PSYCH 101

Best-selling author Thomas Moore (“Care of the Soul” and “The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life”) weighs in on sex in “The Soul of Sex,” due out in 1998 from HarperPerennial. He wrote about his upcoming book in the October issue of Mother Jones magazine:

“On the Internet I’ve noticed, as soon as you venture in the direction of sex you quickly come upon crude, unadorned images of stark sexual union. Apparently, we have finally found a public place where we can show our private parts and secret fantasies, free of the repressive eyes of the government agencies that serve our culture’s dominant Puritan philosophies.”

“I discovered while practicing psychotherapy that everyone, including our most upright fellow citizens, has skeletons in the closet or lurid dreams and fantasies.”

“Office buildings are the most sexless places in public life. . . . Sitting on a concrete slab doesn’t do much for my sexuality.”

“Pornography is the return of the repressed, religious nature of sex presenting itself in dark instead of bright colors.”

“I don’t advocate affairs, but I can understand their allure in an age of incessant labor, anxious leisure, compulsive entertainment, uprooted ethics and a public life built on efficiency and machinery.”