This book is a collection of some of the author's essays and reviews of current writings and films about feminism, homosexuality, and sexual perversions. Most have been published elsewhere. In addition to the commonly understood sexual meaning of “perversions” in the title, the author explains that the book is perverse in the sense that she does not always say what people would expect. She admits to having a controversial, argumentative, or perverse point of view. Merck says that her favorite perversion is homosexuality; she is interested in how a person's homosexuality affects the sense of identity

Although she can be intellectually classed with the feminists, much of what Merck writes will be shocking or disturbing to other feminist writers or readers. This attitude might stem from her study of Freud's writings. She has an objective, critical attitude toward some of his conclusions in individual papers but generally agrees with many of the fundamental tenets of psychoanalysis. Her familiarity with, knowledge of, and basic understanding of the