If you haven’t read Daniel Bergner’s recent article in The New York Times Magazine, “What Do Women Want?” or better yet, his book, The Other Side of Desire, you should, if only to prepare for The Rumpus’s imminent interview with the author. But almost more fascinating than Bergner’s article is the collection of letters to the editor that followed. Will “sex science” one day be viewed as we view “race science” today? Do the studies confuse subject and object? Are the methods really “postfeminist?” What is the “James Dean Corallary” anyway? What’s with the images? And can anyone, other than each woman for herself, really be relied upon to define her desires?
One response
This is an interview I am looking forward to reading. I read “The Other Side of Desire”. Its probably not selling as well as expected due to a topic that makes a lot of people uncomfortable but its a good read. Its non-judgemental but you really start to think about people with a paraphillia. There are men in the book with foot fetishes and amputee fetishes and they really struggle. Bergner really leaves you with a sense of sadness for them. They are lost souls and they know it, but they can never escape the gripe of their obsession. Then you read about the sadists and the pedophile and you have this absolute sense of revulsion. the characters are pathologically self-absorbed and really seem oblivious to what they are doing to others. The creepy pedophile’s abuse of his step-daughter is rationalized away as being egged on by an 11 year old. But the most disturbing section in the book was where the sadists gather to tie a man to a spit and roast him for hours until his skin splits and he goes into shock. You read that section and you hope you never fall into the hands of a sadist or dominatrix.
Bergner doesn’t give you any answers as to why but, boy, he makes you really think about the questions. I highly recommend it.
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