'There are more questions than answers in this book - questions that are important and will continue to intrigue us. This book will be needed to remind us of the different opinions and to help us create tomorrow's theories. Human experience cannot be reduced to sexuality, but there is sexuality in everything human.'- From the Introduction A challenging exploration of contemporary theories on femininity with cutting-edge papers from leading analysts, this volume presents a thought-provoking dialogue on femininity, sexuality, gender and masculinity. These key issues are analysed and discussed in new and stimulating ways, whilst familiar concepts are dissected and dismantled to bring forward fresh ideas. The diversity and developments currently advancing studies on femininity towards new understandings are shown clearly throughout. This rich and inspiring collection of papers grew from the "Sexuality and Gender" conference held in Sweden in 2002, organised by the Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis. The conference was created with the conscious intent of bringing different ideas to bear upon each other in order to promote further research into this vital area.

Can contemporary psychoanalysis tell us anything about sexuality that is new and clinically meaningful? It most certainly can, answers Muriel Dimen in Sexuality, Intimacy, Power, a compelling attempt to revivify Freud's core interest, in "sexual impulses in the ordinary sense of the term." But there is nothing ordinary about Dimen's project. Drawing on contemporary relational theory, feminism, and postmodernism, she takes a sustained, sometimes irreverent, look at assumptions about psychosexuality. For Dimen, the shift from dualism to multiplicity that has reshaped a range of disciplines can also be brought to bear on our thinking about sexuality. She urges us to return to the open-mindedness hiding between the lines and buried in the footnotes of Freud's writings, and to replace the determinism into which his thought has hardened with more fluid notions of contingency, paradox, and thirdness. By unveiling the colloquy among psychoanalysis, social theory, and feminism, Dimen challenges clinicians and academicians alike to rethink ideas about gender, eroticism, and perversion. She explores, among other topics, the relations between Lust and libido; the limitations of Darwinian thought in theorizing homosexuality; the body as projective test; and the intimate tangle of love and hate between women. Generous clinical examples illustrate the ways in which a radical re-visioning of psychosexuality benefits therapists and patients alike. Mixing medium and message, Dimen draws on a variety of disciplines and styles to delineate the ambiguities, contradictions, and paradoxes that subtend sexuality in all its personal and clinical complexity. A brilliant example of contemporary psychoanalytic theory at its destabilizing best, Sexuality, Intimacy, Power is equally a historical document that will intrigue and enlighten students of women's, gender, and queer studies.

About this Book... "Here is a book that both creates and illuminates the space where psychoanalysis, feminism, gender studies, and sexualities join. . . . A collection of cutting edge work that brims with the excitement of new possibility." -Dr. Sam Gerson Combining clinical psychoanalysis with feminism, postmodernism, and psychoanalytic theory, this pioneering collection represents a major step forward in psychoanalytic gender studies.

This book offers Dimen’s classic take on psychosexuality, drawing on relational theory, feminism and postmodernism, with a new foreword by Virginia Goldner and Velleda Ceccoli honouring the late Muriel Dimen and introducing a new audience to her profound legacy. For Dimen, the shift from dualism to multiplicity that has reshaped a range of disciplines can also be brought to bear on our thinking about sexuality. She urges us to return to the open-mindedness hiding between the lines and buried in the footnotes of Freud’s writings, and to replace the determinism into which his thought has hardened with more fluid notions of contingency, paradox, and thirdness. By unveiling the colloquy among psychoanalysis, social theory, and feminism, Dimen challenges clinicians and academicians alike to rethink ideas about gender, eroticism, and perversion. She explores, among other topics, the relations between lust and libido; the limitations of Darwinian thought in theorizing homosexuality; the body as projective test; and the intimate tangle of love and hate between women. Generous clinical examples illustrate the ways in which a radical re-visioning of psychosexuality benefits therapists and patients alike. A brilliant example of contemporary psychoanalytic theory at its destabilizing best, Sexuality, Intimacy, Power covers both clinical insights and theoretical rethinking that is invaluable for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and students of women’s, gender and queer studies.

Disorienting Sexuality exposes the biases against gay men and lesbians in psychoanalytic theory and practice. In the introduction, Domenici and Lesser draw a brief history of anti-homosexual sentiment in psychoanalysis. The book then moves into essays written by lesbian and gay psychoanalysts seeking to have a voice in the reshaping of psychoanalytic theories of sexuality. The second section is devoted to presenting different theoretical perspectives for understanding both homosexuality and heterosexuality. Disorienting Sexuality concludes with the personal narratives of gay and lesbian psychoanalysts.

Debate over gender and especially the lives of men is currently at a fever pitch, particularly in the United States. New perspectives that capture the complexity of men and a rapidly changing gender landscape are therefore critical today. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary American Men challenges narrow stereotyped views of men by arguing that men are as complex and layered as women. In the light of the recent #MeToo movement, stereotypes of men are being recycled. While aligned with the spirit of this movement, the authors worry that negative stereotypes of men are being perpetrated at the very time that men are renegotiating their gender experience. The authors present a critical non-heteronormative perspective addressing current gender transformations. Although the lives of men are changing, the stories that dominate the public sphere often represent them as narrowly phallic—controlling, detached, sexist, and homophobic. Seidman and Frank offer a counter point: men are also "guardians" driven to be useful and to do good, to live valued and purposeful lives. They argue that men are not only driven by a will to power but by an ethically-minded, relationally-oriented sense of responsibility to care for others, whether partners, children, or fellow citizens. Drawing on historical, sociological, and psychoanalytic work, this book provides a nuanced, multidimensional construct of American men today. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary American Men will be of interest to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists as well as scholars and students of gender and queer studies.