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.

About the Author
Lorraine Gamman lectures in Cultural Studies and Product Design at Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design and is a visiting tutor at Goldsmith's College, London. She is coeditor of The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture. Anthony P. Griffin was General Counsel for the NAACP and was removed in 1993 for his representation in a first amendment case of a Grand Dragon of the Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Donald E. Lively is a Professor of Law at the University of Toledo. Robert C. Post is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews
"An original, liberating interpretation ... should become a standard of cultural and psychoanalytical studies." -The Guardian



Book Information
ISBN 9780814730720
Author Lorraine Gamman
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint New York University Press
Publisher New York University Press