Arousal: Bodies and Pleasures

by Martha Roth

In broaching a taboo subject, Martha Roth explores the question "Why does sexual arousal carry both excitement and guilt?" She examines the mental and physical effects of arousal as forbidden fruit,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157131220X
• ISBN13: 9781571312204
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Provocative, playful, ambitious, courageous

I first encountered Martha Roth as the author of the very moving novel, Goodness (Spinster's Ink, 1996). Reading Goodness hardly prepared me for Arousal. Goodness made me feel good; it is a novel about good people, good love, good sex. Arousal is not a novel. Arousal aroused me. Stimulated me. Asked difficult questions for which I had no easy answers. At the same time I had a sense of playfulness, of fun, a sense that the author enjoyed writing this book. And there was courage too. To display erotic images in words, that takes courage. And to not be prurient, that takes art. And to wrap it up in a grand theory linking reading (symbolization) to erotic pleasure, now that takes a kind of courage cum ambition that takes my breath away. To sum up: I am glad I read Arousal. It provided the stimulus for some rousing good conversations with the man in my life. Britomar Lathrop, PhD Psychologist Rockford, Illinois