Orgone

Dykes on Bikes— Image: © Samantha Jefferson

Macho Sluts

Pat Califia

Short stories with the theme of (mostly) lesbian SM. Subjects range from the family that is a little more disciplined than most, to an unusual test of a new partner’s mettle: “I want a gang, a pack, a bunch of tough and experienced top women. I’ll leave the exact number up to you, but I don’t want just a threesome in warm leatherette. I would rather it not be women Roxanne already knows. And no novices, they would just get in the way. Once you get that group together I want to give them Roxanne, and if she makes me proud I want her to belong to me, wear my rings. If she still wants me. She might decide it’s too much, or maybe she’ll tumble for one of the other tops."

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 298 pages

 

Reviews

The Interactive Atlas of Human Anatomy

Frank Netter, M.D.

“The CD-ROM atlas contains all the brilliant Netter anatomy illustrations in the highly acclaimed book. The detailed, vivid pictures in a dynamic, interactive software format provide a versatile new tool for learning and teaching human anatomy. The Interactive Atlas of Human Anatomy is a complete, computer-based anatomy resource for all health-care educators, students and practitioners.” Runs both Windows and Macintosh and contains over 900 illustrations.

Publisher: CIBA-GEIGY
CD-ROM

Investigating Sex: Surrealist Discussions, 1928-1932

Edited by José Pierre

The transcript of a round-table discussion between all the big-name Surrealists when the given topic is sex sounds like the hoot to end all hoots, doesn’t it? Well, uh, it isn’t. Goes to show that even the avant le avant couldn’t really shake their… stick… at the great libertines of yore, be it the second earl of Rochester (read Graham Greene’s jaw-dropping bio) or de Sade himself. Especially fun to learn what a prude Breton himself was. It is a great read, though. And the (mildly) edited debates, if not especially revealing or revelationesque, are an interesting fly-on-the-wall experience, even though far too similar conversations can be overheard on a daily basis at any given latte joint in the galaxy. JK

Publisher: Verso
Paperback: 215 pages
Illustrated

Ishtar Rising: The Goddess Obsession

Robert Anton Wilson

Ishtar Rising is centered around the overwhelming figure of the female breasts. How do we relate to them? What do we think about them? As usual Wilson comes up with a formula that explains the situation. He theorizes that the visual availability of breasts accounts for a culture’s condition at a certain historical time, so breasts become a sort of social barometer. In essence this is the formula:
Breasts-a-go-go = a happy, non-neurotic society.
Breasts-a-no-no = a repressed, anal society. AF

Publisher: New Falcon
Paperback: 186 pages
Illustrated

Jeux de Dames Cruelles

Serge Nazarieff

Cruel dames, indeed! Jeux de Dames Cruelles is a beautifully produced coffee-table book of over a century of pornographic photos of woman-on-woman sadomasochism. Some of the earliest daguerrotypes in this collection were actually taken back when Venus in Furs was still a glimmer in the mind’s eye of Herr von Sacher-Masoch. Flagellation by switch, cat o’ nine tails and open hand, even biting of plump-bottomed nuns; naughty schoolgirls, persecuted maids in uniform; chained damsels in distress and often multiple butts in various states of disrobement set up in position for chastisement; a photo composite of a reclining woman daydreaming of erotic spanking scenes and even panel-by-panel douche scenes from bygone years are included in this remarkable survey. Many of the shots were taken for photo calling cards for “specialized” Parisian brothels while others were clearly the European predecessors to Irving Klaw’s happy-go-lucky bondage scenarios of the 1950s featuring the inimitable Betty Page. SS

