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Female Perversions
Distinguished psychoanalyst and author Louise Kaplan scrutinizes the world of sexual perversions and exposes the misconceptions behind them in her masterful study, Female Perversions. Her effort earned the book a nomination for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Kaplan's general thesis is that perversions are as much a function of gender role identity as they are of sexuality. Her thesis also maintains that the predominantly male medical profession has created and perpetuated many of the myths of perverse female sexual behavior. The book outlines various types of perverse behavior--fetishism, voyeurism, exhibitionism--and then analyzes each type outside of society's traditional perspective. As she expounds on her theory, Kaplan invokes Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. She sees many parallels between the plight of Emma Bovary and the perception of female perversions in society today. Kaplan writes lucidly, offering an enlightening insight into the provocative and complex issue of female erotic expression to a range of readers.
592 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1990
19 people are currently reading
702 people want to read
About the author
Louise J. Kaplan
21 books12 followersLouise J Kaplan is a psychoanalyst, author, and feminist scholar. She has published six critically acclaimed books: Oneness and Separateness, Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood, The Family Romance of the Impostor Poet, Thomas Chatterton, Female Perversions: The Temptations of Emma Bovary, and No Voice is Ever Wholly Lost. She is the recipient of a National Book Critics Circle Award for distinguished literary achievement.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 6, 2012
Penis envy. Anorexia as a form of control and power. Gender role stereotypes. Ahhhhhhhhh, feminist literature! Dr. Kaplan's dense, cerebral, intellectual feminist treatise was an enlightening experience regarding sexuality, fetishism, gender role stereotypes (and archetypes), and how society (as well as familial environment) can form those hidden little proclivites that drives and shapes individuals. From stripping and expounding upon Freud's sexist theories regarding women, deconstructing Gustave Flaubert's adulterous devil-may-care heroine Emma Bovary of his novel "Madame Bovary," to our own assignation and molding of "gender specific" behaviour in our children from a very early age, these are just a few of the subjects that Dr. Kaplan discusses at depth and length regarding the actions (or premise) of people who seem to populate on the fringes outside "the norm" of what is deemed "acceptable" societal behavior.
September 3, 2009
i especially liked the way the author connects the individual aspects of perversions with the larger social structure they grow in - and which breeds them: sex is political. it has to do with power. so, it is only when we question the social, political and, above all, economic mechanisms that trigger our perverse behaviors that we will be able to evolve into freer, more self-fulfilled individuals.
September 1, 2018
I have been carting this book around (along with hundreds others) since its publication more than 20 years ago, but have only now gotten around to reading it. Frankly, I wish I hadn't bothered.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from Kaplan's book, but I'm sure it wasn't the rambling, largely aimless Freudian dissertation circling around the loose centre of sexual 'perversion.' It starts promisingly enough, with a rough catalogue of major recognised outré sexual behaviours, and an attempt to categorise just what it is she'll be talking about in the text. From there it just kind of spirals out of control, though, taking in sociology, anthropology, feminism and a BIG dose of literature (the editors wisely excised the subtitle 'The Temptations of Emma Bovary' from the front cover, surely out of concerns of alienating those readers who might be engaged by the main title). The common thread (as suggested by the subtitle) throughout is Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary, used as a sort of template for Kaplan's expostulations on the roots of female perversion. This loses a lot if the reader hasn't read Bovary, naturally, but she does a decent job of keeping us up on who everyone is and what they do.
Unfortunately, the whole thing is so painfully overwritten, with sentences and paragraphs that follow labyrinthine paths of punctuation and syntax, it's hard to follow or care most of the time just what concepts we're meant to take away.
This may sound like this was a bad book. It wasn't. It just needed better focus, simpler language and less allusion to...well, everything in the world. The concept is solid and Kaplan clearly has the knowledge and erudition to pull off a better examination of the subject matter, this just wasn't it.
In the 20-odd years since Female Perversions was originally published, there has been enough change in the world -- and in the world of our sexual understandings -- to merit another stab at the topic. Here's hoping it works out better than this one did.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from Kaplan's book, but I'm sure it wasn't the rambling, largely aimless Freudian dissertation circling around the loose centre of sexual 'perversion.' It starts promisingly enough, with a rough catalogue of major recognised outré sexual behaviours, and an attempt to categorise just what it is she'll be talking about in the text. From there it just kind of spirals out of control, though, taking in sociology, anthropology, feminism and a BIG dose of literature (the editors wisely excised the subtitle 'The Temptations of Emma Bovary' from the front cover, surely out of concerns of alienating those readers who might be engaged by the main title). The common thread (as suggested by the subtitle) throughout is Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary, used as a sort of template for Kaplan's expostulations on the roots of female perversion. This loses a lot if the reader hasn't read Bovary, naturally, but she does a decent job of keeping us up on who everyone is and what they do.
Unfortunately, the whole thing is so painfully overwritten, with sentences and paragraphs that follow labyrinthine paths of punctuation and syntax, it's hard to follow or care most of the time just what concepts we're meant to take away.
This may sound like this was a bad book. It wasn't. It just needed better focus, simpler language and less allusion to...well, everything in the world. The concept is solid and Kaplan clearly has the knowledge and erudition to pull off a better examination of the subject matter, this just wasn't it.
In the 20-odd years since Female Perversions was originally published, there has been enough change in the world -- and in the world of our sexual understandings -- to merit another stab at the topic. Here's hoping it works out better than this one did.
