The Poisoned Embrace: A Brief History of Sexual Pessimism [Hardcover]

Lawrence Osborne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 1993

A provocative investigation into the history of sexual pessimism explores the relationship between sex and death in Western theology and distinguishes such archetypes as the Virgin, the Leper, and the Noble Savage.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Defining sexual pessimism as the "equation of sexual love outside the prerequisites of reproduction with death," and musing that it may be "Catholicism's most eccentric trait," Osborne ( Paris Dreambook ) offers a thoughtful, sometimes elegant and somewhat selective history of this theological tenet. Exploring folklore, church writings and history, he traces the source of sex hatred to the cult of Gnosticism. Osborne examines the role of sexual pessimism in the development of the Virgin myth, witch hatred during the Inquisition, 19th-century images of the Jew as sexual predator and archetypes involving lepers, Don Juans, Orientals and Androgynes. He concludes with a look at examples of modern "sexual optimism" in early Soviet communism's promotion of free love and the veneration of fertility in German Nazism, both of which degenerated into blends of promiscuity and puritanism. He does not extend his analysis into the effect of AIDS on views of sex today.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A vivid but quirky survey of what Osborne (Paris Dreambook, 1991; Ania Malina, 1987) calls ``sexual pessimism''--the association between sexual pleasure and death--which he traces to the Gnostics, the pre-Christian sect that gave creative power to evil and held carnal pleasure in contempt. Osborne offers a series of archetypes that represent sexual pessimism, beginning with the ``Virgin.'' In discussing the Virgin, he offers a learned survey of medieval and ancient theories of female anatomy, and shows his command of medical history--a mastery that comes into play when he considers other archetypes such as the Leper, the Syphilitic, and Don Juan, whose sexual excess was usually attributed to his physical inadequacy. Osborne's chapter on the Witches considers their erotic associations and traces them to the Talmudic tradition, speculating on what need they answered in the society that called them into being and that then destroyed them. The Jew is also an archetype, Osborne says, with a special sexual burden as a predator, as the originator of onanism and homosexuality: an overcivilized neurasthenic who invented psychoanalysis to explain himself. The Noble Savage, here referring to the American Indian, is the very opposite--a representative of an ``apocalyptic counter-culture'' whose sexual practices were considered degenerate even as they represented lost Eden. The Oriental archetype refers to stereotypes relating to harems, the degradation of women, and a taste for violence. Osborne's final archetype is the Androgyne, including hermaphrodites. He concludes with a discussion of sexual optimism, the belief in the therapeutic value of sex--an attitude promoted by psychoanalysis and advocated in secular radical political that deromanticized sexuality and encouraged free love. An assertive, odd, reductive reading of a familiar and complex cultural phenomenon that the Greeks identified as eros and thanatos. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1st Us Edition edition (October 12, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679427236
• ISBN-13: 978-0679427230
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,632,869 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lawrence Osborne was born in England and lives in New York City. A widely published and widely traveled journalist, he is the author most recently of "The Accidental Connoisseur," "The Naked Tourist" and "Bangkok Days," all published by Farrar Straus and Giroux. He has lived a nomadic life in Mexico, Italy, France, Morocco, Cambodia and Thailand, places that he draws on in his fiction and non-fiction. His short stories have appeared in magazines such as Tin House, Bidoun and Fiction, while his upcoming novel "The Forgiven" will be published by Crown in 2012.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars elegant and witty diversion, December 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Poisoned Embrace: A Brief History of Sexual Pessimism (Paperback)

This is that unusual mix : a scholarly intellectual polemic which is also hilarious in a dry Brit way - by a young scholar-writer who I hope will soon publish something else soon. The stuff on witchcraft and the conquest of the New World is fascinating and really elegantly done

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars elegant essay, September 17, 2003

By 

Paul (New York NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poisoned Embrace: A Brief History of Sexual Pessimism (Paperback)

Enjoyed this strange little book, which is one of those Sontag-like essays which take in a lot during a kind of bicycle tour of cultural hang ups - it's slight, but intended to be so.
Of course, you need a sophisticated reader here, with a light sense of humor...