Reviewed by:

• The Age of Perversion and The New Sexual Landscape and Contemporary Psychoanalysis by Danielle Knafo and Rocco Lo Bosco
• Dawn Skorczewski (bio)

Two recent books by Danielle Knafo and Rocco Lo Bosco offer fascinating perspectives on the nature and consequences of a dramatic shift in the sexual landscape in recent decades. Clear and analytical, but also profoundly complex, these volumes investigate how conceptions of gender and sexuality exist in relation to radically shifting ideas about sex, self, and culture in the digital world. Perhaps most significantly, they investigate how radical changes in sexual attitudes accompany the ever-increasing uses of virtual reality for sexual pleasure.

The Age of Perversion: Desire and Technology in Psychoanalysis and Culture (2017) argues that the concept of perversion, which has often been defined as at the edge of human experience, aptly captures many individual, social, and sexual practices today. Online pornography sites, sex dolls, online dating, sexting, and various forms social media shape the modern subject. But how do patients speak about their involvement in various forms of digital technology? What sense of themselves as human subjects do these technologies produce? These questions animate the volume.

The authors first define the concept of perversion today as a cultural phenomenon. Perversion is that which navigates away from the norm and what is considered normal. The book does not offer a precise definition, but that is perhaps for the best, as the term does not mean one thing, but rather a set of relationships. They argue that the digital world itself has produced a culture of perversion which humanizes objects and dehumanizes individuals, who thereby push the concept of the human far beyond existing boundaries. Historicizing the concept, the authors chart the essence of perversion as a disavowal of the human relationship. It is perverse to treat other [End Page 812] humans or ourselves as pure objects. Although it is common to see perversion as entirely negative, the authors consider positive aspects of perversion as well: when perversion enables an acting out of trauma in order to work it through, for example.

The authors name six characteristics of perversion. It is universal, it exists on a spectrum, it is often a response to dis-avowed trauma, it can be sado-masochistic, it often concerns excitement, mastery and illusion, and it is gendered (Knafo and Lo Bosco 2017: 52–54). Knafo then discusses her psychoanalytic patient’s relationship with a human-size sex doll: the RealDoll, showing how the patient interacted with the doll in order to assuage loneliness and metabolize childhood trauma. Another chapter discusses Davecat, a media celebrity who lives with three dolls. Davecat speaks and behaves as if the dolls have human characteristics and histories. The authors are very sympathetic to the mens’ relationships with dolls, but they cite them as evidence of a perverse intersection of technology with the human subject.

Turning to women’s experiences, the authors address a woman who collects Reborn baby dolls, often interacting with other women about these dolls in an online community. Working to manage traumatic pasts, she and the other women endow the dolls with human properties. But it is significant that they interact with other human beings as they do so, marking a gendered preference for the relational in the female perversion.

After these case studies, the book explores perversion as a socio-cultural phenomenon: greed and corruption in the corporate world, collusion of APA members in torture guidelines for the US government, and even capitalism itself, which exploits workers without regard to their humanity. Knafo and Lo Bosco explore places on the Internet that are not on Google, but must be located via software such as Tor. These sites can be used for illegal purposes: weapons, recruitment of terrorists, illegal pornography, selling of drugs, etc. They can also, of course, be used for revolutionary purposes, such as action against totalitarian regimes, but this is beyond the scope of the book.

The authors next consider addiction to Internet pornography, offering clinical cases that illustrate the ways in which [End Page 813] individuals can become entirely...

审核人：

• Danielle Knafo 和 Rocco Lo Bosco的性变态时代和新的性景观和当代精神分析
• 道恩·斯科切夫斯基（生平）

丹妮尔·纳福 (Danielle Knafo) 和罗科·洛博斯科 (Rocco Lo Bosco) 最近出版的两本书从引人入胜的角度探讨了近几十年来性景观发生巨大变化的性质和后果。这些书清晰且分析性强，但也非常复杂，调查了性别和性观念如何与数字世界中关于性、自我和文化的根本转变观念相关。也许最重要的是，他们调查了性态度的根本变化是如何伴随着越来越多地使用虚拟现实来获得性快感的。

变态时代：精神分析和文化中的欲望和技术（2017 年）认为，变态的概念通常被定义为处于人类经验的边缘，它恰当地捕捉了当今许多个人、社会和性行为。在线色情网站、性玩偶、在线约会、色情短信和各种形式的社交媒体塑造了现代主题。但是患者如何谈论他们参与各种形式的数字技术呢？这些技术产生了什么样的人类主体意识？这些问题使音量充满活力。

作者首先将今天的变态概念定义为一种文化现象。变态是指偏离常态和被认为是正常的事物。这本书没有提供精确的定义，但这也许是最好的定义，因为这个术语并不意味着一件事，而是一组关系。他们认为，数字世界本身已经产生了一种歪曲文化，这种文化使物体人性化，使个人非人性化，从而将人的概念推向了现有界限之外。将这个概念历史化，作者将变态的本质描绘为对人际关系的否认。以待他人，是乖张【终812页】人类或我们自己作为纯粹的对象。虽然通常认为变态完全是消极的，但作者也考虑了变态的积极方面：例如，当变态使人们能够摆脱创伤而采取行动以解决问题时。

作者列举了变态的六个特征。它是普遍的，它存在于一个范围内，它通常是对被否认的创伤的反应，它可以是施虐受虐的，它通常涉及兴奋、掌握和幻想，并且它是性别化的（Knafo 和 Lo Bosco 2017：52- 54). Knafo 然后讨论了她的精神分析患者与一个真人大小的性玩偶的关系：RealDoll，展示了患者如何与玩偶互动以缓解孤独感和代谢童年创伤。另一章讨论了 Davecat，一位与三个玩偶生活在一起的媒体名人。Davecat 的言行举止就好像这些玩偶具有人类特征和历史一样。作者非常同情男人与玩偶的关系，但他们引用这些作为技术与人类主体不正当交叉的证据。

谈到女性的经历，作者谈到了一位收集 Reborn 娃娃的女性，她经常在在线社区中与其他女性就这些娃娃进行互动。为了处理创伤性的过去，她和其他女性赋予了娃娃人类的特性。但重要的是，她们在这样做时会与其他人互动，这标志着女性变态中对关系的性别偏好。

在这些案例研究之后，这本书探讨了作为一种社会文化现象的变态：企业界的贪婪和腐败，APA 成员在美国政府的酷刑指导方针中的勾结，甚至资本主义本身，它剥削工人而不考虑他们的人性。Knafo 和 Lo Bosco 探索互联网上不在 Google 上但必须通过 Tor 等软件定位的地方。这些网站可以用于非法目的：武器、招募恐怖分子、非法色情、贩卖毒品等。当然，它们也可以用于革命目的，例如反对极权政权的行动，但这超出了范围的书。

作者接下来考虑对互联网色情成瘾，提供临床案例来说明[End Page 813]个人可以完全成为......