1. What are Perversions? 2. The Sadist's (In)justice 3. The Masochist's Strategy 4. A Case of Masochism. Lorenzo's Impossible Wife 5. Cross-Dresser, Trans Person, Transexual. 6. Paedophilia
Biography
Sergio Benvenuto is a psychoanalyst and researcher in psychology and philosophy at the National Scientific Research Council (CNR) in Rome, Italy. He teaches psychoanalysis at the International Institute of the Psychology of Depth in Kiev, Ukraine, and at the Institute Pulsion in New York. He is the author of Lacan, Kris and the Psychoanalytic Legacy: The Brain Eater (2023), Conversations with Lacan: Seven Lectures for Understanding Lacan (2019) and What are Perversions?: Sexuality, Ethics, Psychoanalysis (2016).
‘In this remarkable work, the author explores ways of conceiving perversions beyond any moral framework. He portrays them as the instrumentalization of another’s subjectivity, serving the boundless pleasure of a self at once devastating and devastated.’
Elisabeth Roudinesco, Historian (HDR. Université de ParisVII-Diderot), Teacher at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris, President of Société internationale d’histoire de la psychiatrie et de la psychanalyse, Honorary Committee Member of the International Sandor Ferenczi Network.
‘This fast and furious book turns psychoanalysis inside out by rethinking the so-called perversions. Aristotle, Freud, Lacan, Stoller, Ferenczi, Butler, Sade, Sacher-Masoch and others are brought into dialogue with case studies that are as gripping as they are unsettling. Bold, provocative, and often controversial, it confronts its subject matter with unflinching intensity.’
Patricia Gherovici, Psychoanalyst, professor at the Pulsion Institute, New York
