Robert J. Stoller – författare

"Stoller is not just a scientist but a lover of words and language. In this book, his text is as playful, charming, and serious as his topic.  The mix, a scientific and aesthetic exploration of the erotic imagination, is almost as irresistible as one's own erotic daydreams. Observing the Erotic Imagination is for all professional and private students of the erotic."—Dr. Ethel Person "This book is a delight....He offers a model clinical illustration, brilliant and full of presence.  Indeed, Stoller's entire book is a model of clear, elegant conversational prose."—Jerome B. Katz, M.D., Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic "Stoller presents new thoughts on his most provocative theory of the relationship between erotic excitement and fantasy of revenge and hostility."—Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D. and Evan J. Elkin, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent "Stoller's account is comprehensive and levelheaded."—Psychological Reports

This classic book is a detailed case study of a woman, otherwise intelligent and apparently sane, who was convinced that she had internally a full set of functioning male sex organs. Dr. Robert Stoller's account of this woman's diagnosis and treatment is illustrated by excerpts from the patient-analyst dialogue during her therapy, providing enough detail to be useful to clinicians in training. Originally published in hardcover in 1973, the book is now available in paperback for the first time."One of the longest, most minutely detailed, and most fascinating case reports in the psychiatric literature. . . . An extremely original contribution to the study of perversion."—Ethel Spector Person, M.D., from the Foreword"One of the great clinical case studies. Splitting demonstrates the power of psychoanalytic reasoning in the twentieth century."—Gilbert Herdt, University of Chicago

What do porn films tell us about our own erotic impulses? What can we learn about our culture's sexual attitudes, fears, and fantasies from the ways that porn films are designed and produced? In this book, Dr. Robert J. Stoller, one of the world's leading experts on human sexual behavior, joins with I. S. Levine, a professional writer with long experience in X-rated video making, to examine the ideas and psychological makeup of the participants in an adult heterosexual X-rated video, Stairway to Paradise. Their interviews with performers, writers, directors, producers, and technicians provide extraordinary insights into the technical aspects of this type of video, the motivations and backgrounds of the people involved, and the porn industry's view of the video's intended audience.  Stoller, Levine, and the porn filmmakers have wide-ranging discussions about the aesthetics, ethics, and etiquette of the porn industry; the hostility that Dr. Stoller claimed underlies all erotic excitement; the liberating—and educational—function of porn in a puritanical culture; the misconceptions of antiporn crusaders; the impact of aids on the participants; and the future of the porn film industry. The authors hope that if we understand how and why a pornographic work is created, we will be better able to understand the implications of the legal and moral issues it raises.

}A preeminent psychoanalyst explores the world of consensual S&M. An expert on the dynamics of perversion and erotic excitement, Dr. Stoller sets out on an expedition to the S&M community of West Hollywood. We meet the highly articulate Ron, who serves as a guide to the fetishes and bizarre practices of both casual and devoted proponents of sadomasochism. We are introduced to Marilyn and Claudelle, two warmly opinionated entrepreneurs of a B&D (bondage and discipline) establishment. The arcane business of S&M videos is documented by Merlin, and enthusiastic producer of pornography. Most interesting are Dr. Stollers provocative questions to these denizens of the S&M world and his engaging musings on their answers.Like an anthropologist in New Guinea, Dr. Stoller observes the customs of these natives. He studies them in his quest for insight into the perplexing question of why some people associate pain and humiliation with intense erotic desire. Thus, his journey is not only external, but internalinto the meaning and boundaries of the term perversion and its place within the psyche.He investigates how the theater of the imagination is moved into the real worlds reverberating complexity. In the course of this journey, Dr. Stoller changes his views, first referring to these S&M practitioners as specimens and then perceiving them, in their ambiguities and contradictions, as human beings. By joining Dr. Stoller, we find not only nuances in the meanings of consensual sadomasochism but larger implications of what being human means. }

A previously unpublished work by the author. 'It was like discovering a previously unknown recording by the Beatles. On a 2007 visit to the author's widow, Sybil, she handed me a manuscript. The author's last book had been placed in a publishing queue by his retiring editor. After the author''s death Sybil was told that the publisher had discontinued psychoanalytic books. It languished on a home shelf in Los Angeles for sixteen years. I was holding the final work by psychoanalysis's most eloquent writer on sex.' - From the Foreword by Dr Richard Green

This book focuses on the subject of the development of masculinity and femininity. It shows that the perverse scene aims not only at denying castration, but also at securing a more solid basis for a jeopardized sexual identity.

This book aims to show that the function of day-dreams is to state a problem that has been disguised and then to solve it, the problem and the solution being the poles between which excitement flows.

