Adventures in the Orgasmatron: Wilhelm Reich and the Invention of Sex
Christopher Turner
Adventures in the Orgasmatron: Wilhelm Reich and the Invention of Sex
In the middle of the 20th century, the United States became an adoptive home for dozens of expatriated European thinkers, who saw this rich, young country ripe for sexual liberation. One of the most left-field of them was the Viennese psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a disciple of Freud’s who had broken with the master. Reich’s own approach was based on his theories of the orgasm and sexual energy, which he dubbed ‘orgone energy’. Instead of the couch, he made use of a tall, slender construction of wood, metal, and steel wool, which he called the orgone box... Adventures in the Orgasmatron is the story of the dawn of the sexual revolution in America – an illuminating and at times bizarre tale of sex and science, ecstasy and repression.
3.6 out of 5 based on 5 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Sex & Sexuality, Biography |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
400 |
| RRP |
£25.00 |
| Date of Publication |
August 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-0007181575 |
| Publisher |
Fourth Estate |
| |
In the middle of the 20th century, the United States became an adoptive home for dozens of expatriated European thinkers, who saw this rich, young country ripe for sexual liberation. One of the most left-field of them was the Viennese psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a disciple of Freud’s who had broken with the master. Reich’s own approach was based on his theories of the orgasm and sexual energy, which he dubbed ‘orgone energy’. Instead of the couch, he made use of a tall, slender construction of wood, metal, and steel wool, which he called the orgone box... Adventures in the Orgasmatron is the story of the dawn of the sexual revolution in America – an illuminating and at times bizarre tale of sex and science, ecstasy and repression.
Wilhelm Reich: the man who invented free love | Christopher Turner | Guardian (8/7/11)
Reviews
The Financial Times
George Pendle
"Comprehensively researched, enlightening and darkly funny … Considering Reich was a chronic philanderer, a violent bully, and, at times, clearly delusional, it is to Turner’s great credit that he manages to paint his protagonist as a sympathetic figure."
29/07/2011
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The Sunday Times
Dominic Sandbrook
"Reich’s life, deftly chronicled in Christopher Turner’s clever and colourful book, makes an extraordinarily fascinating story … [A] terrific book"
31/07/2011
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The Times
Murad Ahmed
"… a wonderful, thorough and engaging book … The author skilfully merges the tale of Reich’s life with a social history of the times."
06/08/2011
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The Sunday Telegraph
Lewis Jones
"Turner has done an exhaustively thorough, if somewhat humourless job. He makes some interesting points about Reich’s unwitting influence on the arts ... and about the way advertising absorbed erotic liberation into what Eli Zaretsky called “a sexualised dreamworld of mass consumption”. But Turner never quite answers the question with which he begins: “What does it tell us about the ironies of the sexual revolution that the symbol of liberation was a box?” And he misquotes Philip Larkin."
07/08/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
Richard Davenport-Hines
"Adventures in the Orgasmatron has the virtues and vices of a first book. Turner is eager and zestful about his subject: his interviews with the survivors of Reich’s story crackle with excitement, and there is a humane undertone to all he writes. But he has not taken control of his material. There are too many callow or digressive descriptions of the incidents and people in Reich’s career."
02/08/2011
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