Book Description
Focusing on a variety of representations, from the boundary-shattering work of queer performances to the daring conjunction of childhood sexual abuse and desire in the work of Dorothy Allison, Between the Body and the Flesh stimulates discussions of s/m through the exploration of censorship in the arts, the fetishization of sexual paraphernalia, recombination of class, race and sexuality, and the politics of psychoanalysis.

In this first book-length study of lesbian s/m, Lynda Hart creates a vivid and compelling counter discourse to the erotophobic voices in contemporary cultural debates. Focusing on a variety of representations, from the boundary-shattering work of queer performances to the daring conjunction of childhood sexual abuse and perverse desire in the work of Dorothy Allison, Between the Body and the Flesh situates s/m as a lightning rod that stimulates discussions of censorship in the arts, the fetishization of sexual paraphernalia, recombination of class, race, and sexuality, and the politics of psychoanalysis.

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Book Description
237 classic case histories of lustmurder, necrophilia, pederasty, bestiality, transvestism, rape, mutilation, sado-masochism, exhibitionism and other psychosexual proclivities.

Synopsis
Controversial for decades, now finally back in print, this classic 19th-century work on so-called sexual deviation is the pioneering collection of case studies that cataloged and defined "perversion"--from fetishism to incest to homosexuality and much more. Informative and entertaining, PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS is considered one of the most important documents in humankind's modern efforts to understand itself. --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title

Synopsis
Controversial for decades, now finally back in print, this classic 19th-century work on so-called sexual deviation is the pioneering collection of case studies that cataloged and defined "perversion"--from fetishism to incest to homosexuality and much more. Informative and entertaining, PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS is considered one of the most important documents in humankind's modern efforts to understand itself. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title

Brenda Love, The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices 
(Barricade Books, 1992), hardcover, $29.95, Amazon's Price: $20.97 

One person's erotic stimulation is another person's excuse to say, "I'm outta here." A study of neurological cycles, imprinting, and primal needs shows how people form their own unique recipes for love. Hardly any garment or activity escapes Brenda Love's encyclopedia. Writing exhaustively and without bias, Love has created a reference source for those intrigued with the full range of human sexual expression. To enrich the content of more than 750 entries, she has consulted with or quoted from, wherever possible, the practitioners.

Readers learn about such "practices" as concubinage, mock marriages, power tools (including a list of those suitable for sex games), sadism, and suturing. The entries, along with 150 original illustrations, are certain to expand both your consciousness and your vocabulary: you will learn about flatuphiles, fornicatory dolls, and frottage, plus infibulation (surgical closure of the labia) and inunction (using lotion for arousal). In this entertaining guide through sexual facts and fancies, Brenda Love--licensed pilot, skydiver, and columnist--writes: "It is the aim of the encyclopedia to provide objective information about how human beings behave; where you draw the line must be your own informed choice."

Synopsis
What other people do for their pleasure is often shocking--and fascinating. That's why Brenda Love's authoritative and entertaining book is so mesmerizing. From adultery and birth control to computer sex and pubic hair sculpture, Love probes more than 700 topics, including both norms and extremes. 150 line drawings. 

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Customer Comments
Average Customer Review: Number of Reviews: 2

A reader from San Francisco, Ca. , May 17, 1999
A beautifully written, demystifying handling of S & M
Frankly, this is a book that every serious student of human nature needs to read. Most of what is "out there" is either from academicians who make the topic so dry that it is no fun to read, or from practitioners who are so involved that they either lose or scare us. Moser, the scientist and Madison, the practitioner, have combined to produce a book that is both fun and educational. The book lets us know just what it is that S&Mers do, why they do it and how they do it. Safety issues are emphasized. Finally we learn how S&M can be a very loving, alternative, life-style. --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title

A reader from Vancouver, BC , March 11, 1999
A great book for SMers or those who wish to know about them.
Bound to be Free is an excellent source of information for those who are curious about the BDSM lifestyle. Written by Charles Moser, Ph.D, M.D. and JJ Madesen, a BDSM practitioner, this book combines clinical insights with practical experiences. A number of sources are quoted from, including "Urban Aboriginals," "Different Loving," "Screw The Roses, Send Me the Thorns," and even, in one instance, "Dear Abby." Demystifying and understanding, this is the book I'd buy my Mom if she found out about my lifestyle. --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title

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Reviews
Choice
"First, this is a serious pioneering work of linguistic scholarship. It is inspired by the work of David W. Maurer (Language of the Underworld, CH, Mar' 82), who believed that the study of "underworld" argot provided valuable information on the relationship of language and culture. In this instance, a most singular subgroup employing a highly unique set of special terms is being recorded. Sadomasochism has been called "the last taboo" and is rarely the conversation topic of choice at most polite gatherings; there is, however, considerable evidence that it too is beginning to edge out of the shadows. The authors in their detailed preface define sadomasochism and indicate their methodology. The core of the study is the glossary of terms specifically used in practicing the various forms of SM. The entries are succinct and blunt; many if not most of the implied activities are almost beyond close consideration unless one is an initiate. Since this information is derived directly from personal ads or speciality publications there is no reason to doubt the authenticity. From time to time in the glossary the authors seem to be reaching; it is likely that both "stewardess" and "travel" mean nothing more in this context than the standard meaning. As a pioneering study, this has to rank with the remarkable work by Roger D. Abrahams on black urban culture, Deep Down in the Jungle (1964), which formally recorded the street rhymes popularly known as the "dirty dozens." As a reference book this will be useful to advanced students of abnormal psychology, law enforcement, linguistics, medicine, and sociology."

