Vandalized Lovemaps

by John Money

In the criminal justice system they are termed perverted. On the streets they are called kinky. The attitude toward people who practice aberrant sexual activity is almost always molded by prejudice or fear. Even after Alfred Kinsey's research ascertained the statistical prevalence of variant sexual activity in the population at large, the scientific establishment - and the public - have been slow to accept the study of "unacceptable" eroticism.Dr. Money, who coined the word "lovemap" a decade ago, defines a lovemap as our subconscious pattern of erotic yearnings and desire. Each of us has a distinctive lovemap, as different and individual as a fingerprint."Vandalized" lovemaps are those that have gone awry during development, becoming paraphilic - literally, "away from what is expected in love." Paraphilia manifests itself in behavior that is, according to the ideological criterion of everyday orthodoxy, unorthodox. Vandalized Lovemaps is the first study of its kind, for it is a study of paraphilic development which is not retrospective, as is usually the case, but prospective. In seven cases, John Money and Margaret Lamacz record, from childhood onward, factors in the evolution of a paraphilic lovemap, studying biographical background, practices and subsequent treatments.

Genres: Psychology

228 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1989

Reviews

[Jakub Štefan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well...this was an interesting read. I disagree with Money's assertion of bisexuality of children. A term used by Freud and Money as well, meaning that children's gender identity is both male and female at a young age. He goes on to say about biological and social forces that lead to gender identity but he falls into what I would call the Freudian trap again - that it's mostly socially constructed and easily malleable. I hope to find some book from Diamond, his main opponent in this discussion. The book begins with remarks on sexual liberations which smell like some weird agenda but at the end, you see that most of the cases ended with stigmatized adults because their parents wanted to dismiss their condition. The mother didn't say to her daughter that she has testosterone insensitivity syndrome and was problematizing her behavior. The daughter didn't know about her condition and thought that visits to the doctor meant that there is something deeply wrong with her. In adulthood, the daughter had many psychological problems stemming from this. So in the beginning, I was thinking that Money wants to clean society of every sexual taboo. He has a valid point about parents' reactions but his arguments can be construed to make him look like a real weirdo. Yeah, I read some excerpts from his remarks on pedophilia so... I don't know. I will make up my mind after I read more books from him.