FEMALE FETISHISM: A NEW LOOK
LORRAINE GAMMAN
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.
'Gamman and Makinen have broken into a great bank of meaning and offer us an original, liberating interpretation in what should become a standard of cultural and psychoanalytical studies' Elizabeth Young,
The Guardian
Lorraine Gamman lectures in Cultural Studies and Product Design at Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design. She co-edited The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture, 1988.
Merja Makinen lectures in English and History of Ideas at Middlesex University. She is co-author of Joyce Cary: A Descriptive Bibliography.