Satyricon USA: A Journey Across the New Sexual Frontier (Hardcover)

by Eurydice (Author) "The ballroom stage rattles under three gargantuan figures in flowing sequined dresses, butterfly eyelashes, and cascading hairpieces, striking poses to "Dancing Queen..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Air Force, Don Juan (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Eurydice takes as her model the Roman writer Petronius, who claimed that his salacious Satyricon was "simple realism and nothing more." Her vivid tour of America's sexual underside in the mid-1990s--ranging from suburban sadomasochism to male cross-dressing conferences, from lesbian bloodletting rituals to supersize Texas strip clubs--is only slightly less fantastic than the original Satyricon, and would be worth reading solely for anthropological interest (or voyeuristic thrill) even if it were not also exceptionally well written, lively, and acute.

Sadly, perhaps, the author finds most of the contemporary deviant practices she observes to be joyless and vaguely pernicious, "the tricky disguise of our self-denials as sexual excesses." Alert to the reactionary undertow complicating each of these supposed advances, Eurydice is especially suspicious of our rush to define our sexual identities in ever-more-specific terms (butch bottom boy, radical fairy, bigenderist, transbisexual), codifying and policing what ought to be fluid and anarchic. "Words and signs are displacing our genitals," she argues. "Emancipation has brought us no peace." --Regina Marler

From Kirkus Reviews
A fascinating tour of the sexual fringes of our society, an inside look at worlds into which most of us will never seek or gain entre. Starting with the notion that activities at the margins of society eventually move into the mainstream, and her belief that our society is simultaneously sexually promiscuous and repressive (as in politically correct codes of sexual behavior), Eurydice plunges into various circles of sexual deviancy, only to be amazed by the ordinariness of the individuals engaging in bizarre erotic behavior. What they did in private might quality as abnormal, she writes, but they did not. What begins as a kind of highbrow voyeuristic tour of the fringes turns into a compelling portrait of contemporary anomie as we are guided through the worlds of cross-dressing, sexual addiction, sadomasochism, cybersex, and even necrophilia. What we see is disturbingpriests who cant overcome their sexual addiction, women who choose to be sex slaves in a S/M relationship, vampires reveling orgiastically in each others bloodbut equally disturbing is the inner deadness that drives them to seek extreme forms of sexual activity. Of women who cut themselves as part of the sexual act, the author writes, for those who wear their scars as badges of honor, . . . What I do find utterly disquieting is that its scars are advertisements for the invisible scars of an increasingly violent and hollow society. All I really want is to feel alive, says one sex addict who has slept with more than a thousand men. Eurydices ponderings about what she sees are not always convincing; in writing about sex in the military, she is irritatingly attracted to the idea that sex and violence must be linked in men who are being trained for war. But at her best, she offers insights into the pleasures and dangers offered by contemporary society. This study of our sexual mores is far from erotic. It is illuminating, provocative, unsettling, dark, and disturbing. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First Edition edition (February 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684839512
• ISBN-13: 978-0684839516
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,737,425 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars intelligent synopsis of fringe sexuality, May 26, 1999

By A Customer

This is a smart book, thoughtful and perceptive. It's obviously not meant to provide juicy tidbits -- the reader from Austin, Texas is right, there's nothing new and shocking, but then he obviously missed the point entirely and picked up the book for the wrong reason (recommendation to him/her: try the animal section at your local porn store). I think the author of the book captures well the hypocracy (sp?) of sexuality in America at the end of the century, where "abnormal" sex is so common as to not be aberrant anymore, yet where puritanism still permeates the culture. No jollies here, just good analyis and some very interesting characters opening themselves up. I recommend it.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars American Eroticism Inside and Out, May 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Satyricon USA: A Journey Across the New Sexual Frontier (Paperback)

This book is sexy and brainy at once, which is a rarity. The author takes us to many American towns and communities where we meet soldiers, teachers, bankers, doctors, crossdressers, sex addicts, strippers, knife-loving lesbians, sadomasochists, necrophiliacs, people who sleep with aliens, you name it. The author makes all these people seem normal even as they are so bizarre. She knows sex and human nature and has brilliant comments throughout that make you think. It's exciting, it's informative, it's original. I don't think there's another book on sex so good anywhere around. I heard Eurydice on Bob Berkowitz's Lovebytes on e-yada last week. She writes the Sex Files column for Gear magazine and has an erotic novel out called f/32 I think.

