Sexual Intelligence is a
coffee table book about sexuality.  It
is divided into five main chapters, on Desire, Messaging, Arousal, Fantasy, and
Release.  It is produced in conjunction
with a documentary presumably of the same name.  Each chapter contains many pictures of paintings, tasteful
photographs, pictures of people and quotes from them about the topic at hand.  The text mentions some history of thought
about sex, includes quotations from various experts in the field of sexuality,
and there are even five pages of editorial notes and credits at the end, along
with an index and a selected bibliography. 
It looks like many people have put a lot of work into creating this
book.  The book is aimed at a very
general audience and seems to have no particular point of view except that sex
is interesting.  It is nicely produced
and moderately entertaining to spend ten minutes browsing through.  It does seem to refer to many of the better
known sexperts and a few academics, and outlines some of the main lines of
thought in the current studies of sex. 
Maybe if you have enjoyed the TV documentary and want to follow up some
references, it might be worth finding the book in a bookstore and noting down
some of the books listed in the bibliography. 
Some people might possibly want to put the book on their coffee
table.  It’s not too heavy.

© 2006 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is
Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island, and editor
of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main research is on
philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Sexuality