You are curled up on your couch , munching on chips, watching a horror movie. You have reached that part of the movie where the atmosphere is very tense, the background music making it worse. You keep the bowl of chips down expecting a jump scare. Uncertainty mixed with fear filling the air around you. Your face half hidden under your blanket, your body curling up even more. It’s obvious that you are scared. But why do you not look away? why not switch off the TV, switch on the lights and watch something lighter, something funny or homely? This feeling of being scared but still wanting to experience what scares you is called benign masochism. The term benign masochism was introduced by psychologist Paul Rozin in the early 1980s. He coined it to describe a unique human tendency to enjoy negative sensations when they are experienced in a safe context. Benign masochism is the beauty of safe danger, the art of getting close to chaos while knowing you’re still in control. We don’t love fear but we love surviving it. When you are in a situation that creates fear in a safe environment, for example watching a horror movie or reading a horror book, your brain cannot tell if the situation involves danger or not, so it activates fight or flight response, your heartbeat rises, pupils widen, adrenaline floods in. At the same time your prefrontal cortex helps your brain understand that the situation that is causing fear or discomfort is actually not that harmful, or not harmful at all. It controls amygdala, which produces fear, and activates the brain’s reward system ( like dopamine release).This mix of fear and safety lets a person feel pleasure from something that would normally feel unpleasant. We don’t chase fear to suffer, we chase it to feel. And the moment our brain knows we’re safe, it turns terror into thrill, pain into pleasure, and danger into something delicious. That’s benign masochism , the science of loving what should hurt.