How Sex Got Screwed Up: The Ghosts that Haunt Our Sexual Pleasure - Book One by Jon Knowles

"How Sex Got Screwed Up: The Ghosts That Haunt Our Sexual Pleasure (Book 1.)" by Jon Knowles is a remarkable achievement: an engaging and readable masterpiece about the history of sexuality. It covers a lot of ground beginning with the Stone Age to Victoria to Our Own Time, exploring sexual myths and laws from sources including anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, to reveal the tyranny of religion and politics. Knowles is a gifted storyteller with the unique ability to bring the reader along on his journey “to better understand what makes us so uncomfortable about sex.” Overall, he demonstrates evidence to prove his main theme: despite the eons of oppression, sex in all of its glory “is a positive force with many physical and emotional benefits.”

You may get disconcerted from time to time reading about the overwhelming, punitive powers of those obsessed with making sex a negative and sinful expression of human nature, but I guarantee you will never be bored. Knowles’ keen sense of observation and straightforward prose is often humorous and you are likely to find yourself chuckling at the missteps of those who (still) try to restrain the forces of sexual desire. I highly recommend this book. It is an essential reading for professionals in the field of sexology and the many related fields of cultural anthropology, and social and political science. Knowles research is solid with informative footnotes, appendices, and an extensive bibliography. Actually, it has great appeal to anyone intrigued by the meaning of sexuality and curious to learn more about why we feel and act the way we do about sex.

Carol Cassell Ph.D.

Former president, The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) and health scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)