Adventures in the Orgasmatron: The Invention of Sex

Turner, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007507747 ISBN 13: 9780007507740

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2012

A student of Freud, psychoanalyst William Reich developed a theory in the 1930s that proposed sexual permissiveness as a means to alleviate repression and improve health. His ideas prepared the way for the sexual revolution of the 1960s and his machine to focus 'orgone energy' was ultimately lampooned by Woody Allen as the orgasmatron in Sleeper. Christopher Turner's much-praised book tells the story of the radical and influential thinker and his extraordinary life.

Review:

‘How [Reich] went from being one of the inspirational figures of the psychoanalytic movement, as a clinician, a teacher and a writer, to being a cult figure on the margins of 1960s America is an extraordinary story, and Turner tells it with subtlety and panache. Turner has interviewed many people who knew Reich well, and he casts his net wide, setting Reich's quirks and crimes in their historical context so that a portrait of the man emerges rather than a diagnosis.’ Adam Phillips, ‘London Review of Books’

‘Very amusing and intelligent...This book will change the way in which we employ that increasingly lazy phrase “thinking outside the box”.’ Christopher Hitchens, ‘The New York Times Book Review’

‘Smart, thorough, wholly engaging...takes the reader on a tragicomic adventure of the history of an idea. A study in charisma, belief, and mental contagions that infected an entire culture, and which are still with us today.’ Siri Hustvedt, author of ‘The Summer Without Men’

About the Author:

Christopher Turner first came across the orgasmatron whilst doing anthropological fieldwork at infamously progressive Summerhill School (Reich persuaded Neill to build an Orgone Accumulator and to test it on his pupils). He went on to complete a PhD – on the cultural history of disgust – at the University of London. He teaches at the London Consortium, a PhD programme in the Humanities at Birkbeck College, London, and is a regular contributor to the LRB, Tate Magazine, the Guardian and Sight and Sound. For the academic year 2003/4, he was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University. He's also a documentary filmmaker.