an element of cruelty andd that his definition is far to broad. Thus, I say sadism distinguishes between a practical joke and laughing as someone urinates on someone else.

What do you think?

In your responses, please dont consider the issue of HAZING. The question comes down to whether sadism haas a very general definition or whether it is more specific in its nature.

Thanks !