Sexual Excitement

'This is a study of sexual excitement. It is the fifth book - perhaps more accurately, the fifth chapter in one work - on masculinity and femininity (gender identity), carrying forward ideas examined in my last book, Perversion. The other four books are: Sex and Gender: the Development of Masculinity and Femininity, The Transsexual Experiment, Splitting: A Case of Female Masculinity and Perversion: The Erotic form of Hatred. As many have noted since Freud said it decades ago, it is so difficult to draw a line between excitement one can call "perverse" and normal excitement that the word "normal" loses definition.'- From the Introduction by the Author

Robert J. Stoller M.D. was, until his death, Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine. His books on human sexuality include 'The Transsexual Experiment', 'Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred', 'Splitting: A Case of Female Masculinity', 'Porn: Myths for the Twentieth Century', 'Pain and Passion: A Psychoanalyst explores the World of S and M', 'Observing the Erotic Imagination' and 'Presentations of Gender'. Dr Stoller was a psychoanalyst but because he recognized the need to understand how biological forces contribute to the development of mental functions, he took account of the important work that had come out of the laboratories. He also emphasized the need for some psychoanalysts to include some of the findings and concepts of leading theorists if they are to understand better the origins and maintenance of the ground themes of personality, of which gender identity (masculinity and femininity) is certainly one.