This is a researched foray into the minds of the perverse: men and women governed by unconscious motives which distort their behaviour and give rise to shameful and forbidden desires. Psychotherapist Dr Kaplan dispels the myth that perversion is the province of men alone and reveals female perversions which parody feminine models of submission and purity, just as male perversions caricature masculine ideals of virility. and exhibitionism are male afflictions; while kleptomania, self injury and anorexia are female phenomena. She argues that all perversions are the products of gender stereotyping, and that all are instruments of deception. Using case studies and the illuminating story of Flaubert's Emma Bovary, she unfolds the elements of the perverse strategy and opens the reader's mind to the recent trend in the 20th century to contain and regulate the gender ambiguities in each of us. She also identifies the commercialization of deviant sexuality, which trivialises the meaning of erotic freedom.