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Summary

The new millennium offers perfect timing for publication of a large volume on the history of eroticism. Today, we paradoxically face both new freedoms and increasingly stereotyped language. Political correctness is the new norm and images now stand raised to the status of icons, especially images of women. In earlier millennia, women were goddesses or Holy Virgins, but today they are fashion models. This demotes Apollo into a male model or movie star. What happened to the insolence of the 18th-century libertines or the carefree excesses of the Belle Epoque and legalised brothels? Except for a handful of dusty outdated images, that era is now long gone. This book disregards conventional thinking to present 800 reproductions that illustrate erotic art from Ancient Greece down to the present era in both Europe and Asia. With no inhibition or hesitation, erotic art asserts itself as a key factor of societal development where the quest for pleasure is the sinless attitude of men and women who have determined that reproduction need be no end in itself. Previous books by Hans-Jürgen Döpp include The Erotic Museum in Berlin, The Temple of Venus and Paris Eros.

• The Arts