Price: £19.99
Published: 2008






Synopsis
It is well known that Freud laid great emphasis on sexual matters. In the years that followed, a distinction was drawn between sex and gender, and the idea of gender identity was introduced. Human beings do not spend every minute of their lives copulating, but at every minute of their lives their gender identity is present. "Sex Makes the World Go Round" implies that sex is everywhere, provided that we take into account both sexuality and gender identity. This book continues to develop Colette Chiland's work concerning sexuality and gender identity. There are two main themes which run through the whole of this book. The first is the distinction, established by Freud and based on clinical data, between the two currents of sexuality: tenderness and sensuality. The other is that women have always been treated as inferior beings. They have always lost out whenever sexual wanderings have been uppermost.

Description
For sexuality to be complete, both of these currents - tenderness and sensuality -have to be combined. Some people challenge the merit of the distinction drawn by Freud. It is nonetheless a leitmotif in his writings that seems to have gone largely unnoticed. In the "sexual wanderings" that lead some people to perversion, pornography or prostitution, tenderness is reduced almost to the point of disappearing altogether, leaving the way clear for sensuality alone. It is at this point that the other main theme of this book appears: women have always been treated as inferior beings. They have always lost out whenever sexual wanderings have been uppermost. The struggle for equal rights should not make us forget the "sexual difference" - men and women are different in their genital organs, their psychosexual development, their position during intercourse, their roles in the reproductive process. Every society, however, interprets that fundamental difference in its own way - and that interpretation, of course, can and must be challenged.
Of course, as far as material reality is concerned, money and other economic factors also make the world go round. To focus for a moment on sexuality, it is undoubtedly true to say that it does play a major role in the lives of human beings. It ensures reproduction of the human species. However, in human beings, sexuality is dissociated from oestrus and from the reproductive process; it is infiltrated by ideology. In all societies, writes Maurice Godelier, one of the greatest of French anthropologists, sexuality is the echo chamber for all sorts of oppressive and exploitative relationships.
‘"With Sex Makes The World Go Round", Chiland, with her unique style of succinct lucidity, has provided answers for all we ever wanted to know, not only about sex, but also about love, tenderness, perversion, pornography, prostitution and gender and all its variations, with her unmistakable intelligence and vigour. Once again Chiland proves that she is not afraid to examine paradoxes and contradictions in her quest to understand these difficult issues in an honest and open manner. She challenges and provokes us to leave aside prejudices borne from fear and ignorance. Her thoughts and revelations are critical to our understanding of the complexities of shame and guilt. I could not put this book down: finally the definitive wisdom and truly unmissable.'
- Dr Estela V. Welldon, MD DSc(Hon) F.R.C.Psych. Founder and Honorary President for life of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy,
Author of "Mother, Madonna, Whore".

Contents
About the author
Preface
1 The heart of the matter
2 Freud and the importance of sexuality
3 Gender identity
4 From difference to equality
5 Choice of partner
6 Sexual wanderings
7 Love
8 Sex makes the world go round

The Author
Colette Chiland read philosophy and psychology, then medicine and psychiatry at the University of Paris. She taught clinical psychology at La Sorbonne, then at Université Paris Descartes, and is training analyst at the Paris Psychoanalytical Society.