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 160 pages
Illustrated

The Joy of Solo Sex

Dr. Harold Litten

Presented as a liberating godsend for the poor mythical bastard who thinks he’ll grow hair on his palms if he soaps up too vigorously, this preachy wannabe whack-off rag will better serve as a bedside conversation piece to amuse your guests. Oh, sure there’s a smattering of interesting anecdotes: fruits, vegetables and a carp used as vaginas, the requisite list of funny things doctors have pulled out of people’s rectums, and an unfortunately brief mention of an experimental subject in a Nazi Konzentrationslager who passed two years in incessant and compulsory masturbation. But the bulk of it’s pretty tame slumber-party-grade anecdotes.
The real humor comes from the “helpful” naiveté shining through in chapters like “An Evening Alone With You.” That’s right, gentlemen: It’s time for you to cook yourself a frozen lobster tail, take a bubble bath, and powder your body in front of a full-length mirror! Or take yourself out before-hand (so to speak) like the young man who shares THIS sex secret: “I’d walk to town, have a leisurely vanilla milk shake, easy on the syrup and lots of ice cream. I owe my sanity to that milk shake ritual.” Lots of normal-guy losers talking about their disgusting preferences along with pages and pages of remedial male masturbation techniques featuring REALLY CREEPY language like “His Excellency La Dong.” Concludes with the suggestion that we all drive around with bumper stickers proclaiming, “Up With Solo Sex,” while on the back cover we learn that our crusading “Dr. Litten” actually hides behind a pseudonym! I hate him. You’ll love it. RA

Publisher: Factor
Paperback: 193 pages
Illustrated

The Joy of Suffering: Psychoanalytic Theory and Therapy of Masochism

Shirley Pankin

This excellent resource covers theory, diagnosis and treatment of masochism, discussing (and critiquing) Freud’s early “sadism turned round upon the self” theory and favoring more contemporary conceptions which view masochism as a result of disturbances in early parent-child interactions. The book cites case illustrations from the author’s own experience and is comprehensive in its use of relevant psychiatric literature. It examines a wide range of subjects such as masochism as defense, masochism and paranoid mechanisms, the role of sadism or aggression in masochism, psychotherapy and masochism, and the masochistic character.
“In my study of masochism, I seek answers to a series of controversial questions. The first is ‘What are the unique characteristics in the individual’s life history, particularly in the parent-child and family constellation, that make imperative the recourse to masochistic behavior?’”

Publisher: Aronson
Paperback: 264 pages

Juice of Life: The Symbolic and Magic Significance of Blood

Piero Camporesi

“From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, bodily fluids or ‘humours’—whether blood, semen or phlegm—obsessed the educated and ignorant alike. These ‘elixirs’ were believed to possess magical powers guaranteeing long life, sexual potency, intellectual insight (particularly in women) and even holiness. These fluids were drawn from animals and even from human beings, or in visions and apparitions from the ‘sacred heart’ of Jesus or the eucharistic wafer. From birth to death, the sight and smell of blood were part of the moral pilgrimage of whole societies. All the organs of the body produced distilled ‘liquids of wondrous strength,’ and at the center the human heart pulsated, sending blood through all the canals of the city of the body. Camporesi, a specialist in popular culture from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, tells this fascinating story.”

Publisher: Continuum
Hardback: 139 pages

The Kaspar Hauser Syndrome of “Psychosocial Dwarfism”: Deficient Statural, Intellectual, and Social Growth Induced by Child Abuse

John Money

“The case of Kaspar Hauser, who was kept in a small dark room and subjected to extreme deprivation, went down in the annals of social thought as an object lesson in civilizing nurture over untamed nature. Money reviews the history of medicine’s attempt to interpret the complex manifestations of social deprivation in various biological and psychological responses.”

Publisher: Prometheus
Hardback: 290 pages

The Lakhovsky Multiple Wave Oscillator Handbook

Compiled and edited by Thomas J. Brown

“Earlier this century George Lakhovsky described researches indicating that living cells can be energized by applying energy at multiple wavelengths. It has been theorized that every living cell has a specific vibratory rate. When the cell ages or becomes diseased its rate changes. The Multiple Wave Oscillator produces a full spectrum of vibratory rates which Lakhovsky believed resonate with cells to restore them to oscillatory equilibrium… He demonstrated how diseased cells could be returned to a state of health when specific natural or electrical fields were applied in a proper manner.” Includes scientific studies by Lakhovsky and more recent research reports based on his theories by members of the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation.

Publisher: Borderland Sciences
Paperback: 160 pages

Laughing Death: The Untold Story of Kuru

Vincent Zigas, M.D.

Nobel-prize-winning medical research told as a contemporary adventure story by a German bush doctor in New Guinea. Kuru was a neurological disorder dubbed the “laughing death” which ultimately proved to be a virus transmitted by ritual cannibalism of the brain. SS

Publisher: Humana
Hardback: 315 pages
Illustrated