Skip to content
MIT Press
  • MIT Press
  • Books
    • Column
      • View all subjects
      • New releases
      • Catalogs
      • Textbooks
      • Series
      • Awards
    • Column
      • Authors
      • Distributed presses
      • The MIT Press Reader
      • Podcasts
      • Collections
    • Column
      • MIT Press Direct

        MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide.

        • Learn more
  • Journals
    • column
      • Journals all topics
      • Economics
      • International Affairs, History, & Political Science
    • column
      • Arts & Humanities
      • Science & Technology
      • Open access
    • column
      • MIT Press journals

        MIT Press began publishing journals in 1970 with the first volumes of Linguistic Inquiry and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Today we publish over 30 titles in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and science and technology.

        • Learn more
  • Open Access
    • column
      • Open access at the MIT Press
      • Open access books
      • Open access journals
    • column
      • Direct to Open
      • MIT Open Publishing Services
      • MIT Press Open on PubPub
    • Column
      • Open access

        The MIT Press has been a leader in open access book publishing for over two decades, beginning in 1995 with the publication of William Mitchell’s City of Bits, which appeared simultaneously in print and in a dynamic, open web edition.

        • Learn more
  • Resources
    • column
      • Current authors
      • Prospective authors
      • Instructors
    • column
      • Media inquiries
      • Booksellers
      • Rights and permissions
    • column
      • Resources

        Collaborating with authors, instructors, booksellers, librarians, and the media is at the heart of what we do as a scholarly publisher. If you can’t find the resource you need here, visit our contact page to get in touch.

        • Learn more
  • Give
  • About
    • Column
      • About
      • Jobs
      • Internships
      • MIT Press Editorial Board
      • MIT Press Management Board
      • Our MIT story
    • Column
      • Catalogs
      • News
      • Events
      • Conferences
      • Bookstore
    • Column
      • The MIT Press

        Established in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design.

        • Learn more
  • Contact Us
Newsletter
MIT Press
Newsletter

Books

    Authors

      On the site

        • Home
        • Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents
        • psychology
        • Overexposed
        Overexposed

        Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents

        Overexposed

        Perverting Perversions

        by Sylvère Lotringer

        • $14.95 Paperback

        216 pp., 6 x 9 in,

        • Paperback
        • 9781584350453
        • Published: April 27, 2007
        • Publisher: Semiotext(e)

        $14.95

        • Penguin Random House
        • Amazon
        • Barnes and Noble
        • Bookshop.org
        • Indiebound
        • Indigo
        • Books a Million

        Other Retailers:

        • Amazon.co.uk
        • Blackwells
        • Bookshop.org
        • Foyles
        • Hive
        • Waterstones
        • Penguin Random House
        • Amazon
        • Barnes and Noble
        • Bookshop.org
        • Indiebound
        • Indigo
        • Books a Million
        • Request permissions
        • Description
        • Author(s)
        • Praise

        A report on the administration of deviant desire in specialized clinics that documents the way our postmodern society exposes sexuality to the point of overexposure.

        Do you ever get aroused by your patient's fantasies? Do you discover through them something about your own sexuality?
        –About my sexuality?
        You are exposed to a lot of fantasies.

        –Oh yes. Quite frankly, I think it has a satiation effect on me. I've been a sex researcher for ten years, and sometimes I get fed up with it, you know. I talk to people about sex all day long, and it does get to be a drag.
        –from Overexposed

        The most perverse perversions are not always those one would expect. Originally conceived as an American update to Foucault's History of Sexuality, Overexposed is even more outrageous and thought-provoking today than it was twenty years ago when first published by a commercial publisher. By a strange reversal, rather than being punished, deviant desire now is administrated in specialized clinics under medical supervision. Sexual excess is being turned into a "boredom therapy" claiming to rid patients of their own desires by forcing them to indulge them past the point of satiety. But are perversions still perverse when they are vindicated unconditionally? At once clinical, bewildering, and deeply poignant, Overexposed shows how science can pervert itself by identifying too closely with its object. This insider's exposition of controversial cognitive behavioral methods (carried out with instruments straight out of A Clockwork Orange–penile transducer? pupillometer?) is a hallucinatory document on the manner in which our postmodern society exposes sexuality to the point of overexposure–in order to exterminate it.

        Sylvère Lotringer is Jean Baudrillard Chair at the European Graduate School, Switzerland, and Professor Emeritus of French literature and philosophy at Columbia University.

        Overexposed is a most remarkable work... A brilliant piece of undercover reporting, from the strangest of strange lands.

        J.G. Ballard

        Overexposed is a voyage through hell. A gleaming, air-conditioned, sanitary, and polite hell where a triumphant psychotechnology replaces the old-fashioned shackles of the Law and 'cures' the sex-offender by boring to death his desire. Sylvère Lotringer's account of this charnel house of behaviorisim is deft, witty, and precise.

        Joel Kovel

        The sexualization of postwar American culture has produced results that would astonish Freud, Reich, or even Kinsey. Modern techniques of behavior modification now cast doubt on the sources of individual eroticism. Overexposed is an engrossing description of sexual conditioning condoned by the state. A fascinating book.

        William Burroughs

        Related Books

        Hatred of Capitalism
        The Conspiracy of Art
        The Accident of Art
        Hannibal Lecter, My Father
        Chaosophy
        Why Different?
        Schizo-Culture
        Soft Subversions
        Pure War
        In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities
        logo
        • Column 1
          • Books
          • Journals
          • The MIT Press Reader
          • Podcasts
          • Imprints
        • Column 2
          • The MIT Press
            • About
            • Bookstore
            • Catalogs
            • Conferences
            • Press Editorial Board
            • Jobs
            • Internships
            • Press Management Board
            • News
            • Staff
            • Code of Conduct
            • Give
        • Column 3
          • Site Help
            • Accessibility
            • FAQ
            • Our eBooks
            • Privacy Policy
            • Terms of Use
        • Column 4
          • Resources
            • Current Authors
            • Prospective Authors
            • Booksellers
            • Instructors
            • Rights and Permissions
            • Media Inquiries
            • MIT Discounts
        • Column 5
          • Digital
            • CogNet
            • Digital Partners and Products
            • Knowledge Futures Group
            • MIT Press Direct
        • Global

          One Broadway 12th Floor Cambridge, MA 02142

        • Contact

        Connect

        © 2023 MIT Press. All Rights Reserved.

        Powered by Supadu