Items related to Solitary Sex : A Cultural History of Masturbation

Solitary Sex : A Cultural History of Masturbation - Softcover

 
9781890951337: Solitary Sex : A Cultural History of Masturbation
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 

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.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:
Thomas W. Laqueur, winner of the Mellon Foundation's 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award, is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
From Publishers Weekly:
Laqueur's Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud is a classic work in history and gender studies, and a regular on syllabi around the world. In his latest study, the UC Berkeley historian maps out the changing nature of Western culture's ongoing obsession with manual self-pleasuring and its effects. Not surprisingly, masturbation's history is fraught with anxiety, particularly since it was often thought to irrevocably damage its practitioners, both morally and physically. As one nineteenth century medical dictionary warns: "However secret the practice... it leaves an indelible mark." Further back, in the 18th century, when expressions of "imagination, solitude, and excess became newly important and newly worrisome," masturbation was seen as representing a lack of self-discipline, "emblematic of all that was beyond social surveillance." Beginning in the politicized, post-free love 1970s, it became "a way of reclaiming the self from the regulatory mechanisms of civil society and of the patriarchal social order into which the Enlightenment and its successors had put it." In the 1990s, it was a pop culture mainstay, a staple of Something About Mary and Seinfeld jokes. More surprising is the fact that masturbation was of great interest to major writers and philosophers: Laqueur finds Voltaire, Mary Wollstonecraft, Swift, Rousseau, Kant and Whitman all thinking and writing about this "solitary vice." Laqueur calls masturbation both the "first truly democratic sexuality" and the "crack cocaine of sex": at once addictive and readily accessible to all. His writing is free from embarrassment and needless jargon (though it does not shy away from complex formulations of manual sex's complexes), and, with 32 b&w illustrations, it should be a big hit on campus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherZone Books
  • Publication date2004
  • ISBN 10 1890951331
  • ISBN 13 9781890951337
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages498
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9781890951320: Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9781890951320
Publisher: Zone Books, 2003
Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Seller Image

Laqueur, Thomas W.
Published by Zone Books 10/1/2004 (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Paperback or Softback Quantity: 5
Seller:
BargainBookStores
(Grand Rapids, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation 1.7. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9781890951337

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 24.82
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Laqueur, Thomas W; Laqueur, Thomas W.
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Softcover Quantity: 10
Seller:
Lakeside Books
(Benton Harbor, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New! Not Overstocks or Low Quality Book Club Editions! Direct From the Publisher! We're not a giant, faceless warehouse organization! We're a small town bookstore that loves books and loves it's customers! Buy from Lakeside Books!. Seller Inventory # OTF-S-9781890951337

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 21.61
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Laqueur, Thomas W.", "Laqueur, Thomas W"
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Soft Cover Quantity: 10
Seller:
booksXpress
(Bayonne, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9781890951337

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 26.10
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Thomas W. Laqueur
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
INDOO
(Avenel, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 1890951331

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 22.35
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Laqueur, Thomas W
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Paperback Quantity: 18
Seller:
Save With Sam
(North Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # 1890951331

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 30.14
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Laqueur, Thomas W
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_1890951331

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 26.51
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Laqueur, Thomas W; Laqueur, Thomas W.
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Softcover Quantity: 6
Seller:
California Books
(Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # I-9781890951337

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 31.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Thomas W Laqueur, Thomas W. Laqueur
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Ergodebooks
(Houston, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. First Paperback Edition. Seller Inventory # DADAX1890951331

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 32.21
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Laqueur, Thomas W
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think1890951331

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 28.28
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Laqueur, Thomas W; Laqueur, Thomas W.
Published by Zone Books (2004)
ISBN 10: 1890951331 ISBN 13: 9781890951337
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GF Books, Inc.
(Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 1890951331-2-1

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 32.84
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book