Book Description
The Language of Sadomasochism contains vocabulary and defines activities that many will find offensive. It has been published to aid linguists, folklorists, sociologists, psychologists, and other adult researchers develop a better understanding of this subculture. It represents the first systematic, comprehensive account ever attempted of the specialized terminology used by sadomasochists.

From the Publisher
"First, this is a serious pioneering work of linguistic scholarship. It is inspired by the work of David W. Maurer (Language of the Underworld, CH, Mar' 82), who believed that the study of "underworld" argot provided valuable information on the relationship of language and culture. In this instance, a most singular subgroup employing a highly unique set of special terms is being recorded. Sadomasochism has been called "the last taboo" and is rarely the conversation topic of choice at most polite gatherings; there is, however, considerable evidence that it too is beginning to edge out of the shadows. The authors in their detailed preface define sadomasochism and indicate their methodology. The core of the study is the glossary of terms specifically used in practicing the various forms of SM. The entries are succinct and blunt; many if not most of the implied activities are almost beyond close consideration unless one is an initiate. Since this information is derived directly from personal ads or speciality publications there is no reason to doubt the authenticity. From time to time in the glossary the authors seem to be reaching; it is likely that both "stewardess" and "travel" mean nothing more in this context than the standard meaning. As a pioneering study, this has to rank with the remarkable work by Roger D. Abrahams on black urban culture, Deep Down in the Jungle (1964), which formally recorded the street rhymes popularly known as the "dirty dozens." As a reference book this will be useful to advanced students of abnormal psychology, law enforcement, linguistics, medicine, and sociology."

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Customer Comments
Average Customer Review: Number of Reviews: 2

A reader from New York City , February 2, 1999
Scarry's book is brilliant, wholly original, and moving.
Elaine Scarry's central argument is that pain is a state which defies reduction to language, and her remarkable book defies summation outside its own terms. Like all profoundly original works, the book creates its own idiom (making, unmaking) to discuss and compicate the issues it raises -- first, in a brilliant and moving phenomenological analysis of torture and its relation to language, ultimately moving on to a profound and unforgiving commentary on the Judeo-Christian scriptures and those writings' subtle (though, as Scarry explains it, it seems remarkable that one did not notice before) inversions of the given circumstances of human embodiment and the subject's relation to made-things in both in the material world and the imagined one. There is no literary critic (and indeed few novelists) who have provided such goosebump-inducing insights on why human beings should make things (books, statues, laws, gods) at all; and then unmake them just as fervently in acts of unmaking (war, torture). This is an extraordinary book.

Jarrett Walker (walkerjar@aol.com) from Portland, Oregon , October 31, 1998
The Greatest Book on the Question: "Why do we create?"
Few works of contemporary philosophy are so underrated (not to mention mis-shelved) as this sweeping study of the relationship between human pain and human creation. I frequently recommend the book to people who have been intimidated by "phenomenology", and who need to return to the roots of this term: the study of raw sense perceptions.

To Scarry, pain not only feels negative but actually IS negation. Pain erases all other perceptions of the world, and it also kills language -- the root our ability to reach out to others and build a world together.

The book begins by considering the obvious fact that "intense pain is indescribable," then moves outward into the political consequences of this inexpressibility. Pain survives in the culture, and can be used as a political tool, precisely because of its muteness. This first half of the book, entitled "Unmaking", corresponds well to Dante's Inferno. Through a study of torture and (less helpfully) war, Scarry details the process by which the human ability to create, and thus to be, is destroyed for political purposes.

The book's second part, corresponding to Dante's Purgatorio, describes how humans move out of pain by creating the world of made objects. The reading of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures that begins this section deserves much wider attention. Scarry reads these texts as an archetypical story of how pain led to creation. Scarry presents this story with a warm, generous, jargon-free style that is welcoming to the intelligent layman.

Parts of this book are, perhaps, more dated than others. The latter sections in each of the two halves (the first on war, the latter on the texts of Marx) seem to step down from the pinnacles of each half's beginning. The reader can be forgiven for setting down the book at the end of the section on the scriptures, feeling that Scarry's powerful effect is complete.

In a world where contemporary philosophy and theory are too easily hijacked by political trends, Scarry's book is a welcome reminder that we are all bodies, and that beneath our divisions of race, class, and gender, we all share a pain that drives us to create our world.

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Reviews
Booknews, Inc. , July 1, 1991
In an expedition through the s&m community of West Hollywood, psychoanalyst Stoller (UCLA School of Medicine) talks with consensual sadomasochists. They discuss their motivations and the ways they maintain a hidden community, as well as the stresses that threaten its coherence. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Other Works

Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred. 

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Coming Attractions: The Making of an X-Rated Video.

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Soft Core: Moral Crusades Against Pornography in Britain and America
 

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