A Defense of MasochismAnita Phillips's A Defense of Masochism presents a cogent, accessible examination of the darker side of sexuality. Sadomasochism is a growing sexual phenomenon of the nineties and a major influence on art, fashion, literature, and advertising. While sadism may be easy to comprehend, masochism often seems more complicated and elusive. Who are the masochists and what makes them tick? Masochism has typically been defined as a "sexual perversion" and lumped together with such harmful nonconsensual practices as pedophilia and bestiality. But in this subversive work, Anita Phillips turns the tables and intelligently rescues masochism from these assumptions and the clinical discourses that have dismissed it as a sickness. In A Defense of Masochism, Phillips calls for the breakdown of popular conceptions of "normal" human sexuality and argues for the coexistence of disparate ways of occupying one's skin and one's eroticism. This penetrating study offers keen insights into human desire and an understanding of the sexual politics of our time. |
