Speaking of Sex

Discusses current frameworks of sexual discourse - which the author sees as metaphor, myth and rhetoric - and considers why explicit sex talk is so difficult. The various rhetorics of sin, vice and crime, psychoanalysis, sexology, sociology, sexual politics, love and romance are also analyzed.

---

Nowadays we talk about sex incessantly -- yet we still lack a comfortable language in which to do so. The 'polite' vocabularies of religion, medicine, law and sociology are too formal, value-laden and often simply boring, whilst the vernacular Anglo-Saxon words are regarded by some as 'obscene', and are frequently used by others in an aggressively negative, sex-hating way. Antony Grey criticizes the various rhetorics of sexual discussion, and points at the ways in which language often becomes a stumbling-block to mutual understanding and happiness. He calls for a thorough overhaul of sexual discourse, to pave the way for greater realism.