description: In her latest breakthrough study, Louise J. Kaplan leads us on a rare, literary foray into the minds of the men and women governed by unconscious strategies which distort their behavior while regulating harmful, forbidden desires. As she explores the dynamics of aberrant sexual and social behavior, Dr. Kaplan dispels the myth that perversion is the province of males along. Just as male perversions caricature masculine ideals of virility, female perversions parody feminine models of submission and purity. Manifestations vary by fetishism, transvestism, and exhibitionism are male afflictions; while kleptomania, delicate self-cutting, and anorexia are female phenomena. But the author asserts that all perversions are expressions of socially normalized gender stereotypes,and that all are instruments of deception.
language: English
title: Female Perversions: The Temptations Of Madame Bovary
titlecomplete: Female Perversions: The Temptations Of Madame Bovary
genres: Gender, Psychology, Nonfiction, Womens, Feminism, Sexuality, Womens Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Psychoanalysis
ratings_count: 109
awards: awardedAt: 662716800000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Criticism
publisher: doubleday