Perversion

This book focuses on the subject of the development of masculinity and femininity. It shows that the perverse scene aims not only at denying castration, but also at securing a more solid basis for a jeopardized sexual identity.

Lacan's psychoanalytic take on what makes a pervert perverse is not the fact of habitually engaging in specific "abnormal" or transgressive sexual acts, but of occupying a particular structural position in relation to the Other. Perversion is one of Lacan's three main ontological diagnostic structures, structures that indicate fundamentally different ways of solving the problems of alienation, separation from the primary caregiver, and castration, or having limits set by the law on one's jouissance. The perverse subject has undergone alienation but disavowed castration, suffering from excessive jouissance and a core belief that the law and social norms are fraudulent at worst and weak at best. In Perversion, Stephanie Swales provides a close reading (a qualitative hermeneutic reading) of what Lacan said about perversion and its substructures (i.e., fetishism, voyeurism, exhibitionism, sadism, and masochism). Lacanian theory is carefully explained in accessible language, and perversion is elucidated in terms of its etiology, characteristics, symptoms, and fundamental fantasy. Referring to sex offenders as a sample, she offers clinicians a guide to making differential diagnoses between psychotic, neurotic, and perverse patients, and provides a treatment model for working with perversion versus neurosis. Two detailed qualitative clinical case studies are presented—one of a neurotic sex offender and the other of a perverse sex offender—highlighting crucial differences in the transference relation and subsequent treatment recommendations for both forensic and private practice contexts. Perversion offers a fresh psychoanalytic approach to the subject and will be of great interest to scholars and clinicians in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychology, forensic science, cultural studies, and philosophy.

Perversion for Profit traces the crucial function of pornography in constructing the New Right agenda, which has emphasized social issues over racial and economic inequality. Whitney Strub vividly recreates the debates over obscenity that consumed ACLU members in the 1950s and revisits the deployment of obscenity charges against purveyors of gay erotica during the Cold War, revealing the differing standards applied to heterosexual and homosexual pornography. He follows the rise of the influential Citizens for Decent Literature during the 1960s and the pivotal events that followed: the sexual revolution, feminist activism, the rise of the gay rights movement, the "porno chic" moment of the early 1970s, and resurgent Christian conservatism, which currently shapes public policy far beyond the issue of sexual decency. Strub also examines the ways in which the Left failed to mount a serious or sustained counterattack to the New Right's use of pornography as a political tool. As he demonstrates, this failure has put the Democratic Party at the mercy of Republican rhetoric for decades.

"When Trump became president, much of the country was repelled by what they saw as the vulgar spectacle of his ascent, the perversion of the highest office in the land. In his bold, groundbreaking book Political Perversion, rhetorician Joshua Gunn argues that this "mean-spirited turn" in American politics (of which Trump is the paragon) is best understood as a structural perversion enhanced primarily by the speed of communication technologies. Drawing on insights from critical theory, media ecology, and psychoanalysis, Gunn argues that perverse rhetorics dominate not only the political sphere but also our daily interactions with others, in person and online. From sexting to campaign rhetoric, Gunn shows how technology has changed our ways of relating (and not relating) to others and has engendered infantile and sadistic forms of provocation and enjoyment. In this book, Trump is only the tip of a sinister, rapidly growing iceberg, one to which we ourselves unwittingly contribute on a daily basis"--

Perverse sexual behavior--from mild variations on heterosexual activity to fetishism to cross-dressing--is usually linked to sexual and/or aggressive conflicts in childhood. In this book, Dr. Arnold Goldberg explains and interprets perverse behavior in a different way, by drawing on concepts of psychoanalytic self psychology, a variant of psychoanalysis that originated with Dr. Heinz Kohut and that concentrates on the self as a psychological structure. Psychoanalytic self psychology, says Dr. Goldberg, makes disorders of perversion more understandable and more accessible to treatment. Dr. Goldberg expands the definition of perversion, claiming that it is based on three essential components: sexualization (as distinct from sexuality); vertical splitting (where perverse action resides in the split-off part of the self and the other sector of the self, which knows right from wrong, is temporarily stilled); and psychological family dynamics. Dr. Goldberg explains each of these three dimensions and provides a number of illustrations. He also discusses the possibility of interpreting homosexuality as a compensatory structure, the relation of hostility to perversion, types of perverse behavior that are readily treatable, and the reasonable goals of such treatment.

Sanchez gives raw and honest insight into why he was vulnerable to the mind control of a cult. He describes how he recovered psychologically, financially, and spiritually, as well as how he rescued his daughter from the cult who brainwashed her against him.

Theoretical understanding of perversion is neglected in analytical psychology, and narrowly developed in psychoanalysis, where it traditionally refers to sexual perversion. Etymological exploration of the word "perversion", including its use in religious, moral, sociological and legal contexts, reveals a wider meaning than that adopted in psychoanalysis. The aim of the author is to revise the psychoanalytic model through the introduction of Jungian concepts that extend the understanding of perversion beyond the bounds of sexuality to a more general relational context. By describing the development of psychoanalytic thinking on perversion in detail, the author is able to highlight the central differences between the Freudian and Jungian interpretive traditions and to explain why Jungian ideas on perversion have remained underdeveloped, leading to the absence of a unique or available Jungian contribution to the theory of perversion.

Whilst Freud clearly intended the psychoanalytic term "perversion" to be from the moral judgement that the world carries in colloquial use, its relationship to feelings of contempt, triumph, sexual excitement and to shame, revulsion and fear, necessarily make it a troubling concept. To what extent is moral panic about homosexuality and perversion a hysterical outburst from a fragile "normality"? The liberalisation of the legal status of homosexuality in Britain and the USA has encouraged attempts to recast perversion as "neo-sexualities" or as Foucauldian' "Queer Theory". As perversion is both a form of sexuality and a form of thinking or belief, it is ubiquitous, in sublimated forms, in the culture surrounding us. It is also a universal component of human sexuality. Having explained the original Freudian concept and the extent to which it is currently used as a diagnostic term, the author goes on to discuss how it can be used in the analysis of contemporary culture and everyday life.