The Dark Side Of Desire

Their fun summer together ended and Jay went abroad to study. Eighteen-year-old Rebecca believed Jay when he told her they’d get married when he returned home in a year. But when she sent a letter informing him of her pregnancy and asking for his help, she was heartlessly accused of lying in an attempt to blackmail his distinguished family. Ten years later, she finds a notice in the newspaper looking for her because her mother has fallen ill. She returns to her hometown, and Jay, a man she never thought she would see again, appears in front of her. He looks at her with the same passionate gaze he had in the past, and he’s acting as though he never hurt her!

"English rose Flavia Lassiter has never been comfortable in her father's glitzy world. Summoned to yet another of his ostentatiously lavish parties, she finds that her one order is to be "nice" to a wealthy investor. Her body may be on offer, but she shields her heart behind an icy shell. Leon Maranz emanates a dark power that sends shivers through her body-threatening to shatter her frosty facade. To let the self-made billionaire bed her would be to do her unscrupulous father's bidding. But to turn Leon down would be to deny her body's deepest desires."--P. [4] of cover.

Winner of the MLA's 2016 Alan Bray Prize for Best Book in GLBTQ Studies How BDSM can be used as a metaphor for black female sexuality. The Color of Kink explores black women's representations and performances within American pornography and BDSM (bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism) from the 1930s to the present, revealing the ways in which they illustrate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power for black women. Based on personal interviews conducted with pornography performers, producers, and professional dominatrices, visual and textual analysis, and extensive archival research, Ariane Cruz reveals BDSM and pornography as critical sites from which to rethink the formative links between Black female sexuality and violence. She explores how violence becomes not just a vehicle of pleasure but also a mode of accessing and contesting power. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, critical race theory, and media studies, Cruz argues that BDSM is a productive space from which to consider the complexity and diverseness of black women's sexual practice and the mutability of black female sexuality. Illuminating the cross-pollination of black sexuality and BDSM, The Color of Kink makes a unique contribution to the growing scholarship on racialized sexuality.

Many consider empathy to be the basis of moral action. However, the ability to empathize with others is also a prerequisite for deliberate acts of humiliation and cruelty. In The Dark Sides of Empathy, Fritz Breithaupt contends that people often commit atrocities not out of a failure of empathy but rather as a direct consequence of over-identification and a desire to increase empathy. Even well-meaning compassion can have many unintended consequences, such as intensifying conflicts or exploiting others. Empathy plays a central part in a variety of highly problematic behaviors. From mere callousness to terrorism, exploitation to sadism, and emotional vampirism to stalking, empathy all too often motivates and promotes malicious acts. After tracing the development of empathy as an idea in German philosophy, Breithaupt looks at a wide-ranging series of case studies—from Stockholm syndrome to Angela Merkel's refugee policy and from novels of the romantic era to helicopter parents and murderous cheerleader moms—to uncover how narcissism, sadism, and dangerous celebrity obsessions alike find their roots in the quality that, arguably, most makes us human.

Jacob is a man with an overwhelming attraction to female feet. The Baroness is a clothing designer and evangelical sadist. Roy is a wedding band singer entranced by his step daughter. Ron and Laura are simply in love - only Laura lost both her legs in a car accident, and Ron is beguiled by a beauty many would be blind to. How do we deal with desire? Our own, and the desires of others? How do we comprehend desires that are extreme, or unacceptable? And how do those who have them, live with them? In A Map of Desire Daniel Bergner takes us on a journey into human passion suffered, endured, and celebrated. Desire is a sometimes anarchic, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes destructive, sometimes redeeming, and always powerful force.Immersing himself in it through the people whose lives he follows and the scientists he spends time with who are trying to understand it, slowly he exposes and illuminates layers of our humanity.

English rose Flavia Lassiter has never been comfortable in her father's glitzy world. Summoned to yet another of his ostentatiously lavish parties, she finds that her one order is to be "nice" to a wealthy investor. Her body may be on offer, but she shields her heart behind an icy shell. Leon Maranz emanates a dark power that sends shivers through her body—threatening to shatter her frosty facade. To let the self-made billionaire bed her would be to do her unscrupulous father's bidding. But to turn Leon down would be to deny her body's deepest desires….