Turning Freud's famous dictum around, Thomas Laqueur posits that destiny is anatomy. Sex, in other words, is an artifice and "Making Sex" tells the story of sex in the west from the ancients to the moderns. The reader cannot fail to recognize the players in Laqueur's story - the human sexual organs [...]

At a time when almost any victimless sexual practice has its public advocates and almost every sexual act is fit for the front page, the easiest, least harmful, and most universal one is embarrassing, discomforting, and genuinely radical when openly acknowledged. Masturbation may be the last taboo. [...]