Lovemaps

by John Money

The word "lovemap" was first used by Dr. John Money in lectures at Johns Hopkins University in 1980 to symbolize "the neutral template expressed in every individual's sexuoerotic fantasies and practices." The word connotes our often subconscious pattern of erotic yearnings and desire. Each of us has a distinctive lovemap, as different and individual as a fingerprint.In this book, Dr. Money outlines healthy lovemap development as well as lovemap pathology - lovemaps gone awry. Such pathology falls into three hypophilia (sexual dysfunction, such as impotence), hyperphilia (erotomania), and paraphilia (perversions). Paraphilia, another term coined by Money (from the Latin para - away from what is expected, and philia - love) can range from "those that are playful and harmless to those that are bizarre and deadly."Presenting case histories, Lovemaps describes the sexual practices of several patients and subsequent treatments of their paraphilias. Money pioneered the application of the hormone MPA, or Depo-Provera, to treat repeat sex criminals. He believes he has proved that science can prevent paraphilic sex offending, as is the case for other, physiological diseases.Lovemaps and its stirring accounts of lovemap pathology in case histories, (which are indexed under "paraphilia"), can be invaluable tools for those in the fields of sexology, child psychology, clinical psychology, criminology and, with its comprehensive glossary, the general reader - in short, anyone interested in human sexual development.

Genres: Psychology, Sexuality, Sociology, Nonfiction, Relationships, Gender

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Alexa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative but flawed and inhumane.

Money is a known fraudster who “tweaked” his data and findings to better fit his theories. Instances where he got a “positive” result from say age 14-25 but then 25-30 the data no longer presented the desired result. He would simply omit the undesired data.

Much of what he was doing was chemically castrating males (literally sterilizing in some cases or repressing the sex drive generally), I think this information should be available and should in fact be studied but it should NEVER be taken as good science.

Scary to think this man has had such a large and wide influence for people who very shallowly examined the “gloss” that Money shellacked over his work.
In a slightly more charitable light it was also years before his theories were debunked and proven totally wrong, and as happens with trendy "science" he was assumed right until proven wrong. Leaving a library of references and citations that incorrectly quoted his work as correct. This is a huge problem in so many areas where the volume of correction is so vast it largely remains uncorrected

I also try not to pull peoples personal lives into thier writing or science. BUT there is pretty substantial evidence to support allegations of pedophillia and other disgusting pervy behavior

2022 Update : I more than highly recommend people to William Reiner's work in regards to cloacal exstrophy and the sexual reassignment of infants (and the failure of such endevors) in regards to the social formation of gender identity
I would also direct people to Ken Zucker and Michael Bailey's academic work and non fiction books respectively, The Man Who Would Be Queen and GID (gender identity disorder)

[C. ♡]

John Money is the very definition of evil. He is beyond depraved. His “works” stems of the origin of gender ideology, pedophilia, and so forth. John Money coined the term “Gender” to get a Government grant, and somehow people think gender and sex are now different. He and Kinsey’s so-called teachings should not be taught or read in educated systems.

[Christine Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizarre, but informing.

[Chloe Noland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had heard of John Money’s work on gender and psychology in the ‘80’s, specifically with pioneering sex-reassignment surgery, but was unfamiliar with the lovemap theory. This book was an examination of several cases of patients with unusual fetishes, ranging from bizarrely harmless to violent, and the author’s model of emergent paraphilia (his word?) that comes out of childhood neglect/trauma to create a distorted “lovemap.” Some of the jargon and implications here were really dated and derogatory — I don’t think this kind of book would be written with the same approach today. The author examines the effect of rehabilitation of his patients through steroids and hormone therapy, which in some cases seem to act almost like chemical castration. It’s hard to say where to draw the line when a patient has a lust murder fetish, but I still feel that sexual psychology has come a long way since this was written. Included an index of medical terms, which was helpful.

[Nadav Chain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because everybody has lovemaps.

This piece of literature is both reader friendly and has clinical applications for the offender therapist.. T
Good read.. Thanks