Speaking of Sex: The Limits of Language
By (Author) Anthony Grey
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
25th November 1993
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Gender studies, gender groups
Linguistics
Popular psychology
306.7
Paperback
156
Width 138mm, Height 216mm
230g
Nowadays we talk about sex incessantly -- yet we still lack a comfortable language in which to do so. The 'polite' vocabularies of religion, medicine, law and sociology are too formal, value-laden and often simply boring, whilst the vernacular Anglo-Saxon words are regarded by some as 'obscene', and are frequently used by others in an aggressively negative, sex-hating way. Antony Grey criticizes the various rhetorics of sexual discussion, and points at the ways in which language often becomes a stumbling-block to mutual understanding and happiness. He calls for a thorough overhaul of sexual discourse, to pave the way for greater realism.