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Title: My Secret Life: An Erotic Diary of Victorian London by James R. Kincaid, James Jennings ISBN: 0-451-52602-3 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: April, 1996 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (22 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Not Just Sexy
Comment: I'm not sure where to start. I suppose I would like to respond to another review, in which the author stated that this book begins with tales of sexual abuse. Perhaps my understanding og sexual abuse is limited, but when i read the opening chapters, I felt as if this "Walter" was simply purging his early memories of "all things sexual" as he states.
My Secret Life is presented as a memoir, though the editor James Kinkaid lets readers know that this may not be true. Nevertheless, this Victorian volume is amazing. Kinkaid supposes that this book has more "encounters" than any other in history- I do not doubt it. There is some questionable behavior, but it must all be put into context and understood from a distance. All in all, I have found "Walter" charming and endearing. He struggles with conflict between his inner desires and societal pressure.
This book is full of sex: sex acts, sex talk, and detailed descriptions of body parts. However, I find it also fascinatilngly honest.
Rating: 2
Summary: Sad but historically important
Comment: This is supposedly the memoir of a Victorian-era man who documents his sexual exploits. Whether it is true we may never know. The version for sale here may not be the unabridged version and may differ from the version I read. The version that I read began with a chapter describing the ways in which the narrator was repeatedly sexually abused and molested as a child. In later chapters he goes on to become a sex addict. Of course, in Victorian England they were not aware of child abuse and its lasting repercussions as we are today. Similarly, sex addition and sexually compulsive behavior are only beginning to be understood today. This book is an important work in the history of literature, but not good reading today. Stay away, particularly if you are a survivor of sexual abuse.
Rating: 2
Summary: Mediocre.
Comment: There are, presumably, two possible reasons for reading this book. By far the most common, I'm sure, is for prurient interest; in this the book mostly fails. The entire book is basically nothing more than a description of incident after incident of sex or sexplay, but while there are a few erotic scenes in it, for the most part, the sex scenes are so repetitiously described, and so blandly described, that they are actually rather boring. As erotica this book is not very good.
The second possible reason for reading this book is for the
historical insight it provides into the sexual attitudes in Victorian London, and how those attitudes played out in practice, rather than in theory. In this regard, the book is rather more successful. One thing that struck me was the confirmation it gave of the damage that is done by a sexually repressive society; in such a society, anyone who is having sex outside of marriage at all is an outlaw, already committing an act that is totally condemned by the society in which they live. As such, they are less likely to be overly particular as to just HOW they break the societal taboos; if even masturbation is unspeakably vile, then sex itself isn't much worse. And since no "good" girl will ADMIT to wanting sex, one becomes accustomed to overcoming a certain amount of resistance, so when dealing with someone who really DOESN'T consent, one can't tell the difference. And once one is accustomed to having women without tacit consent, how much of a step is it to child-rape? If everything sexual all the way down to masturbation is absolutely, totally, vehemently forbidden, it is impossible to make distinctions of degree, and once a young man takes that first step, he's already totally lost, so there are no longer any barriers at all. Similarly, once a young woman takes that first step, she may as well become a prostitute, for the one is not noticeably worse than the other.
This is the mind-set we see narrating this book. It's an interesting glimpse, but the book as a whole is rather boring and repetitive. Read a couple of chapters, and you've pretty well read the whole thing; there's no need to go further.
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Title: The Pearl by Anonymous ISBN: 0345410041 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 29 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Erotic Tales of the Victorian Age by Bram Stoker, Emile Zola, Walter Charles Devereaux ISBN: 1573922056 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: My Life and Loves by Frank Harris, John F. Gallagher ISBN: 0802151612 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: November, 1991 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Intimate Memoirs of an Edwardian Dandy by Blue Moon Books ISBN: 1562013130 Publisher: Blue Moon Books Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Penguin Classics) by John Cleland, Peter Wagner ISBN: 0140432493 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: January, 1986 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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