New book review by me of — Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia - by Avgi Saketopolou, in Contemporary Psychoanalysis.

Review of a challenging new work by psychoanalyst Avgi Saketopolou in the journal Contemporary Psychoanalysis.

Introduction from review:

“In her book on ‘the problem of domination,’ Jessica Benjamin

argues, “The decisive problem remains recognizing the other”

(1988, p. 36). Achieving mutual recognition between equal subjects

sounds like a clear and important goal, if a difficult one. In this new

book on the problems of “the currents of sadism” (p. 195), Avgi

Saketopolou writes in explicit opposition to Benjamin that recognition

and related consent practices are dangerously homeostatic, supporting

the status quo, and obstructing progressive risk. There is an intriguing,

unfinished dialectic here.

The book comprises a dense, thorough Introduction, followed by

five chapters, an Epilogue, several pages of informative

Acknowledgements, and 20 pages of careful endnotes. The

Introduction, titled The Erotics of the Terribly Beautiful, sets the tone

for the rest of the book: integrating moving examples with theory

from inside psychoanalysis and from intersecting domains of esthetics,

literature, and philosophy, as well as an intense concern for social justice

and the mistreatment of minoritarian identities by psychoanalysis

and other fields. It is uncompromisingly complex and challenges the

reader right away at intellectual and ethical levels. I will quote liberally

from the book in this review so that the reader may hear something of

Saketopolou’s voice.”

Link to free download of full review at Journal website:

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/XKYPTG4FBCTGBPNHY2PY/full?target=10.1080/00107530.2023.2286875

Researchers feel free to contact me for more details.

(Please clap, comment, and share!)