- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Allen Lane; UK First Edition; 1st printing. edition (5 Mar 2009)
- Language Unknown
- ISBN-10: 0713999160
- ISBN-13: 978-0713999167
- Product Dimensions: 18.6 x 13.6 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 708,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Bergner's goal is empathy ... He gives depth and shadow to his subjects' longing, never mocking, oversimplifying or vilifying' -- The Washington Post
'Bergner is a keen storyteller but above all a humane one, and in his hands, these characters do not seem like freaks
so much as shadows of ourselves.' --Salon
'Bergner is a keen storyteller but above all a humane one, and in his hands, these characters do not seem like freaks
so much as shadows of ourselves.' --Salon
Review
'Bergner does what science cannot: He illuminates peculiar longings. His method is at first descriptive and finally poetic. Given the limitations of science, resonant journalism may be the best way to approach paraphilia, and Bergner's book has a musical quality'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The unfortunate truth about most campaigning books is that they are generally only read by the converted. If you believe that foot fetishists are just too creepy and should be banned from shoe shops or that paedophiles should be locked up for ever preferably with a sadistic psychopath then this book might, at the very least, challenge your assumptions. But you will almost certainly click on past it, secure in your ability to spot filth when you see it.
But even if you favour a more "live and let live" approach you may still be in for a few surprises. The dominatrix, for instance is a normally a cartoon figure of fun, but there is nothing funny or ridiculous in the deadly serious and ecstatic world of Bergner's dominatrix. She's not raising welts with a bull whip or literally roasting one of her submissive as a job, it is life-absorbing passion with levels of intensity found in the likes of opera singing or mountaineering. You may not feel drawn to it as a lifestyle but it you might make you wonder whether your sensible acceptable daily existence is not a pale and wan thing by comparison.
There are other upending of assumptions about the attraction of amputees - a very lyrical chapter which felt the one the author most responded to - and then the tricky one - paedophillia. Abusive, manipulative, despoiling children ...but at the end you do have more of a sense of the psychological dimensions of this condition and as a man you can only offer a prayer to your deity that your sexual desires are focused on natural healthy proper things like breasts and legs and not the bad forbidden stuff. You have been blessed in this way because of the great lottery and you can at least ask just how cruel we should be to the losers.
I may have been misleading in describing the book as campaigning - it's not remotely that in the tub-thumping argumentative sense, instead it is written in the style of the best American magazine journalism - slightly novelistic, unhurried, lots of interviews, mixing, in this case, personal experience with a scientific perspective. It might be better described as a psychological travel book - you are being taken by a very self-effacing guide into strange and unsettling territory - you may not want to live there but you may see your home life with different eyes when you return.
Jerome Burne
But even if you favour a more "live and let live" approach you may still be in for a few surprises. The dominatrix, for instance is a normally a cartoon figure of fun, but there is nothing funny or ridiculous in the deadly serious and ecstatic world of Bergner's dominatrix. She's not raising welts with a bull whip or literally roasting one of her submissive as a job, it is life-absorbing passion with levels of intensity found in the likes of opera singing or mountaineering. You may not feel drawn to it as a lifestyle but it you might make you wonder whether your sensible acceptable daily existence is not a pale and wan thing by comparison.
There are other upending of assumptions about the attraction of amputees - a very lyrical chapter which felt the one the author most responded to - and then the tricky one - paedophillia. Abusive, manipulative, despoiling children ...but at the end you do have more of a sense of the psychological dimensions of this condition and as a man you can only offer a prayer to your deity that your sexual desires are focused on natural healthy proper things like breasts and legs and not the bad forbidden stuff. You have been blessed in this way because of the great lottery and you can at least ask just how cruel we should be to the losers.
I may have been misleading in describing the book as campaigning - it's not remotely that in the tub-thumping argumentative sense, instead it is written in the style of the best American magazine journalism - slightly novelistic, unhurried, lots of interviews, mixing, in this case, personal experience with a scientific perspective. It might be better described as a psychological travel book - you are being taken by a very self-effacing guide into strange and unsettling territory - you may not want to live there but you may see your home life with different eyes when you return.
