Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific, informative, sexy, February 6, 2003
Think you're odd? Do you like to do "strange" things in bed? Have you ever found yourself fantasizing about something that you know is bizarre? Welcome to the real world, honey, where "deviant" sex is the norm. You may think that your penchant for panties or wish to squish is something no sane person would contemplate but you'd be wrong. In Deviant Desires, author Katharine Gates goes for the jugular. Leaving the relatively "normal" realms of BDSM (Bondage & Discipline/SadoMasochism), transgenderism, and shrimping behind, the topics explored in Deviant Desires are completely "off the map" in comparison. Ranging from in-depth chapters on Pony Play to Balloon Fetishes with stops along the way about Giantesses, Crushing, and Fat fans, Gates raises the bar with each chapter. Even our old pal Romain Slocombe (see above) makes an appearance with his Broken Dolls photography near the end of the book.
My favorite chapter has to be the "catch all" finale to the book that addresses (among other things) attraction to androids ("My Living Doll" anyone?) and erotic fan fiction. The drawings of popular science fiction characters in compromising positions aren't easy to forget.
Gates is highly respectful of her subjects, neither exploiting them nor psychoanalyzing them. The fun the people have with their fetishes is apparent and rather "normalizing"! While the idea of people enjoying themselves while not indulging in "vanilla sex" may be offensive to some, this book is for the silent, (a)moral majority! (ISBN: 1890451037)
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a sensitive and affirming review of "fringe" sex, March 14, 2000
By A Customer
This book is exceptionally sensitive and non-judgmental anthropologic-style review of sexual fetishes that are far from the usual mainstream discussions of sexual proclivities. If you have had literally no exposure to these fetishes or if you are a devotee of something explored here, you will appreciate the friendly and compassionate tone that Ms. Gates brings to her catalog of sexual fringe behavior.S&M is too mainstream for this book, it is not another tired recounting of leather clubs or bondage practices. Explored here are people who are imaginative enough to use a big #10 can of Pork & Beans as a sex toy, or balloons, or those who are creative enough to construct elaborate fantasies involving normally chaste fictional characters (Spock does Kirk), or those who enjoy role play as domestic animals. A very sensitive and compassionately written chapter on Fat Admirers and those they desire was of particular interest to me as a lifelong overweight man. It is indeed rare to find these issues discussed with respect and kindness in any published media, much less in a book on sex. Ms. Gates makes a contribution to our knowledge about ourselves that is fun to read and interesting to explore. The illustrations she has collected here alone make the book worth having in any library. This book would make a great gift for anyone with an abiding curiosity about what goes on behind the neighbor's closed doors. Indeed, I look at popular advertising with an entirely new awareness these days. These fetishes are everywhere.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Let Katherine Gates show you the normal side of deviance, August 29, 2001
I was attending an erotic/adult expo in San Francisco in spring 2000 when I saw a woman sitting at a nearly deserted booth, holding a copy of this book, which I had just bought and read the week before. "Isn't that the best? I got that last week and just devoured it, it's amazing!" I exclaimed, not realizing I had just approached the author and totally made her day. Humans come in an incredible array of shapes and sizes, and so do their turn-ons. Katherine Gates, known for her past collaborations with porn-performance-artist Annie Sprinkle, overviews a variety of practices that occupy the outer edges of sexuality, but flourish on the Internet. Balloon fetishists (to pop or not to pop, that is the question), people who like to pretend they are ponies, fat admirers and messy girls are all collected here, shown in happy, consensual pictures and interviews. This book will be of interest to fetishists, social anthropologists, sex counselors/educators and collectors of the unusual.
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