Making Love: An Erotic Odyssey [Paperback]

Richard Rhodes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993

Breaking taboos and treading on forbidden territories, Pulitzer Prize-winner Rhodes recounts his teenage sexual experiments with other boys and details his adult thrills and failures. The eloquence and humor he brings to his task reconfirm his extraordinary ability to explore hard truths and their wide-ranging repercussions.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"I'm talking about the part of relationships no one ever talks about," asserts the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb --and the ghostwriter of two sex manuals--near the beginning of this detailed erotic history. By the end, readers may support that conventional reticence: the twice-married author ("I've slept with 11 women . . . five of them only once") concludes with a relentlessly observed record of the sex enjoyed--and not--with his current long-term lover, identified as G---; he goes so far as to note changes in the color of her genitals. More engaging are Rhodes's recollections of his sexual coming-of-age, from his earliest autoerotic experiences through those (both solitary and with a boy) at the farm school where he spent most of his youth, to his losing his virginity with a prostitute while a freshman at Yale. His connecting of favored sexual fantasies and marathon masturbating sessions with circumstances of his childhood is intelligent and convincing. Rhodes finally acknowledges, with G---'s help, that his desire to arouse her to multiple orgasms had more to do with exercising power than with making love.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Following A Hole in the World: An American Boyhood ( LJ 9/1/90), Rhodes offers a remarkably frank case study of the most intimate personal experiences: his own sexual life. Opening with losing his virginity, he chronicles his first sexual experience, masturbation techniques, fantasies, use of pornography, and his work with ESO (extended sexual orgasm) and ends with his relationship with G--. Emphasizing the "verity" of everything in the book, Rhodes offers explicit descriptions that may titillate some readers and shock others. This well-written, if sometimes self-indulgent, volume provocatively and perceptively provides one perspective on male heterosexuality. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/92.
-James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 175 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone Books (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671870726
• ISBN-13: 978-0671870720
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,178,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes a Cigar is Not Just a Cigar, November 5, 2001

By 

Mary Esterhammer-Fic (Morgan Park, Chicago IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making Love: An Erotic Odyssey (Hardcover)

Richard Rhodes thinks about sex--a lot! (Well, who doesn't?) This book is one-of-a-kind in that it is an in-depth, thoughtful and frank essay on everyone's favorite topic, and it doesn't veer into the pornographic or the clinical.

In the hands of a less-skilled writer, this book could have become silly or creepy. Rhodes, though, doesn't shy away from observations that put his most intimate experiences under a microscope. This is not a gossipy book; it's a sincere exploration of sensuality.

His first sexual encounter, masturbation, issues of sexual identity: it is all here. Rhodes doesn't exploit these subjects, and he doesn't offer them for the reader's approval. Instead, he describes his sexual history in the context of his life, which has had its ups and downs. It's a pretty brave book.

The most shocking part, to me, was not what he did sexually, but the fact that his daughter commented on it, which means she has read it! Well, I guess she is under no illusions that her parents were Rob & Laura Petrie!

I'd like to see a book of this calibre told from a woman's perspective.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books on sexuality in existence, June 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Love: An Erotic Odyssey (Paperback)

In connection with preparing to run a conference on sexuality, I have read a number of books in the area, ranging from scholarly to popular relational junk. This is one of the most honest, open and best-crafted books in the area, by a brilliant writer who cares and thinks about what he feels, who he is and why, and explores what it is to be a man who wants both the deepest intimacy in his personal relationships and is also completely turned on by just plain old mind-bending sex, but knows that's nothing to be ashamed of. I understand Rhodes got a lot of criticism for writing this book; instead, he should be praised to the heavens for his bravery. I think it's a terrible thing that it has gone out of print.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shockingly frank personal sexual history of author., November 22, 1995

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Love: An Erotic Odyssey (Paperback)

Very frank and open discussion of the author's sexual history.
Especially helpful for male readers.
First 2/3's is the best.
Highly recommend this book if you are not offended by
frank discussions about sexual preferences and behavior.