Sexual Accusations and Social Turmoil: What Can Be Done. - Review - book review

Adolescence, Spring, 2000

MASSERMAN, Jules H. (with contributions by Christine McGuire Masserman). Sexual Accusations and Social Turmoil: What Can Be Done. Oakland, CA: Regent Press, 1994. l88pp. $34.95 (h), $17.95 (p).

The author, a world-famous psychiatrist and scientist, was accused by a patient of a sexual assault. Thorough medical, laboratory, and police investigations proved the allegations false, but the attendant publicity initiated a decade of legal, professional, and social stresses for the author and his wife Christine, a renowned educator who describes the couple's ordeal and discusses measures that would be helpful to others similarly traumatized in this time of sexual witchhunts. Sexual Accusations and Social Turmoil also elaborates a background theme: our erotically obsessed society which, as in medieval times, seeks individuals on which to project its guilts. In illuminating perspectives topical chapters trace the origin, biologic basis, and evolution of sexuality, its relationship to other fundamental human emotions, and its historical, cultural, and religious expressions. Of special concern is the explosion of malpractice suits, "recovered memories," and the serious social problems related to current associ ations of eroticism and violence. The book offers specific recommendations for improving the sexual education of youth, cultural reorientations, and proposed juristic reforms.