Although they never produced a collaborative study, the two exchanged over sixty letters between 1956 and 1967. Topics range from the professional to the personal: collegial critiques of each other's work and passionate debates over the merits of sex without love to heartfelt congratulations over the birth of Reiss's first child and a friendly report on the success of Ellis's date with Reiss's sister. Unfortunately, many of the letters by Reiss to Ellis were not preserved, which makes for slightly lopsided reading; and short notes confirming dinner plans tend to interrupt the flow of the dialogue. Nevertheless, the letters contained in this volume demonstrate not only the growth of an important personal and professional relationship but also how Reiss and Ellis repeatedly challenged one another's beliefs regarding human sexuality and thereby shaped each other's work.
The essays in Deviations fall into three broad categories: (i) analyses of radical sexuality like the ethnographic study of the Catacombs or reflections on lesbian S-and-M; (ii) contributions to a general theory of sex and politics; and (iii) commentaries on professional anthropological issues. They are all interesting studies and little saturated in academic jargon, thus eminently readable by non-academics.
At the Dawn of the Sexual Revolution: Reflections on a Dialogue
Indeed, since the dawn of history every civilization had prescribed severe laws against at least some kinds of sexual immorality. The oldest surviving legal codes (c. 2100-1700 BCE), drawn up by the kings of Babylon, made adultery punishable by death, and most other near eastern and classical cultures also treated it as a serious offence: this was the view taken by the Assyrians, the ancient Egyptians, the Jews, the Greeks, and, to some extent, the Romans. The main concern of such laws was usually to uphold the honour and property rights of fathers, husbands, and higher-status groups. 2ff7e9595c
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