Castration

the long version

"Castration is a history of the meaning, function, and act of castration from its place in the words of Jesus in the Gospel According to Matthew and the early Church - where Augustine and the Fathers shaped the basic philosophic concepts of sexuality and chastity - to its secular reinvention in the Renaissance and its twentieth-century position at the core of psychoanalysis.". "Taylor connects castration to the ancient (and continuing) human drive to re-engineer our own biology. In the medieval love story of Abelard and Heloise a violent castration makes Abelard a better theologian. In the year 2000 a sterile but otherwise functioning man is a boon to the woman who desires sex without the burdens of pregnancy.". "Ranging from allegory to zooarchaeology, Castration turns an unusual and discomforting topic into a thoroughly enjoyable narrative on man's obsessive relationship to his genitals, his sexuality, and his manhood."--BOOK JACKET.