A probing, sex-positive report on the origins and values of fetishes.
A sex educator analyzes how and why kinks captivate us.
Through a queer feminist lens and suffused with a strikingly authoritative flair, sexuality podcaster Horn, creator of the comic series SfSx (Safe Sex), attentively examines a variety of sexual kinks, including spanking, bondage, and the sexualization of financial domination, among others. Featuring sharp analysis and a solid dose of humor, the opening section explores the eroticization of feet. Elsewhere, Horn examines how group sex, cannibalistic “vorarephilia,” and theatrical sploshing (“wet and messy” fetishists) found their way into fetishistic communities. Horn generously interjects aspects of her own kink identity into every chapter, offering anecdotes, intimate stories, erotic musings, and truths about her early beginnings in the sex industry and, later, as a sadomasochistic sex worker. She imparts how the realities of fear, humiliation, and shame became the “fundamental raw materials” of modern-day sex work and, as a professional dominatrix, how she teaches (and learns from) her clients about the “prismatic possibilities of desire.” Horn delivers refreshing opinions on gender, identity, and the need for a new societal code of sexual ethics based on imagination, curiosity, and communication. “The danger comes when authority figures think they can control our desires, coaxing our identities into normalcy by censoring our experience,” she writes. “But desire, like nature, finds a way.” Since there are only nine kinky categories headlined in the book, each one benefits from pages of intriguing, judgment-free inspection, and the author approaches all her material with the authenticity and cultural analysis only a true aficionado of sexual exploration like Horn could deliver. Perfect for kink enthusiasts, the “pervert-curious,” and fans of Horn’s titular sexuality podcast, the book respectfully isolates a heady collection of fetishes that, for many, represent sexual freedom in all its kaleidoscopic wonder.
A probing, sex-positive report on the origins and values of fetishes.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780306832567
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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