AEGiS-BKREV: Solitary Pleasures: The Historical, Literary, and Artistic Discourses on Autoeroticism Books In Print
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Solitary Pleasures: The Historical, Literary, and Artistic Discourses on Autoeroticism

Routledge, 29 W 35th St., New York, NY 10001. 286p., illus., bibliog., index. ISBN: 0-415-91173-7, 0-415-91174-5pbk. $55.00, $18.95pbk.
edited by Paula Bennett, Vernon A. Rosario II. 1995. (Contributors: Paula Bennett, Roger Celestin, Kelly Dennis, Earl Jackson, Jr., Thomas W. Laqueur, Christopher Looby, Roy Porter, Vernon A. Rosario, II, Lawrence Schehr, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Laura Weigert)

In this time of the AIDS crisis, there is a great deal of talk about safer sex. Experts have tried to provide an educational insight on what is safe and what is not safe. It might surprise the general public that one of the safest of all sexual pleasures has been around for centuries. That pleasure is masturbation. Unfortunately religion and those who speak of morales have made the word masturbation a wicked word. Young boys and girls in very religious families were punished severely if caught masturbating. There was even the idea that masturbation was considered a serious disease well into the twentieth century. Yet it is the easiest and safest way to release those sexual desires that arise in an individual. This book provides an excellent historical summary of autoeroticisms. The contributors sum it all up very well with "Beyond the constraints of orthodox reproductive practices, solitary pleasure is a fundamentally generative form of sexual behavior, deeply implicated in the creative process and therefore basic to much that is good and enriching in human life."

The titles of the 11 chapters summarize very well what is included in this fascinating book: "Autonomy as Deviance: Sixteenth-Century Images of Witches and Prostitutes," "Playing with Herself: Feminine Sexuality and Aesthetic Indifference," "Forbidden Pleasures: Enlightenment Literature of Sexual Advice," "Phantastical Pollutions: The Public Threat of Private Vice in France," "Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl," "The Social Evil, the Solitary Vice, and Pouring Tea," "The Roots of the Orchis, the Iuli of Chestnuts: The Odor of Male Solitude," "Pomegranate-Flowers: The Phantasmic Productions of Late-Nineteenth-Century Anglo-American Women Poets," "Fragments of a Poetics: Bonnetain and Roth," "Can Robinson Crusoe Find True Happiness (Alone)?: Beyond the Genitals and History on the Island of Hope," and "Coming in Handy: The J/O Spectacle and Gay Male Subject in Almodovar." Needless to say there will be many who say this book is trash, advocating sin, and all other kinds of vulgar recreations. For those who are not ignorant, this book will be an educational trip through the years, touching on a topic that should not be hid, but elaborated upon. One of the most unsafe ways of having sex is unprotected penetration resulting in semen being injected into the partner's body. Masturbation, on the other hand is the safest way to release that sexual desire. A highly recommended book for public, academic, and medical libraries.

Keywords: Masturbation, Masturbation in Literature, Masturbation in Art)

KWDmasturbation,masturbationinliterature,masturbationinart)
960901
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