Such a rare moment when you truly enjoy reading a book, and you can't put it down. You look forward to reading it, it doesn't feel like an academic exercise, it just feels like reading... porn or smut.

This book is truly brilliant, and I've recommended it to so many people. I think it's a great pairing with Paglia's Sexual Personae. If you lack context, this is a book by The Last Psychiatrist, whose blog that was popular around some corners of the internet. I remember being in college reading archives of his blog and Star Slate Codex.

I don't really know how to describe the book either. It's a combination of clinical psychology, psychoanalysis, porn, Greek mythos, and more. Somehow these disparate topics combine to form this very, very interesting book.

The prose is very antagonistic to the reader (reminded me of BAP), but I think it's brilliant. It makes the book interesting and fun to read. The humor of the book is arguably one of my favorite aspects of a book like this. And unlike BAP, this funny book actually talks about some really interesting topics. The footnotes that span longer than the chapters are hilarious too.

Porn in general is a taboo subject IMO. Doesn't matter how normalized it gets, how much the industry is shoved down your throat, for "normal" people porn is still taboo. Even your white friend who talks about their sex lives with their mothers don't talk about their porn habits with their mothers.

This book pierces that veil, and wrangles with it for hundreds of pages. The fantasy behind porn, the fantasy behind the fantasy, the impotence within, all gets discussed in this book. I do believe this is exactly the intention of TLP, but you feel like you're going through an intense and personal psychoanalytic session with the most interesting psychiatrist in this world. You keep telling yourself that you're different from the people he's talking about, but halfway through the book, you simply cannot understand how this guy analyzed pornography to this extent. You feel naked reading this book. You feel like you've been exposed; you've been unveiled. The subconscious you didn't even comprehend within yourself seems wide open.

I don't really want to discuss specific aspects of the book. I feel like my analysis is incomplete and weak. I also don't remember a lot. But in a way, I feel like that's not the point. I didn't learn tangible, concrete belief systems or opinions from the book as much as I wish I did. I didn't change any habits of mine either. However, I did observe how someone like TLP breaches a subject like this.

TLP is truly a modern polymath. He's brilliant. As you read, you WISH he was your psychiatrist. I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone.

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