Sex as Bait

This tour-de-force is an innovating, interdisciplinary treatment of sex and love. It draws on biology, mythology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy as well as on the author's own personality theory, to construct a model of affective relationships between human beings. Shoham proposes a mother-based sexual development theory which includes a sexual typology arranged on a continuum that stretches from the starkly carnal Casanova to the romantically agonized Don Juan. Dramatic and literary illustrations abound. The separant Sisyphean Casanova tries to overcome the rift between himself and the object of his desire by the continuous conquest of female bodies; and the participant archetype Don Juan longs to be possessed by the ultimate woman, by being in love with love. While the exploits of these lovers are real, Shoham shows that their adventures have a deep mythical past and demonstrate major events in the developmental of the human personality. Sex As Bait offers a unique theoretical framework for the maternal proscription of incest, and relates this to the main role of women in the formation of the nuclear family and of human culture. On the psycho-cultural level Sex As Bait presents the development of sexual identity, both male and female, basing itself on a new approach of the oral development of the psyche. Shoham concludes the book with a challenging, if not disturbing, discussion of the sacred and profane aspects of love and their place in the development of human personality and culture.