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Occasionally, in my clinical work, clients have recounted blind dates following adverts placed and searches made through contact magazines. Invariably a certain something had sufficiently drawn their attention and provoked their expectations, demanding imagination be met by experience. I was attracted to this collection in much the same way and so, perhaps unsurprisingly, the map only partially represented the territory. Putatively, Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Perspectives is a book in which the subject of sexuality is comprehensively introduced, developed and ‘brought up to date for the twenty-first century’. To this end, according to the promotional material, ‘a range of distinguished contributors challenge the view that sexuality is nothing other than historically and culturally determined’.
I was intrigued by such an advertisement, particularly as it excluded the legend ‘GSOH’. How, I wondered, could sexuality be brought up to date? But perhaps this wasn't to be the project and instead understandings of sexuality would be updated. Yet, if this was to be, how could it be achieved through the lens of psychoanalysis without significant reference to historical and cultural perspectives? After all, psychoanalysis, like so many new flames, moves on. By now I was quite naturally hooked by the promise of