Zone Books #: Solitary Sex

A Cultural History of Masturbation

Zone Books #: Solitary Sex
Thomas W Laqueur
RRP:
NZ$ 84.99
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NZ$ 67.99
Paperback
h229 x 152mm - 504pg
1 Oct 2004 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9781890951337
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A historical account of masturbation as a moral issue and cultural taboo. At a time when almost any victimless sexual practice has its public advocates and almost every sexual act is fit for the front page, the easiest, least harmful, and most universal one is embarrassing, discomforting, and genuinely radical when openly acknowledged. Masturbation may be the last taboo. But this is not a holdover from a more benighted age. The ancient world cared little about the subject; it was a backwater of Jewish and Christian teaching about sexuality. In fact, solitary sex as a serious moral issue can be dated with a precision rare in cultural history; Laqueur identifies it with the publication of the anonymous tract Onania in about 1722. Masturbation is a creation of the Enlightenment, of some of its most important figures, and of the most profound changes it unleashed. It is modern. It worried at first not conservatives, but progressives. It was the first truly democratic sexuality that could be of ethical interest for women as much as for men, for boys and girls as much as for their elders. The book' s range is vast. It begins with the prehistory of solitary sex in the Bible and ends with third-wave feminism, conceptual artists, and the Web. It explains how and why this humble and once obscure means of sexual gratification became the evil twin-or the perfect instance-of the great virtues of modern humanity and commercial society: individual moral autonomy and privacy, creativity and the imagination, abundance and desire.

A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History
Accursed Share, The: Volume 1: Consumption
Bergsonism
Cradle of Humanity, The: Prehistoric Art and Culture
Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza
Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty and Venus in Furs
Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, The
Matter and Memory
Normal and the Pathological, The
Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life
Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive
Signature of All Things, The: On Method
Society of the Spectacle, The
Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation
Theory of Religion

Modern masturbation-and this is Laqueur' s brilliant point-was the creature of the Enlightenment. . . . Laqueur' s courageous cultural history (and it took courage, even now, to write this book) makes it abundantly clear why for Proust-and for ourselves-the celebration of the imagination has to include a place for solitary sex. -Stephen Greenblatt, New York Review of Books [Thomas Laqueur' s] writing is free from embarrassment and needless jargon (though it does not shy away from complex formulations of manual sex' s complexes). . . it should be a big hit on campus. -Publishers Weekly A compendious and witty analysis of the subject. -Jenny Diski, Los Angeles Times Book Review Laqueur' s brilliant study takes this topic in sexual studies-the rise and fall of masturbation as a sexual pathology-and subjects it to the best sort of contemporary historical scholarship, combining historical detective work and detailed explication with a long view. -Jeffrey Weeks, Times Higher Education Supplement A superb new volume. . . it' s a helluva ride. -Emma Tom, Weekend Australian A long, thoughtful meditation on privacy, solitude, the imagination and what Mr. Laqueur calls ' the morally autonomous, modern' self. -E. Eakin, New York Times As a work of scholarly research. . . Professor Laqueur' s hefty tome is without equal. -Alexander Waugh, Sunday Telegraph (UK) Deeply learned. -Robert A. Nye, PhD, JAMA Enlightening. -Patty Lamberti, Playboy [Solitary Sex ] will, it almost goes without saying, become the standard work on the subject. -James Delingpole, The Spectator Laqueur argues entertainingly that ' onanism' went on to shape the way that we experience ourselves as modern, autonomous individuals. -Heather Findlay, Girlfriends Laqueur is an impeccable historian of ideas. . . he writes in an elegant, almost mesmerizing prose. -Davenport-Hines, TLS Laqueur is persuasive. An engaging writer. -New Yorker Laqueur tackles with aplomb what has been called the last taboo. -Kirkus Reviews Laqueur' s penetrating analysis will fascinate social historians and the intellectual public. Recommended. -Library Journal This is no cute ' n' frothy pop-cultural round-up: it' s a very scholarly work. -T. Glyde, Time Out
Thomas W. Laqueur, winner of the Mellon Foundation' s 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award, is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9781890951337
Published: 1 Oct 2004
Published In: United States
Imprint: Zone Books
Publisher: Zone Books
Format: Paperback
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Spine: 46mm
Weight: 771g
Pages: 504

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