Never before published in the United States, David Holbrook's
study offers the sort of common sense all too uncommon in this area
of study. His essential premise is that sex has become converted
from an instrument for the expression of happiness and affection
into an end unto itself. In the search for sexual liberation, all
that has been accomplished is the mechanization of sexuality and
the destruction of the full range of emotions that nourish the
human search for social and biological meaning. "Sex and
Dehumanization "is one of those rare books that will immediately
strike the reader as part of the common wisdom that has somehow
been lost in a search for the pleasure principle unhinged from
other values and goals.
During the past quarter century, Holbrook argues, not only has
the concept of sex become increasingly separated from the rest of
existence, but sex casualties have increased disastrously. The
spread of AIDS has brought an ominous and deadly manifestation of
this thesis into the human equation, yet at the same tune the
response to this menace has been nothing short of manic denial. A
similar picture emerges in less deadly forms. Whatever statistics
one examines, whether those of sexual activity among young
children, abortion, or sexual disease, one finds a grim antidote to
any hopes of progress in the sphere of human dealings with the
sexual. Holbrook locates many of the problems involved in this
separation of sex and affection in the emergence of the idea that
our lives are governed by impersonal forces beyond human
control.
"Sex and Dehumanization "is in the great tradition of social
history and psychiatric analysis. Robert Nye, writing in the
"Scotsman, "says that "Holbrook's diagnosis of our unease should be
attentively studied by all who really care about sex and love and
the responsibility of freedom." Gabriel Pearson, in the "Guardian
"echoes this sentiment, adding that "never has such a secular ethic
been so firmly and urgently and usefully stated." And John Rex sees
the book "as containing the germs of important and central moral
discussion."
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