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Title: Sex by Prescription: The Startling Truth About Today's Sex Therapy by Thomas Stephen Szasz ISBN: 0-8156-0250-2 Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr (Trade) Pub. Date: December, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: flawed, but fun
Comment: Szasz's intentions here are good here; as usual he seeks to expose the messianic pretensions of the mental health movement. In this case, his target is the sex therapy and sex education rackets. Unfortunately, his partisanship sometimes leads to attacks based on shoddy reasoning. A few examples will suffice: Szasz accuses the noted sex therapist William Masters of continuing the psychiatric persecution of homosexuals. His evidence? While visiting California once, Masters declined to comment on the Briggs Initiative, an anti-homosexual ballot measure. I certainly think this initiative deserved to be condemned, but Szsaz gives no context for Masters' silence(which, after all, was just that, silence). We are not told why Masters refused to comment, or even how much he knew about the initative. Perhaps Masters didn't know anything at all about it. I am speculating, of course, but can do little else given the paucity of details in Szsaz's account.
One more example: Szasz claims that Mary Calderone, the doyenne of sex education, is actually a sexual authoritarian. He bases this accusation partly on her stated opposition to handing out contraceptives to teenagers. Making a fine art of literalism here, Szasz argues that Calderone must oppose handing out birth control to married nineteen year olds. I think most intelligent readers would asume that by "teenagers" Calderone meant minors.
All this said, the book is entertaining, and makes valid points about the pathologization of sexual behaviour by self-styled "experts". Particularly interesting are passages attacking circumcision, sex change therapy, and the use of porn films in medical schools. Fans of Szasz's potent combination of moral passion and acerbic polemicism will not come away disappointed.