num_pages: 336
description: A rich and seductive narrative of the powerful erotic pull the East has always had for the Westa pervasive yet often ignored aspect of their long historical relationshipand a deep exploration of the intimate connection between sex and power.Richard Bernstein defines the East widelynorthern Africa the Middle East Asia the Pacific Islandsand frames it as a place where sexual pleasure was not commonly associated with sin as it was in the West and where a different sexual culture offered the Western men who came as conquerers and traders thrilling but morally ambiguous opportunities that were mostly unavailable at home. Bernstein maps this erotic history through a chronology of notable personalities. Here are some of Europes greatest literary personalities and Marco Polo writing on the harem of Kublai Khan; Gustave Flaubert describing his dalliances with Egyptian prostitutes (and the diseases he picked up along the way); and Richard Francis Burton adventurer lothario anthropologistand translator of The Arabian Nights.Here also are those figures less well-known but with stories no less captivating or Europeans whose temporary marriages to Japanese women might have inspired Puccinis Madama Butterfly ; rare visitors to the boudoirs of Chinese emperors in the Forbidden City; American G.I.s and journalists in Vietnam discovering the sexual emoluments of postcolonial power; men attracted to the sex bazaars of yesterdays North Africa and the Thailand of today. And throughout Bernstein explores the lives of those women who suffered for or profited from the fantasies of Western men.A remarkable work of as unexpected as it is lucid and as provocative as it is brilliantly illuminating.
language: English
title: The East, the West, and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters
publisher: Knopf