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Social Science General

World Made Sexy

Freud to Madonna

by (author) Paul Rutherford

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Aug 2007
Category
General, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802094667
    Publish Date
    Aug 2007
    List Price
    $49.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802092564
    Publish Date
    Aug 2007
    List Price
    $71.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442685628
    Publish Date
    Dec 2007
    List Price
    $80.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442691605
    Publish Date
    Aug 2007
    List Price
    $39.95

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Description

The cult of eroticism is a pervasive force in modern society, affecting almost every aspect of our daily lives. In this book, Paul Rutherford argues that this phenomenon is a product of one of the major commercial and political enterprises of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: the creation of desire - for sex, for wealth, and for entertainment.

A World Made Sexy examines museum exhibitions, art, books, magazines, films, and television to explore the popular rise of eroticism in America and across the developed world. Starting with a brief foray into the history of pornography, Rutherford goes on to explore a sexual liberation movement shaped by the ideas of Marx and Freud, the erotic styles of Salvador Dali and pop art, the pioneering use of publicity as erotica by Playboy and other media, and the growing concerns of cultural critics over the emergence of a regime of stimulation. In one case study, Rutherford pairs James Bond and Madonna in order to examine the link between sex and aggression. He details how television advertising after 1980 constructed a theatre of the libido to entice the buying public, and concludes by situating the cultivation of eroticism in the wider context of Michel Foucault's views on social power and governmentality, and specifically how they relate to sexuality, during the modern era.

A World Made Sexy is about power and pleasure, emancipation and domination, and the relationship between the personal passions and social controls that have crafted desire.

About the author

Paul Rutherford is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. He is the author of several books published by UTP, including When Television was Young (1990), The New Icons? (1994), Endless Propaganda (2000), Weapons of Mass Persuasion (2004), and World Made Sexy (2007).

Paul Rutherford's profile page

Awards

  • Commended, Dorothy Lee Award 2008 - Media Ecology Association

Editorial Reviews

A World Made Sexy is a clear and Lucid account of how sex came to permeate popular culture in the late twentieth century. Rutherford demonstrates considerable expertise in advertising history; nonetheless, the book is written for an interdisciplinary audience and should appeal to anyone interested in the question of why sexuality plays such a prominent role in commercial culture.’

Kristen Hatch: <em>Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol 20:02:2011</em>