An ambitious, thought-provoking examination of female sexuality and how society uses and abuses it
"Rewarding....Invaluable for all those interested in feminism ....Deserves to be ready by all those who have an interest in working towards a more humane society". -- The Irish Times
This is a brave book, an original and valuable attempt to address very broad issues within the context of an Ireland where much feminist discourse has been driven into a particular ideological ghetto by religion and sexual oppression. Ethna Viney feels that even today many women's own true sexuality is distorted by a genitally fixated world, and that explorations of sexuality have remained too narrowly focused. Not enough emphasis has been placed on motherhood, and the implications of biology have caused serious rifts among feminists, obscuring the fact that male-dominated interpretations of sexuality are injuring women's happiness and their civil rights.
Dancing to Different Tunes synthesizes thirty years of writing on the subject and proposes a comprehensive theory of sexuality and feminism. Reintroducing the dynamics of biology and drawing on the work of Sheila Kitzinger, Viney extends sexuality to the sensuality of nurturing a child and to what she controversially argues can be an ecstatic birthing process, offering new insight on the possible function of the female orgasm. In addition, her ideas on male sexuality challenge myths about "natural" aggression and masochism.
She unravels the key modern theories of sexuality -- the academic, psychological, and philosophical -- and integrates them in a common-sense way with stimulating concepts of her own. The result is a refreshing, authoritative, andaccessible contribution to the debate on the shifting choices facing women today.
