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From surgery nurses' work clinic and the suffering experienced in their relationship with the surgeons, the article questions the appropriateness of an interpretation of their endurance in terms of masochism. Based on the epistemological works of Ludwick Fleck, the author questions the distinction, and sometimes the overlapping, between masochism in the psychoanalytical sense and in the popular one, highlighting the inscription of the latter within gender's social order. Further on, she discusses the psychodynamic theory of secondary masochism as a defence against suffering in the workplace, and shows how nurses also put in motion other individual strategies, such as seduction games, which tend to relax the manly defensive strategies of the surgeons. The material gathered close to the nurses suggests that their own recognition of the importance of their contribution in the surgical work, thanks to a collective elaboration, is central to their detachment from defensive masochism and the ambiguities of seduction. In short, the author questions the effects of professional work and women's emancipation over the evolution of feminine fantasies.