The works of the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836–1895) were translated into many European languages and published in mass editions. He became especially popular in France, where major writers: Taine, Flaubert, Daudet, Zola and both Dumas highly appreciated his work. In 1880, based on research into the literary works of Sacher-Masoch, the Viennese psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing introduced the concept of “masochism” into scientific circulation. The proposed cycle of stories by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch “Demonic Women” is a cycle of stories whose heroines are powerful and cruel women who turn men into their obedient slaves and mercilessly deal with unfaithful husbands, torture their servants and insidiously kidnap their lovers from other women. The stories allow you not only to get acquainted with the literary work of the author, who, along with the Marquis de Sade and Sigmund Freud, became an iconic figure in the European culture of gender relations, but also to get an idea of the feelings and behavior of people with a “masochistic orientation.”