Sex & The Psyche: Revealing the true nature of our secret fantasies from the largest ever survey of its kind Hardcover – 22 Feb 2007

I pre-ordered this after a very interesting series on TV. However I much regret that I have only just got around to reading it, having been busy with other things.

Only one other review and that a rather uncritical one. What’s so great about a Psychiatrist I ask? If you had been a ‘victim’ of a Psychiatrist you would not be so deferential!

The series on TV was awesome and so is the testimony given by people in their own words about their personal fantasies. A must read!!

HOWEVER –
Brett Kahr seems to have a real problem with dominance. I believe this to be due to his taking (some flavour of) a behaviourist analysis of everything. He can only talk about “Aggressive Behaviour”. This fails by a long way to grasp the intricacies of “Dominance”. It may also be that, like so many shrinks, he has become a closet control freak himself – it’s a risk that goes with his job! Because he is this (and must be to retain his job and peer respect) he must hide his own dominance even from himself! This leads directly to his inability to be able to analyse or understand dominance in any way. I would therefore strongly recommend taking all his commentary with a massive pinch of salt. This also extends to needing to distance yourself from the grouping of the various accounts, which is also heavily belief laden!

One only has to look at his section entitled “Extreme Sexual Violence” and what it includes to see exactly how touchy he is about the whole subject of dominance! There are a whole handful of examples that don’t belong under that title whatsoever. Yes they are “Sexual” and yes they are to do with dominance but they are not all “Extreme Violence”, no not even violence of any kind! (As a victim of Sexual Violence myself, I wish at this point to make the proviso that I do not in any way condone any kind of “Sexual Violence”.) The problem being that by misunderstanding and grossly misrepresenting dominance it does not serve to reduce sexual violence in any way, it merely perpetuates it…..

Now if this section had been headed “Sexual Dominance” with a sub-section about “Sexual Violence” (or better still the separate section it deserves!) I would have had no problem with the inclusion of those examples under the first section. Then the second could concentrate on the few examples he gives of truly extreme sexual violence. It is the lumping together of genuinely appalling examples with others, which are simply the enjoyable play between consenting adults, containing no violence whatever, which shows, very clearly, how Brett Kahr’s closet attitude to dominance precludes him from understanding SO MUCH!

As a ‘primer’ for helping him to understand his assumptions, I would recommend two books (neither will do the trick alone).
“Female Domination” by Elise Sutton, which is a genuine worry, and an example of aggression and violence in thought and deed, by a Str8t feminist and almost certainly a victim of Sexual Violence?
Then read “Ties that Bind” by Guy Baldwin to see that aggression and violence do not need to be a part of it at all!

The one, Elise Sutton’s book, is all about the hatred of one person for the object of her sexuality (in her case the opposite sex, and presumably the symbol of her own past abuse?). “Making them ALL pay” would be a suitable summary of the whole book! The other book, by Guy Baldwin, is not violence or aggression, but all about love between consenting adults, with all due respect for each other and all safeguards being taken. The one book is trust, the other book is deceit and betrayal.

Even if, like me, this has never been an actual part of your life (perhaps only your fantasies?) I strongly recommend reading BOTH books. The one, to warn you about who not to get involved with and the other as a serious tool for understanding ourselves:- because sexuality is NECESSARILY about dominance and submission. Try and take it away and you are left with an un-satisfying ‘vanilla’ nothing! And a list of potential partners of precisely zero.

Instead of trying to take away or demonize Dominance or Submission, we can ALL learn about our sexuality by considering the issues involved here, since this is where the hidden ice berg rises above the surface! It is a part of us all. Try to deny it and you will have become just as conflicted as Brett Kahr.

Given what I have said about sexuality being all about dominance and submission in one way or another, it is most unfortunate that I have to conclude that Brett Kahr knows next to nothing about the most important thing to do with sexuality!

So Why Read It?
The examples of fantasies given are extensive and ‘un-tampered with’ (in the person’s own words). Therefore they are a most useful and AWESOME witness to human sexuality in the 20th – 21st Centuries. As I said before, and with the provisos given, a must read!

These comments probably also apply to his more recent book on the same subject “Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head”, which I believe to be merely a re-title of the same book.

It is very interesting. Even it is writed by a psycholigyst, it is very easy to undertand. I will take you to places of yourself that you didn't know. GREAT !