Jerome Burne
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
17 reviews
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
More great prose from a top-notch journalist
29 Jan 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Journalist Daniel Bergner has a knack for getting inside his subject matter, which often focuses on the edgy extremes where most of us will never venture in real life, and about which little has been written. In the Land of Magic Soldiers: A Story of White and Black in West Africa gave us a glimpse of Africa's poorest and most violence-ravaged nation, Sierra Leone. In God of the Rodeo: The Quest for Redemption in Louisiana's Angola Prison, Bergner introduced us to the rodeo champions of Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana, "the last slave plantation." Here, Bergner give us a glimpse of another forbidden zone, that of extreme sexual practices.
Bergner's status as a skillful writer for the New York Times Magazine shows in his ability to bring both insight and compassion to bear on characters that might otherwise come off as mere freaks. The narrative is woven around four stories, involving a dominatrix, a foot fetishist, an amputee fetishist and -- of interest to those of us who work with sex offenders -- an incestuous stepfather. Describing that case of "Roy," Bergner introduces competing theories of sex offending and describes the time he spent with Roy's pedophilia therapy group as well as with well-known experts in the field.
If you are undecided about whether to buy this book, you can start with a little taste from the Internet: Bergner's New York Times article of January 22, 2009, "What Do Women Want?" illustrates his knack for translating dry science into accessible prose. Salon's January 27 interview with Bergner, "Sexual perversity in America," briefly describes all four cases featured in the book. Finally, you can check out Bergner's web site, danielbergner.com, which features some of his other writing. There, under the "articles" tab, I especially recommend his 2005 article, "The Making of a Molester." Perhaps that cutting-edge character study (which was influential back when he wrote it) sparked his interest in doing this book, which he has spent the past several years researching.
At any rate, I highly recommend the book.
Bergner's status as a skillful writer for the New York Times Magazine shows in his ability to bring both insight and compassion to bear on characters that might otherwise come off as mere freaks. The narrative is woven around four stories, involving a dominatrix, a foot fetishist, an amputee fetishist and -- of interest to those of us who work with sex offenders -- an incestuous stepfather. Describing that case of "Roy," Bergner introduces competing theories of sex offending and describes the time he spent with Roy's pedophilia therapy group as well as with well-known experts in the field.
If you are undecided about whether to buy this book, you can start with a little taste from the Internet: Bergner's New York Times article of January 22, 2009, "What Do Women Want?" illustrates his knack for translating dry science into accessible prose. Salon's January 27 interview with Bergner, "Sexual perversity in America," briefly describes all four cases featured in the book. Finally, you can check out Bergner's web site, danielbergner.com, which features some of his other writing. There, under the "articles" tab, I especially recommend his 2005 article, "The Making of a Molester." Perhaps that cutting-edge character study (which was influential back when he wrote it) sparked his interest in doing this book, which he has spent the past several years researching.
At any rate, I highly recommend the book.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Hybrid
10 Feb 2009
Format:Hardcover
For some reason, I couldn't decide initially if this book was fiction or nonfiction. The truth finally hit me when the narrative referred to "Fred Berlin"--a well-known sex therapist and researcher in my neck of the woods. In any case, we get to learn quite a bit about the strange, the weird, the odd, the bizzare and the different. There was some, but not a lot, of prurient material despite the potentially explosive nature of the pathology described. More cut-and-dry than sensationalistic. Gives a sympathetic viewpoint of persons with atypical sexual impulses and behaviors. Uses commonsense to skewer the cockeyed theories of "major thinkers" in the field.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
less than than the promised sensational material
3 Mar 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I found the book to be a disappointment. From the reviews I read before I purchased this book, I expected an exciting , cutting edge presentation. However, in reading the book, I found nothing of the sort . At best thre is a luke warm coverage of what 10 years ago may have been new and exciting subjects.This author has missed a lot that is happening in our everyday world. 'boring'... Save your money . For all the buildup of the author pertaining to the psycho/sexual, please add 'Mundane'.
Ray
Ray
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