Erotic Fantasies: A Study of the Sexual Imagination

This pathbreaking compilation, long out of print, is a survey of sexual fantasies from early folklore to the bawdy tales of the prolific Victorians to a very modern version of Little Red Riding Hood.” Here, among other selections, are vignettes from Poggio, Rabelais, and the Divine” Aretino, instructive dialogues from the seventeenth-century Whore’s Rhetorick, nineteenth-century flights of invention like Gynecocracy, Prince Cherrytop, and Les Tableaux Vivants, and a superman” fantasy by Alfred Jarryexcerpts from the entire spectrum of Western erotica.

In their frank and fascinating commentary, the Drs. Kronhausen mine these mental aphrodisiacs” as a valuable source of psychological and cultural insight. As they point out, it is the element of fantasy that distinguishes human sexuality from that of other species. In a spirit of respect for the play of the human imagination in all its forms, they commend their volume to their fellow professionals and to anyone with literary interests, a sense of humor, and the moral courage to look at his own unknown psyche and that of his fellow men.”