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This is a quite remarkable book. Evocative, provocative, eloquent and always to the point, it is far more than simply an inquiry into the dynamics of sexual excitement. Stoller begins with this hypothesis:
… it is hostility—the desire, overt or hidden, to harm another person—that generates and enhances sexual excitement. The absence of hostility leads to sexual indifference and boredom. The hostility of erotism is an attempt, repeated over and over, to undo childhood traumas and frustrations that threatened the development of one's masculinity or femininity. The same dynamics, though in different mixes and degrees, are found in almost everyone, those labeled perverse and those not so labeled. (p. 6)
Surprising idea? “My theory makes sexual excitement just one more example of what others have said for millennia: that humans are not a very loving species—especially when they make love.” Incomplete as a theory and too one-sided? Surely. A more complete account of sexual excitement need also include love, tenderness, exuberance, joy, and values. Overly simplified? Yes. There are many kinds of hostility which, depending upon different intrapsychic conditions, inhibit and distort as well as enhance excitement. We need to know more about the consequences of these types and conditions. Stoller knows this and in his work has chosen to dwell upon an aspect. Never for a moment, however, does he lose sight of the fact that he is in the realm of hypothesis.
We are introduced to Belle, a young woman, “lively, intelligent, sensual, attractive, stylish, educated and nice,” whose “life had proceeded without catastrophies, dreadful symptoms or manifest failures” and who entered analysis distressed that she was wasting her life. We discover that her “old-fashioned femininity … soft, round, dreamy erotism; an unbounded focus on males, romance, silken garments, flowers and bees, bosoms, bare behinds, and babies,” was accompanied by a particular daydream involving a Director, a horse, and l