2.0 out of 5 stars A Poor Tourguide Into The Sexual Underworld, May 2, 2008

By	Candice "Candy" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Satyricon USA : A Journey Across the New Sexual Frontier (Paperback)

Eurydice's book is a sometimes fascinating, sometimes painful read- not because of the subject matter (please- anyone the least bit seasoned or knowledgeable in the so-called `fringe' or `extreme' sexualities knows everything in this book), but to watch the authoress herself as she struggles to make sense of what she witnesses. As another reviewer says, it truly does seem like she brings a lot of baggage to the book.

The author, as far as I know, doesn't occupy any public space that makes her worthy to comment on the things she's seen. She psychobabbles on and on, but has no professional, or even academic, experience on psychology/psychiatry. She has had no long-term exposure to any of the communities she enters and willingly pulls all her generalizing comments from oftentimes one single event or only a handful of interviews. I found myself reading and asking why I should listen to what Eurydice has to say: not only does she seem blase towards the subject matter, but her commentary is about on line with being grabbed by an uncle at a family reunion and having all his opinions heaped on you, under the guise of sage and wise advice. It simply doesn't fly.

I'd have rather read a fiery rhetoric about the evils of these various sexual communities- at least that would have some passion. I don't know if Eurydice simply has no real feelings about them (except for her own conflictions, which are ever-present), or if she feels that objective writing must be dry as tinder, but either way, it falls flat. If not for the very exuberance of the subjects themselves (through interviews), it wouldn't be worth reading at all. The book simply tries too hard where it cannot quite deliver. Eurydice's prose is fantastically complex (she even made this grad student pull out her dictionary once or twice) and elegant, which makes me wish that she had either a better medium or a better subject matter, because it often gets in the way. This is by no means a clear perspective on the sexual frontier. There may be occasional moments of brilliance (as well as repeated, disheartening occasions of bigotry hiding under the mask of `objective psychoanalysis'), but it's simply too muddled to be of any real value.

If anyone is reading this review wondering what I mean . . . it's hard to say. I supposed you simply have to sample Eurydice's style for yourself to understand her writing style. Suffice to say, it wasn't cutting it for me- it felt pretentious and tired, she sounded at best bored and at worst terribly jaded, and in the end, the crowning thesis of the book- that there isn't a wild and rampant sexuality underneath our smooth exteriors, but rather a bane normality underneath the crazy acts that [according to Eurydice] we do to feel rebellious and different- well, this isn't big news. Hell, I could have told you that.

The only saving grace of the book is its sheer diversity- Eurydice hits not only the sexual minority "givens" (cross-dressing, BDSM and bloodplay, strip clubs, cybersex), but also talks about a few topics I had not seen elsewhere, including necrophilia, sex in the military, and alien sex. Fresh topics that you simply don't see anywhere else, and it was these chapters that kept me going when I felt like putting down the book.

All in all, "Satyricon" is a book that makes me sad. When I finished reading it, I did not feel like I better understood the sexual minority's participants, and I didn't feel like I'd been shown some great realization about our sexual culture. It simply seemed like the author had grimly set herself out to write a book about sex, and found the whole process disdainful. It comes across on every page, and what stands for objectivity ends up feeling cold, clinical, and even a little mean (you can't help but wonder, oh yeah, Eurydice? Well, what turns you on?). And it's sad that it gets in the way of the material, because she often asks good, thought-provoking questions. If only her attitude were a little different.