January 14, 2012
I read this years ago and I remember clearly her stating that this was a book about female AND male perversions. I remember reading about coarse cutters who make giant gashes on their genitals. She talks about anorexics as well. I remember her pointing out that women sometimes buy lots of useless crap and that this is a form of sexual perversity. She clearly deliniates her theories and keeps the pace up. Good times had by all...specially the guy who needs satin panties to masturbate.
January 17, 2018
What is a Perversion?
"….two things about perversion did not change. First, the medical profession is still preoccupied with boxing aberrant sexual behaviors into lists and categories. Second, except for sexual masochism where the ration of cases is approximately twenty males to one female, less than one percent of the cases cited as sexual perversion have been of females.
…usually females, are happy with this evidence of the moral superiority of females. They admonish me for wanting to question whether females really are less perverse than males. No sooner are questions raised about these odd statistics than any array of stock responses is marshaled to explain them away. A favorite tactic is to undermine the statistics by presenting a list of all the exceptions to the rule: women who have the same perversions as men and women who participate vicariously in perversion by “submitting unwillingly” to the deviant sexual demands of men. They say that there are more perverse women than the doctors realize. In fact, women are just as perverse as men. All doctors have to do is look around them and those odd statistic would even out.
Another standard response is to side with the statistic but then to argue that women do not have to resort to perversions since they are given ample opportunity to vent their aberrant sexual desires on their children…...an alternate biological theory for men…..males are more androgen testosterone-driven which makes them possessed by urgencies of enabling and maintaining erections. Females, however, because of their estrogen restraints, genital inwardness, and delicacy of human relatedness, are less inclined toward perverse acting-out as a solution to their sexual and moral dilemmas…….Freud’s notorious quip “anatomy is destiny.”
Indeed, women do not have to employ prostitutes to get beaten and dominated; men will gladly do it for free. Another response, based on the mistaken assumption that the perversions are spontaneous erotic adventures, ‘kinky sex” undertaken in the spirit of sexual liberations, is that women would be as perverse as men if they were granted greater sexual freedom." ~Louis J. Kaplan, Female Perversions
"….two things about perversion did not change. First, the medical profession is still preoccupied with boxing aberrant sexual behaviors into lists and categories. Second, except for sexual masochism where the ration of cases is approximately twenty males to one female, less than one percent of the cases cited as sexual perversion have been of females.
…usually females, are happy with this evidence of the moral superiority of females. They admonish me for wanting to question whether females really are less perverse than males. No sooner are questions raised about these odd statistics than any array of stock responses is marshaled to explain them away. A favorite tactic is to undermine the statistics by presenting a list of all the exceptions to the rule: women who have the same perversions as men and women who participate vicariously in perversion by “submitting unwillingly” to the deviant sexual demands of men. They say that there are more perverse women than the doctors realize. In fact, women are just as perverse as men. All doctors have to do is look around them and those odd statistic would even out.
Another standard response is to side with the statistic but then to argue that women do not have to resort to perversions since they are given ample opportunity to vent their aberrant sexual desires on their children…...an alternate biological theory for men…..males are more androgen testosterone-driven which makes them possessed by urgencies of enabling and maintaining erections. Females, however, because of their estrogen restraints, genital inwardness, and delicacy of human relatedness, are less inclined toward perverse acting-out as a solution to their sexual and moral dilemmas…….Freud’s notorious quip “anatomy is destiny.”
Indeed, women do not have to employ prostitutes to get beaten and dominated; men will gladly do it for free. Another response, based on the mistaken assumption that the perversions are spontaneous erotic adventures, ‘kinky sex” undertaken in the spirit of sexual liberations, is that women would be as perverse as men if they were granted greater sexual freedom." ~Louis J. Kaplan, Female Perversions
April 28, 2020
1. Are you a Freudian?
2. Do you actually want to read about male sexuality?
Then this is the book for you. The last chapter redeemed a lot, but this one was tough going.
2. Do you actually want to read about male sexuality?
Then this is the book for you. The last chapter redeemed a lot, but this one was tough going.
October 28, 2021
I loved reading this book! It is one of my favorite reads as Kaplan covers a wide range of sexually deviant sexual behaviors. She provides the reader with a depth of insight into things such as homosexuality, homeovestism, formations of erotomania, using the body as prop and the erotic dancer as sex prop, forms of sexual sadism, the stalking voyeur spy, pedophilia, necrophilia, as well as a wide range of other psychological disorders which is supplemented with actual case subjects. For this reason it makes an excellent read for anyone interested in its subject matter which has primarily to do with sexual deviance.
September 13, 2008
This is the book that largely set me on my path. It gave words to things that I did not discuss with others and provided insight into the way our culture imagines women and perversity. It gave perversion some credibility and redefined the pervert in a bold, hugely important way for me. I will definitely read this book again!
May 10, 2025
The chapter on female mashocism changed my life. Just read that- you don't have to have read Madam Bovary first (although that's what Kaplan uses to root into example; you'll get it from context and your own life experience).
August 1, 2008
female deviant sexual behaviour? learning about madam bovery in a new context? count me waaaay in!
January 3, 2010
I'm enjoying this book so far. It is pointing out concepts that I've never considered before.
-Joe-
-Joe-
March 23, 2013
If your interested in feminism and in psychoanalyze you'll love this book the way I did.
September 25, 2015
as creative as she is in her new definition of perversion, in the end she simply re-creates reproduction-based heteronormativity.
March 8, 2018
È sicuramente un libro pieno. Pieno di concetti, di riflessioni e, perché no, di provocazioni. lo sconsiglio vivamente ad un pubblico di puritani. chi invece vuole capire, indagare e scoprire meglio la sessualità, nella fattispecie quella femminile, si accomodi. non è un libro da comodino, va pensato ed assimilato.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews