A fascinating and thought-provoking exploration of the powerful relationship between sex and the human spirit in different cultures from ancient times to the present day.

• Includes superb pictures from around the world, mostly in full-color, showing art, artifacts, architecture, and erotic carvings, as well as photos of rituals and practices
  
  
• Elucidates such key subjects as fertility, virginity, androgyny, phallic worhip, rites and ceremonies, erotica and pornography, taboo, initiation, and love
  
  
• Examines techniques of ecstasy, such as Tantra, in which ritual sexual pleasure is used as a means of attaining spiritual transcendence
  
  
• Marshals a wealth of disparate material with scholarship and skill to show the complex tensions between the spiritual, the psychological, and the physical
  
  
• Concludes with a reference section on tinted paper, including a glossary of terms and an overview of love spells and marriage ceremonies from different times and cultures