NONFICTION - Oct. 20, 1991

LOVE, SEX, DEATH, AND THE MAKING OF THE MALE by Rosalind Miles (Summit Books: $20; 262 pp.). It’s too bad the word violence isn’t in the title of this book, for that’s the central concern of the author--the fact that violence is nearly always committed by men. It’s also too bad this book is more a compendium of incidents than an argument, for Rosalind Miles’ polemical approach to the material may hinder her cause more than help it. The book’s bottom line can be captured in a single, high-concept sentence: that there is “no measurable difference between rapists and men in general.” These words were actually spoken by a member of the British Parliament--this book was first published in England--but they might as well have been said by Miles, founder of the Women’s Studies Center at Coventry Polytechnic. Her anger and frustration about male violence is unquestionably legitimate, but the finger pointing--at “men” as a class, the ancient Greeks, British boarding schools, professional sports, homosexuality, promiscuity and so on--encompasses so much that you begin to wonder whether Miles has been motivated by the desire for truth or the desire for revenge. “Love, Sex, Death” remains a valuable book despite its flaws, however, for it gives urgency to a problem more talked about than confronted.