An enjoyable, exhaustive and often insightful look at what turns us on—sure to excite readers.
An in-depth look at the variety of forms in which human sexual desire manifests, based on an analysis of 500 million people and their anonymous—thus, likely truthful—online revelations.
Every day, millions of people voluntarily reveal intimate details about their sexual preferences online through search queries, adult websites, classified ads, stories and videos. During the course of their research into the nature of human sexual desire, neuroscientists Ogas and Gaddam analyzed half a billion of these and, combined with the latest findings in conceptual neuroscience, discovered that the data yielded some unexpected information about sexual preference. Some quirkier examples include the Japanese fascination with a woman's “absolute territory” (the space of exposed skin between the bottom of a skirt and the top of knee-high stockings); the fact that fantasies of older women are very popular among straight men; and that paranormal erotic literature is increasingly popular among women. Also intriguing is the authors' analysis of the relatively small divergence of sexual preference between straight and gay men (excepting the obvious masculine/feminine aspects) and the surprising discovery about which faction is most curious about transsexuals. More expected results also abound: Men are aroused visually, whereas women prefer to have their imaginations stimulated; men desire sex, and woman desire the feeling of being desired; men have a direct mind-body connection when it comes to arousal, and women experience a more complex series of thoughts and emotions, often displaying an intellectual distaste for stimuli that might simultaneously excite them physically. Perhaps partly as a result of this, there exists no pharmaceutical equivalent of Viagra for women. From cartoon porn to foot fetishes, the authors write with enthusiasm and in engaging detail, often incorporating the neuroscientific basis for results, yet retaining an accessible vernacular throughout that references pop culture as often as the laboratory.
An enjoyable, exhaustive and often insightful look at what turns us on—sure to excite readers.Pub Date: May 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-525-95209-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing study for students of military culture and mental health.
A challenge to conventional wisdom about the military ignoring PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and suicide among troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kieran (History, American Studies/Washington & Jefferson Coll.; Forever Vietnam: How a Divisive War Changed American Public Memory, 2014, etc.) never denies the seriousness of PTSD, TBI, and suicide among active and discharged veterans. However, he contends that critics of the military and federal bureaucracy often downplay the complexities of understanding the problems and finding effective solutions. In fact, he contends, implacable anti-war critics have unfairly used the psychological injuries for political ends. “In a climate in which anti-war sentiment was often dismissed with assertions that critics were not supporting the troops,” writes Kieran, “pointing out how the wars were harming those troops facilitated broader policy critiques.” Before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, research about PTSD, TBI, and suicide was based on the premise that deployments would be brief and that the same troops would not be ordered to return to the same war zones multiple times. When the nature of war changed, the military and the Veterans Administration had to recalibrate their policies and their research to react to new realities. As the author points out, those recalibrations take time and don’t usually conform to the urgent needs of combat veterans. Kieran’s research takes readers inside the medical arm of military services and civilian government bureaucracies, showing dedicated researchers and administrators trying to reach consensus about how to treat—and perhaps even prevent—serious mental damage and suicide. The author stresses that the disagreements about how to proceed derive from compassionate advocates relying on science-based research. Kieran rejects the commonly held belief that those in charge of warfare are dismissive of effective treatments for veterans. Throughout, the author provides memorable individual case studies. Much of the book, however, relies on dense academic research and a scholarly writing style, so general readers will need to pay close attention to digest the author’s arguments.
An intriguing study for students of military culture and mental health.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4798-9236-5
Page Count: 404
Publisher: New York Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
This concise overview and defense of women's fury and its constructive potential is a rehash of feminist writings of the past two decades. Valentis and Devane (both teach literature at SUNY Albany) begin by documenting the numerous ways female rage has historically been stigmatized (as hysteria, as erotomania, as evil) in art, literature, psychotherapy, and the media—from Ovid and Freud to Snow White's wicked stepmother and Fatal Attraction. Given these images, they say, it is not surprising that women succumb to social pressures to be attractive, pliant, and self-sacrificing or that they sometimes mask socially unsanctioned feelings of anger with smiles, depression, phobias, panic attacks, or passive-aggressive behavior. Nonetheless, female rage is real (best illustrated, the authors say, by the Lorena Bobbitt case and many women's support of her actions) and is now ``loose in the land.'' Their favorite symbol—the ``gatekeeper of the secret realm of female rage''—is Medusa, a once-beautiful maiden who was violated by Poseidon, turned into a hideous beast, and finally slain by Perseus. Recasting Medusa as a symbol of female strength and sexual power, the authors recommend that, instead of repressing or denying their anger, women get in touch with their inner Medusa, utilize their power, and find rational ways to direct their rage. Many of their examples are drawn from interviews describing various personal confrontations (such as discovering a partner's infidelity), and the question of how issues of female rage are or should be handled in professional or political contexts is largely ignored. This omission exemplifies the lightweight tone of the book. Despite some good advice to women on handling rage, this often reads like a collection of articles from glossy women's magazines (a quiz in the appendix is called ``How Enraged Are You?''). A lackluster contribution to the literature of female empowerment. (40 b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-517-59584-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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