Böcker av Lorraine Gamman

The aura of passivity that has for centuries surrounded female sexuality in popular culture, psychology, and literature has, in recent years, dissipated. And yet fetishism, one of the most intriguing and mysterious forms of sexual expression, is still cast as an almost exclusively male domain. Most psychoanalytic thought, for instance, excludes the very possibility of female fetishism. The first book on the subject, Female Fetishism engagingly documents women's involvement in this form of sexuality. Lorraine Gamman and Merja Makinen describe a wide array of female fetishisms, from the obsessional behavior of pop fans (and pop performers such as Madonna) to fetishism in advertising to women's involvement in the world of dress clubs and fetish magazines. The authors provide provocative evidence of food fetishism among women, arguing that many eating disorders are best understood from this perspective.A latter portion of the book includes a discussion of how feminists have treated the political and cultural significance of female fetishism.

Shirley Pitts, the eldest of six children was born upside down on 24 November 1934. Her "career" began by thieving bread off doorsteps and coal from coalcarts. Her father's bungled attempts at blackmarketeering and her dipsomaniac mother's inadequacies made Shirley resolve not only to be a first-class thief but also the best mother her six children could wish for. Before she died Shirley told her story to Lorraine - the story of a generous, brave and beautiful woman with a huge sense of fun and a love of life.

In recent years, the Freudian construction of a passive female sexuality has been severely criticised by feminists. This is the first book to tackle the question of female fetishism and to document women's engagement with this form of sexuality. Most psychoanalytic theory excludes the very possibility of the existence of female fetishism. In the face of the wealth of material about fetishistic practices gathered in this book, the authors suggest that Freudian phallocentrism has prevented analysts from seeing the evidence before their eyes.