What Are Perversions?: Sexuality, Ethics, Psychoanalysis

211 Pages·2016·5.85 MB·English

by  Sergio Benvenuto

WHAT ARE PERVERSIONS?

WHAT ARE PERVERSIONS?
Sexuality, Ethics, Psychoanalysis
Sergio Benvenuto
First published in 2016 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2016 by Sergio Benvenuto
The right of Sergio Benvenuto to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-78220-327-8
Typeset by V Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd., Chennai, India
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
To Elvio Fachinelli (1928–1989),
my friend and teacher in psychoanalysis

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
ABOUT THE AUTHOR xi
INTRODUCTION xiii
CHAPTER ONE
What are perversions? 1
CHAPTER TWO
The pervert’s pain 35
CHAPTER THREE
Masochism: ways to power 57
CHAPTER FOUR
Sadism: “Punishing women” 81
CHAPTER FIVE
Perverse women 105
vii
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER SIX
Weaning from perversion? 125
APPENDIX
Freud and masochism 137
REFERENCES 155
INDEX 163
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Like every book, even this one was born thanks to several midwives.
And since in a certain sense a book is a collective work, I would say that
this book was born four times, because each edition (Italian, German,
Russian, and now English) had its own readers, commentators, and
editors.
A special thanks goes to the dear friends who are no longer with
us, but whose help in making known the Italian edition of this book
was extraordinary: Giovanni Jervis, Fulvio Marone, Valeria Medda,
and Luciana Sica. I am especially grateful to Fabiano Bassi, Fernando
Castrillón (who helped me with this English edition), Cristiana Cimino,
Antonello Correale, Antonio Gargano, Edy Gatto Pertegato, Antonella
Mancini, Victor Mazin (who is editing the Russian edition of this book),
Bruno Moroncini, Roberto Neuburger (who invited me to present my
work in Buenos Aires), Dany Nobus, Teodosio Orlando, Robert Pfaller,
Elisabeth Roudinesco (who promoted my work on perversions in
France), August Ruhs, Antonello Sciacchitano, Richard Steurer (who
translated the book into German), and Karl Stockreiter (who edited the
German edition of this book). This English version of the book exists
because of the patience of scrupulous copy-editors and translators
ix