With the Hand

Most women do it at home; men, it seems, do it everywhere. Some consider it a health treatment, others as love for themselves. Yet despite everyone doing it, no one actually talks about it - masturbation is still taboo, and even today the subject is not discussed at dinner parties or soirees. To help the world overcome its diffidence towards solo sex Mels van Driel has written With the Hand. Consulting theologians, historians, classicists, doctors, sexologists, connoisseurs, artists, philosophers, writers, poets, musicians, feminists and chauvinists, Van Driel answers questions about what masturbation actually is, and describes the latest discoveries and developments in the field.

“" With the Hand does a great job of looking at an entire range of ways that masturbation is and has been perceived over the years. Van Driel presents these disparate views and conceits in a fairly objective manner. And that is what makes this a very good piece of writing. . . . Overall With the Hand is sometimes a bit steamy, and some of the opinions represented here will be inflammatory, but the topic is masturbation, after all."”

"An enthusiastic, amusing and eye-opening exploration of a topic which remains disappointingly taboo."-- "New Scientist" "It makes for compelling reading, partly because van Driel has a fine sense of humour, but also because he knows his subject, in particular the causes of the taboo surrounding masturbation."-- "Sunday Times (UK)" "When [van Driel's] stethoscope is about his neck, the M.D. employs all the unvarnished plainspokenness of any health care professional. But when he entertains historical, literary, and other arts-and-humanities perspectives, he is as curious and open to surprise as any cultural critic."-- "Chronicle of Higher Education" "With the Hand does a great job of looking at an entire range of ways that masturbation is and has been perceived over the years. Van Driel presents these disparate views and conceits in a fairly objective manner. And that is what makes this a very good piece of writing. . . . Overall With the Hand is sometimes a bit steamy, and some of the opinions represented here will be inflammatory, but the topic is masturbation, after all."-- "New York Journal of Books"

Mels van Driel is a consultant urologist and sexologist at Groningen University Medical Center in The Netherlands. He has written widely for scientific publications, newspapers and magazines, and is the author of Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis (Reaktion Books, 2009).

Most women do it at home; men, it seems, do it everywhere. Some consider it a health treatment, others as love for themselves. Yet despite everyone doing it, no one actually talks about it - masturbation is still taboo, and even today the subject is not discussed at dinner parties or soirees. To help the world overcome its diffidence towards solo sex Mels van Driel has written With the Hand. Consulting theologians, historians, classicists, doctors, sexologists, connoisseurs, artists, philosophers, writers, poets, musicians, feminists and chauvinists, Van Driel answers questions about what masturbation actually is, and describes the latest discoveries and developments in the field.

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