SEXUAL PRACTICES

 

ISBN-10: 0-85533-4371
Writer: Edgar Gregersen
Title: Sexual Practices
Subtitle: The Story of Human Sexuality
Language: English
Place of Publication: London
Publisher: Mitchell Beazley International Limited
Year of Publication: 1984
Format: 180x262mm
Pages: 320; Bibliography, 308: Index, 313
Illustrations: 320 black and white pictures and sketches and 9 maps
Binding: Black boards in duotone dust jacket
Original Price: N/A
Weight: 943 gr.
Entry No.: 2012020
Entry Date: 23^rd May 2012

BOOK DESCRIPTION

In religion, morality, social customs and artistic themes, sex is and always has been an immensely powerful factor. In fact, sex pervades every culture in the world. Yet a detailed cross-cultural study of how different societies of human beings (including those of the West) act, think and behave sexually, has never yet been seriously attempted.

Sexual Practices is the first book to bring together, in a masterpiece of comparison and synthesis, the sexual themes and variations of hundreds of societies, including our own. It defines our knowledge of sexual practices, explains how we came to possess that knowledge. It reveals and challenges commonly held misconceptions, frequently based on the respected but subjective interpretations of western anthropologists.

Wittily and fluently written, it combines immense anthropological scholarship with challenging insights and speculations about a central human concern hedged around with fantasies, tabus, inhibitions – not least among Westerners with their Judaeo-Christian heritage of sexual repression. It covers a vast cross-cultural range of human sexual practices and customs, illustrated with images from all over the world, many rare and previously unpublished.

Divided into thematic and geographic sections, Sexual Practices is filled with the most extraordinary facts, from the indication of earliest man’s favoured sexual position (frontal – as deduced from a footprint nearly four million years old) to the bizarre kangaroo-penis envy of contemporary Australian societies. It traces the history of sex from its origins as a biological adaptation to the current sexual revolution and the emergence of the test-tube baby. It examines erotic and sexual art and architecture in high cultures, and folk beliefs and customs in primitive societies. Fully illustrated with more than 300 photographs, diagrams and maps, this is a book that enlarges our awareness of the human condition.