ABSTRACT
This book has examined and expanded upon a theory of perversion that accounts for its individual expression as well as its existential basis and social significance. Traditional theories of perversion note its universal tendency, partnership with the normative sexual and social frame, origin in trauma, split-off psychic structure that permits dehumanization, and function across a wide spectrum of behaviors. Perversion casts illusions of mastery while denying vulnerability, and it is generally expressed differently in men and women. To this traditional view we have added perversion’s connection with the traumatic context of fragile and impermanent human life and its defensive strategies in response to annihilation. We have shown how perversion’s capacity to do damage in social and cultural spheres far exceeds its darker possibilities in the personal, sexual domain. We have also revealed how the technological enterprise enhances and expands perverse requirements and possibilities, rooted as it is in the human need to escape limitation, transgress against norms, and war with loss, aging, impermanence, and, ultimately, death. The cases presented in this book illustrate these delineated elements and express both benign and malignant outcomes. It is our hope that psychoanalysis will undertake the task of analyzing and addressing the growing phenomenon of social perversion and the psychological impact of revolutionary technology on the social and cultural world of our time.
