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About this book
Orgasmic Bodies explores how bodily experiences of orgasm are worked up as present/absent, complicated/straightforward, too slow/too fast, fake or real, in the doing of masculinities and femininities. Engaging with both science and popular culture it examines the meanings given to orgasmic bodies in contemporary heterosex.
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
'Hannah Frith's outstanding examination of the historical, biological and cultural 'meanings' of heterosexual orgasm exposes our deep-seated assumptions, prevailing anxieties and hopeful pleasures regarding orgasms. Eloquently reviewing the different theoretical approaches attempting to 'make sense' of this intimate embodied experience (from Freud and Masters and Johnston to feminist poststructuralist theory and even covering the new biomedical push to market 'pink Viagra'), Frith's 'orgasm is not a 'natural act''. She cleverly demonstrates how popular cultural texts such as Cosmo and Men's Health, which claim to 'inform' readers about the 'truths' of female and male orgasmic experience, actually do more to highlight the inconsistencies and uncertainties of people's understandings and experiences of sexual pleasure. Indeed, Frith's analysis reveals how much 'work' and what kinds of 'performances' must go into producing 'authentic' and 'faux' orgasms in heterosexual contexts. Importantly, Hannah Frith brings previous scholarship on the orgasmic imperative up to date by turning to the pleasures of the new neoliberal postfeminist female sexual subject. Written in a beautifully accessible and engaging way, Orgasmic Bodies is the book 21st century Sexuality Studies has been waiting for.' - Associate Professor Annie Potts, Head of Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
'In Orgasmic Bodies, Hannah Frith makes the already-complicated and treacherous terrain of orgasm even more deliciously complex and nuanced. As a distillation of cultural anxieties, personal pleasures, deep power imbalances, and bodily possibilities, Frith's analysis of orgasm pushes us to understand and evaluate gender relations and erotic thrills such that we as readers shudder with delight and terror in equal measure. This is the social science book on orgasm we have all been waiting for.' - Breanne Fahs, Associate Professor of Women and Gender studies at Arizona State University, USA and author of Performing Sex and The Moral Panics of Sexuality
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Hannah Frith teaches critical psychology at the University of Brighton, UK. Her research examines interrelationships between identity, embodiment and sexuality, including negotiating sexual refusals, clothed identities, a changed appearance, the mediation of dying, and makeover television. She co-edited Critical bodies: Representations, identities and practices of weight and body management (Palgrave Macmillan).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Orgasmic Bodies
Book Subtitle: The Orgasm in Contemporary Western Culture
Authors: Hannah Frith
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304377
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences Collection, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2015
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-30435-3Published: 17 July 2015
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-137-30436-0Published: 17 July 2015
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-30437-7Published: 30 June 2015
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 192
Topics: Critical Psychology, Sexual Behavior, Personality and Social Psychology, Regional and Cultural Studies, Community and Environmental Psychology, Media Studies