Exploring the connections between cognitive science and psychoanalysis, the authors indicate that a potentially fruitful relationship can exist between the two fields. The book examines this relationship, concluding that psychoanalysis can contribute to a science of the mind when it flows into a more effective science and technology such as cognitive science. As viewed by the authors, cognitive science is "a new, lively field, full of novel concepts and methods about the mind." This is sharply contrasted with their opinion of psychoanalysis as a discipline which must change and consider such important problems in the study of the mind such as fantasies and feelings. Colby and Stoller do not specify how psychoanalysis must evolve, but they do make suggestions for future research. They believe that they are "exercising the prerogative of tribal elders, pass(ing) the task along to the next generation."

In this book, Dr Stoller describes patients with marked abberrations in their masculinity and feminity--primarily transsexuals, transvestites and patients with marked biological abnormalities of their sex - in order to find clues to gender development in more normal people.

'Why in this enlightened day would one choose to entitle a work Perversion, a term that is becoming passe? The great research published in the last decade or two has taught us that aberrant sexual behavior is found in other species, is ubiquitous in man, and is the product of brain and hormonal factors that can function independently of anything we might call psyche. Then too, their findings make researchers regret society's moral stance that sexual aberration is unnatural - sinful - and the repressive social action that follows. Thus, in ridding ourselves of the concept of perversion, we have the tempting combination of good research serving a humane cause. Yet it is my contention, explored in the body of this book, that perversion exists.The connotations of the word are unpleasant and have a flavor of morality and therefore of free will that is antiquated in these days of science and determinism. It is to avoid such connotations that the softer terms "variant", "deviation," or "aberration" are used. More and more these days, decent people - many of them scientists - are concerned about the price their fellows, and even more, whole societies, pay in their effort to suppress victimless aberrant sexual behavior. And so, in the name of decency, it has become the style, using the trappings of Science, to try and get rid of the concept of perversion. This is done not only by changing the terms to ones with less severe implications but by trying to show that there are no (or very few) states that fit the nasty connotations of "perversion". These workers reach their conclusions by objective means that they feel avoid the dangers of introspective material, such as by studying brain mechanisms an animal and man, which reveal capacities for aberrant behavior inherited and laid down in hormonal organizations of the central nervous system: by statistics that unmask how widespread are those allegedly heinous acts; by anthropological studies that show aberrant sexual behavior to have been the usual - not the exceptional - throughout history and across cultures; and by observation of or experimentation on intact animals. In all these cases, data have been gathered disclosing that aberrant sexual practices are found throughout the animal species and are ubiquities in human behavior. It is easy, then, to conclude that the widespread aberrance in man does not really signify willed behavior - that is, sinfulness, disobedience to accepted morality - but rather a natural tendency of the sexual impulse in the animal kingdom.- From the Introduction by the AuthorThus begins this classic work on perversion from Robert R. Stoller. Written in ordinary language, accessible for analysts and non-analysts alike, Stoller addresses the lack of information and discussion on perversion in a clear and concise way. His purpose is not to describe and discuss various perversions and their origins and dynamics, but rather to define the term "perversion" clinically; to be able to recognise the common factor throughout regardless of manifestation. His key contention is that in perversion the main clinical factor is hostility. It combines with sexual desire to produce the various forms that perversion can take on. Stoller shows that the perverse scene aims not only at denying castration, but also at securing a more solid basis for a jeopardized sexual identity. Risk, vengeance and trauma are some of the ideas that the author discusses while building up his argument.The book is divided into three parts - Definition, Dynamics and Social Issues - and through these Stoller successfully explores and concludes his theory.

'This is a study of sexual excitement. It is the fifth book - perhaps more accurately, the fifth chapter in one work - on masculinity and femininity (gender identity), carrying forward ideas examined in my last book, Perversion. The other four books are: Sex and Gender: the Development of Masculinity and Femininity, The Transsexual Experiment, Splitting: A Case of Female Masculinity and Perversion: The Erotic form of Hatred. As many have noted since Freud said it decades ago, it is so difficult to draw a line between excitement one can call "perverse" and normal excitement that the word "normal" loses definition.'- From the Introduction by the Author

Exploring the connections between cognitive science and psychoanalysis, the authors indicate that a potentially fruitful relationship can exist between the two fields. The book examines this relationship, concluding that psychoanalysis can contribute to a science of the mind when it flows into a more effective science and technology such as cognitive science. As viewed by the authors, cognitive science is "a new, lively field, full of novel concepts and methods about the mind." This is sharply contrasted with their opinion of psychoanalysis as a discipline which must change and consider such important problems in the study of the mind such as fantasies and feelings. Colby and Stoller do not specify how psychoanalysis must evolve, but they do make suggestions for future research. They believe that they are "exercising the prerogative of tribal elders, pass(ing) the task along to the next generation."