Investigating Sex: Surrealist Discussions

Are women's orgasms more intense than men's? What did Andr Breton think of homosexuality? Can love be separated from physical desire?

In 1928 a group of surrealist writers and artists held twelve round table discussions to address these questions. Calling them "researches into sexuality," their bizarre and humorous conversations are now made available in this new edition in all their surreal and salacious detail. Their research spanned the most critical period for surrealism, a time of bitter political disputes, echoed in the intensity of these meetings and in the range of participants, including Andr Breton, Paul Eluard, Yves Tanguy, Benjamin P ret and Pierre Naville.

Well before the so-called sexual revolution, their erotic exchanges broke sexual taboos and encouraged surrealists to openly share the libidinal themes they explored in their writing and art. In doing so, JoAnn Wypijewski writes in the new introduction, they are revealed as "lovers and prigs, fantasists and humanists, adventurers in mind if not always in flesh--flawed, foolish, brilliant, clangingly sexual human beings."

Author: Jose Pierre
Publisher: Verso
Published: 01/16/2012
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.00w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781844677122
ISBN10: 1844677125
BISAC Categories:
- Art | History | Modern (Late 19th Century to 1945)
- Biography & Autobiography | Artists, Architects, Photographers
- Psychology | Human Sexuality (see also Social Science | Human Sexuality)

About the Author
José Pierre was a playwright, novelist and art historian. He belonged to the postwar Paris surrealist group that formed around André Breton. He was a member of Actual, an archive for the dissemination of the secret history of surrealism.