Feminine Sensuality

'Female sexuality has always been in the forefront of psychoanalytic research. Freud was at first inclined to believe that the characteristics of boys' infantile sexuality were also applicable mutatis mutandis to girls, but was later compelled to recognize that the matter was not so simple.'The fact that Alcira Mariam Alizade's book is called Feminine Sensuality is not due merely to a concern for semantic precision; still less is the title a play on words, because her fundamental thesis, to my mind, is that women must study, understand and conquer themselves through their sensuality, for all that anatomy may be their destiny.'It is interesting to note that in Alizade's view men do not understand female sensuality, partly because of the difficulty they have in accepting women's erogenic overflowing. From this standpoint the persistent attempt to accommodate the female of the species in the procrustean bed of the male orgasm is a way of constraining, dominating, and controlling her. The author concludes that fantasies of female erogenic overflowing not uncommonly lie at the root of sexual pathology in both men and women.'All in all, then, this is a passionately- written and passion-arousing volume that not only brings the male reader close to the Eternal Feminine - to the dark continent so dreaded by Freud - but also gives women more trust in their feminine condition. This translation offers the English-speaking psychoanalyst a chance to see these problems in a new light. I therefore sincerely recommend this book to all.'- R. Horacio Etchegoyen, from his Foreword

• Preface -- Foreword -- Introduction -- The sense of the body -- The body in psychoanalysis: the nucleus of stone -- Feminine orgasms -- Feminine virginities -- The dissolution [Untergang] of the Oedipus complex in women -- Faithfulness—unfaithfulness -- On passion and passionate sensuality -- Feminine masochism: eroticism and the human condition