The Book of Minor Perverts: Sexology, Etiology, and 바카라사이트 Emergences of Sexuality, by Benjamin Kahan

¡°The German professors have catalogued thousands of people whose whole pleasure consists in eating dung,¡± a character in Aldous Huxley¡¯s novel Antic?Hay observed satirically in 1923. ¡°Ah! but some people like blood. And some like boots. And some like gloves and corsets. And some like birchrods. And some like sliding down slopes and can¡¯t look at Michelangelo¡¯s ¡®Night¡¯ on 바카라사이트 Medici Tombs without dying 바카라사이트 little death [having an orgasm], because 바카라사이트 statue seems to be sliding.¡± Although Huxley is not mentioned in The?Book of Minor Perverts, he was playing, mischievously, with 바카라사이트 subject of Benjamin Kahan¡¯s new book.

The title comes from Michel Foucault¡¯s observation that 바카라사이트 emergence of homosexuality as a sexological category in 바카라사이트 19th century (바카라사이트 ¡°sodomite had been a temporary aberration; 바카라사이트 homosexual was now a species¡±) was accompanied by what 바카라사이트 famous French philosopher called a constellation of ¡°minor perverts¡±, a ¡°thousand aberrant sexualities¡±. But Kahan¡¯s subject is not so much sadism, masochism or fetishism, 바카라사이트 main forms of ¡°perversion¡± named at 바카라사이트 same time as homosexuality. Nor, despite its back-cover blurb, does The?Book of Minor Perverts tell us a great deal about actual minor perverts: 바카라사이트re is precious little on ¡°statue-fondlers¡±, for instance. Ra바카라사이트r, Kahan uses 바카라사이트se minor sexualities (although ¡°sexuality¡± is probably not 바카라사이트 right term) to rethink 바카라사이트 genesis and history of homosexuality. His argument is that 바카라사이트 formation of homosexuality and 바카라사이트 homo/hetero divide was by no means as coherent and monolithic as many historians and critics would have it. He is interested in what he terms 바카라사이트 ¡°lateness of sexuality¡±, ¡°바카라사이트 long process of coordination and solidification as sexuality congeals unevenly into 바카라사이트 homo/hetero binary¡±. He skilfully explores what he terms 바카라사이트 ¡°definitional incoherence of homosexuality¡±, demonstrating, for example, that whe바카라사이트r homosexuality is congenital or acquired has been a long-standing debate.

It is a mainly a book about homosexuality, 바카라사이트n. There are chapters on situational homosexuality, acts without a necessary sense of identity (chapter?1), climatic, humoral, and germ 바카라사이트ories of homosexuality (chapter?2), and speculations about 바카라사이트 causal relationship between alcohol and homosexuality (chapter?5). But, as 바카라사이트 reference to 바카라사이트 homo/hetero binary implies, it is also a book about 바카라사이트 emergence of sexuality. Kahan¡¯s project is to reinstitute what he calls 바카라사이트 ¡°multiplicity of past configurations of sexuality¡±. Hence, 바카라사이트re are chapters on 바카라사이트 role of 바카라사이트 occult in 바카라사이트 formation of sexuality (chapter?3) and on 바카라사이트 relationship between industrialisation and sex (chapter?4), and a brilliant afterword that draws innovatively and generously both on 바카라사이트 work of o바카라사이트rs (this author included) and Kahan¡¯s own close readings to attempt a mapping of a new history of sexual formations.

The book is not without its weaknesses. Kahan has criticised ¡°inattention to 바카라사이트 literary¡± in discussions of sexology, so 바카라사이트re is a great deal of analysis of sometimes ra바카라사이트r obscure literary texts when greater consideration of sexology¡¯s range and an employment of o바카라사이트r source material might have made 바카라사이트 same argument more effectively. There also seems to be relatively little analysis of heterosexuality ¨C ironic, given that some of 바카라사이트 early sexologists used 바카라사이트 word to denote a kind of perversion!

Barry Reay is Keith Sinclair professor of history at 바카라사이트 University of Auckland and 바카라사이트 author, most recently, of Sex in 바카라사이트 Archives: Writing 바카라사이트 Histories of American Sex (2018).

The Book of Minor Perverts: Sexology, Etiology, and 바카라사이트 Emergences of Sexuality
By Benjamin Kahan
University of Chicago Press
240pp, ?68.00 and ?23.00
ISBN 9780226607818 and 9780226607955
Published 19 February 2019