Sex makes the world go round

About this book

"This book continues to develop Colette Chiland's work concerning sexuality and gender identity. There are two main themes which run through the whole of this book. The first is the distinction, established by Freud and based on clinical data, between the two currents of sexuality: tenderness and sensuality. For sexuality to be complete, both of these currents have to be combined. Some people challenge the merit of the distinction drawn by Freud. It is nonetheless a leitmotif in his writings that seems to have gone largely unnoticed. In the "sexual wanderings" that lead some people to perversion, pornography or prostitution, tenderness is reduced almost to the point of disappearing altogether, leaving the way clear for sensuality alone. It is of this point that the other main theme of this book appears: women have always been treated as inferior beings. They have always lost out whenever sexual wanderings have been uppermost. The struggle for equal rights should not make us forget the "sexual difference"--Men and women are different in their genital organs, their psychosexual development, their position during intercourse, their roles in the reproductive process. Every society, however, interprets that fundamental difference in its own way and that interpretation, of course, can and must be challenged."--Jacket.