While pleasure mobilizes the world in endless ways, it is also one of the most controversial of the central elements of human life. It is so idiosyncratic, so private, that it is difficult to define, but at the same time this indeterminacy is part of what is so fascinating and engrossing about it. Lionel Tiger's lively prose identifies some major forms of pleasure, such as sex, food and drugs, and explores their variations now and in the past. Tiger's other books include "Men in Groups", "The Imperial Manual" and "The Manufacture of Evil".
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In an uneven but frequently provocative exploration of what motivates us most powerfully, Tiger seeks "to establish the moral, scientific and political authority of pleasure."
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Pleasure, says Tiger (anthropology, Rutgers Univ.), is an evolutionary holdover: we experience pleasure in activities that have helped us survive as a species over centuries under varying conditions (e.g., eating, reproducing). While most people accept pain as a natural part of the human condition, they resist pleasure because of cultural conditioning. The lesson to be learned from this book is that pleasure is a part of our human heritage which we should treasure and protect from bureaucratic encroachment. The increasing emphasis on home and comfort-centered values in the 1990s is part of a movement to regain this understanding, says Tiger. The book consists of a little theory and a lot of examples, which avid readers will have encountered elsewhere. Intellectuals may find this book illuminating; middle America will say we knew it all along.
- Lucy Patrick, Florida State Univ. Lib., Tallahassee
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Lucy Patrick, Florida State Univ. Lib., Tallahassee
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Study,
This review is from: The Pursuit of Pleasure (Paperback)
Note 14 in chapter 2 refers to a very interesting study on contracepting monkeys. Janet E. Smith, in her excellent talk Contraception, Why Not? by Janet E. Smith, Ph.D, well-summarizes the findings:
Monkeys and Contraception There is an amazing study reported from a book by a man named Lionel Tiger. Lionel Tiger is an anthropologist who studies animal behavior to explain human behavior. Lionel Tiger works with a colleague named Robin Fox, who also is an anthropologist who studies animal behavior to explain human behavior. He works at Rutgers. In the 1960s, as he saw contraception becoming more and more popular, he speculated that male/female relationships would change radically [Pope Paul VI predicted this in Humanę Vitę, too.]. He did a study in the early 70s that involved a tribe of monkeys. The alpha monkey of this tribe, named Austin, chose three female monkeys to be his exclusive sexual partners. Austin had a grand time with these three female monkeys. Then the researchers injected Austin's three females with the contraceptive Depo-Provera. Austin stopped having sex with them and chose other female monkeys to be his sexual partners. Then they contracepted all of the females in the tribe. The males stopped have sex with the females and started behaving in a turbulent and confused manner. Male monkeys at least evidently prefer intercourse with fertile females. Studies also show that males - human males - produce more testosterone when they are around women who have fertile cycles. In fact, men are more attracted to women when they are fertile and women are more attracted to men when the women are fertile. Once when I mentioned this at a talk in Kansas, a man came up to me and said, "In Kansas, we don't need studies to show that males are more interested in females when they're fertile." He said everyone in Kansas grows up on a farm and we know that when a bull is in a pen with a cow who is not fertile, he is not at all interested. But if the bull is in a barn a mile a way with metal fences in between, the bull will get to the cow when she is fertile. Tiger speculates that one of the reasons that women are dressing so immodestly is that they're not attracting men because of their fertility. They have to do sort of bizarre things in order to attract a male. They aren't attracting them simply by their fertility since they are not having fertile cycles. Tiger also reports on a study involving tee shirts. The study included two groups of human females, one contracepting, one not contracepting. It also involved a group of males who had been rated for their evolutionary desirability. Men who are evolutionarily desirable are healthy and aggressive and responsible; the other group included those who can't hold a job, etc. These men all wore a tee shirt for a day. At the end of the day the women smelled the tee shirts. Without meeting the males the non contracepting women chose the evolutionarily desirable males as potentially attractive mates; the contracepting women chose the losers. Mothers have approached me after my talk and said: "That explains a lot. It explains why my daughter is stuck with that loser." Other women say, "Now I understand why my son, who is such a marvelous young man, seems to be having trouble finding good young women."
3 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
" Pleasure is Political",
By
This review is from: The Pursuit of Pleasure (Paperback)
Dr. Tiger takes the pulse of society's rules: We tell you what is pleasure... we tell you when you can have it... we will tax it... we will regulate it... and in the end... you may or may not be able to have the experience you intended at a cost that we have predetermined for you to pay.
Every function of a human is based on the Pleasure/Pain Principle.. the food we eat, the music we hear... every sense in every sense of the word. Dr. Tiger came out of "academia" to write a book about our everyday lives... in a form that even the non-educated can enjoy and understand.
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