ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many people who have provided inspiration and support during the writing of this book. My agent, Amy Rennert, was the first to see the potential of a book in my writings on sexuality and guided me through the proposal stage. I also had the good fortune to have had several excellent readers who helped me clarify my argument and refine my voice: Benji Hewitt, Dr. Vin Dunn, Carl “The Hammer” Sommers, Chris Bigelow, Larry B. D. McNeil, Denny Zeitlin, Renate Stendhal, Lillian Rubin, Kim Chernin, and Michael Lerner. Kim Chernin and Michael Lerner were particularly supportive in helping me overcome self-doubts about the value of my ideas and my ability to express them in a book-length form.

If these friends and colleagues helped me strengthen my argument, my amazing editor, Alison Owings, helped me strengthen my prose. She helped me become a better writer and did it with a gentle, honest, and humorous touch.

I was trained as a psychoanalyst and have been shaped by this tradition. Owen Renik and Robert Wallerstein are two analysts who mentored me and were role models of critical thinking and clinical integrity. In the area of sexuality, however, there are but a few psychoanalytic thinkers whose work has inspired my own. Robert Stoller, Ethel Spector Person, and Otto Kernberg are three who were important to me in this regard. Interestingly, the writer whose thinking about sex is most similar to my own and whose books have been a rich source of validation and inspiration to me is not a psychoanalyst at all. Nancy Friday has been writing about sex for over twenty-five years. Her collections of sexual fantasies are amazing sources of material for anyone interested in the meaning of sexual desire. Although I rarely quote her ideas directly, while reading her books I found myself repeatedly startled by how many of my own theoretical conclusions she had already anticipated.

Closer to home, my exposure to what is called “Control-Mastery” theory, a theory of the mind and psychotherapy first developed by the psychoanalyst Joseph Weiss and empirically tested by Weiss and Harold Sampson, has been the primary theoretical soil in which my ideas have grown. Hal Sampson, a teacher of mine for over twenty-five years, has been a nurturing mentor whose constant support has been what psychoanalysts call a “corrective emotional experience,” counteracting my harsh internal critic time and time again. Most of all, however, it has been my twelve-year association with Joe Weiss—mentor, confidant, supervisor, and role model—that is primarily responsible for this book. Not only are my ideas about sexuality an extension of Joe’s highly original theory of the mind, but he has tirelessly fostered my intellectual and emotional growth in areas unrelated to this particular project about sexuality.

Finally, I want to thank my wife, Margot Duxler. She not only edited and critiqued the content of this book, but has been there as my emotional anchor and my continual inspiration. Although friends tease me that Margot’s contribution to my ideas about sexuality transcends the theoretical, I suppose that they are ultimately right. Margot has been the source of my passion for life in every area. This book is both about passion and a product of it. For that, I owe her my undying gratitude.