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Solitary Pleasures is the first anthology to address masturbation, exploring both the history and artistic representation of autoeroticism. Masturbation today enjoys a highly equivocal and contradictory status among cultural discourses relating to sexuality. On the one hand, it is the subject of much popular treatment, especially in sexual self-help books, advice columns, and in pop culture--for example, Madonna's "Like a Virgin" performance, a recent Roseanne episode, and David Russell's movie Spanking the Monkey. On the other hand, masturbation is still a taboo subject for most people in everyday conversation. Perhaps more surprising, it has been largely dismissed by academics as a trivial, humorous topic and the "history of a delusion." It was not until the eighteenth century that "onanism" was portrayed as a morbid act of epidemic proportions that produced pox, hair loss, blindness, insanity, impotence and a horrible. Its prevention and treatment warranted diverse and often cruel measures: surveillance, diets, drugs, corsets, electrical alarms, urethral cauterization, clitoridectomy, and labial sewing. This literature's apocalyptic warnings about the personal and social morbidity of "pollution-by-the-hand" are largely unknown to most people today, but the ghostly echoes of these admonitions still inform and preserve the present taboo of the subject. Why did this apparently innocuous activity become so overpoweringly stigmatized? Why was the eradication of masturbation one of the most important goals of 19th century public hygiene? Why, even after the "sexual revolution," is masturbation still shrouded in shame?
A wise, passionate account of the pleasures of traveling solo In our hectic, hyperconnected lives, many people are uncomfortable with the prospect of solitude. Yet a little time to ourselves can be an opportunity to slow down, savor, and try new things, especially when traveling. Through on-the-ground reporting, insights from social science, and recounting the experiences of artists, writers, and innovators who cherished solitude, Stephanie Rosenbloom considers how traveling alone deepens appreciation for everyday beauty, bringing into sharp relief the sights, sounds, and smells that one isn't necessarily attuned to in the presence of company. Walking through four cities--Paris, Florence, Istanbul, and New York--and four seasons, Alone Time gives us permission to pause, to relish the sensual details of the world rather than hurtling through museums and uploading photos to Instagram. In chapters about dining out, visiting museums, and pursuing knowledge, we begin to see how the moments we have to ourselves--on the road or at home--can be used to enrich our lives. Rosenbloom's engaging and elegant prose makes Alone Time as warmly intimate an account as the details of a trip shared by a beloved friend--and will have its many readers eager to set off on their own solo adventures.
A historical account of masturbation as a moral issue and cultural taboo.
This compact pocket volume of moments focused on self-pleasuring is a collection about the art of solitary sexual pleasures and the pleasures of auto-stimulation. The first section contains adaptations of originals by Harry Matthews included in his ground-breaking book Singular Pleasures. By way of memoirs Rufus Wylde in the UK and John Gilgun in the USA contribute sections in their own powerful voices.
This text seeks to offer a new theory of narrative in its uncovering of how conversations and comic interchanges between lovers in stories create an intimacy and happiness of the everyday. Drawing on a diverse body of theory (from sociolinguistics to philosophy to literary criticism) and reading an unexpectedly eclectic group of texts (works by Shakespeare and Tolstoy appear beside Casablanca and I Love Lucy) Kay Young explores how narrative couples play together, struggle together, and return to one another to experience what it means to be in a relationship over time.