text: I will start this review by noting two things. I greatly appreciated Nussbaum's 'Upheavals of Thought', and I am uncomfortable with the way sex sits in the society I live in. (But, then, I recognise things in myself that - for good or bad - change my perspective from that of the society I am embedded in.) But Wedekind's play 'Springtime Awakening' should raise alarm bells for most of us. 
  
  We are sexual beings (most of us anyway) and we have to deal with that - learn to accept it within ourselves, learn to share it with others (it is, of course, the quintessential sharing experience), learn to grow with it, learn to let it go .... The easy path to take is to grasp a social 'norm' and follow it regardless of the morality of that path. Societies do present many 'norms' to a young person developing sexual awareness but not all of these are equally desirable. If Nussbaum's book does nothing else but diminish the acceptability of some of the undesirable 'norms', and enhance the more socially responsible ones it will have achieved a great service. 
  
  There are curious things in this book for me. Nussbaum refers to many sources but many of them are male - Aristotle, Seneca, JS Mill, DH Lawrence .... To be fair, the last chapter is about 'To the Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf, and other writers such as Andrea Dworkin are prominent. However I was surprised that some powerful women writers are totally ignored - where is Mary Wolstonecraft, where is Emma Goldman, where is Mary Shelley? Why is 'Maurice' (Forster) referred to but not 'The Well of Loneliness' (Hall)? 
  
  The chapter on female genital mutilation (FGM) is an appalling indictment on the behaviour of some societies. Nussbaum has a glancing reference to circumcision; not surpringly it is glancing for someone who was converted (so I read) to Judaism. While I would never compare what happens to baby boys with what happens to young women in severity or risk, nevertheless I think the motivations for both practices come from the same source. If, for cultural (religious) reasons it is appropriate for Jewish boys to be circumcised, I think it is a very dangerous position to take to expect other societies to abandon the practices they see as legitimate, if not mandatory. 
  
  The chapter on Equity and Mercy impressed me immensely - it is so balanced I expect many feminists will hate it. But for me, her rare use of a Christian quote ('Forgive them, for they know not what they do.') was a revelation. Never before had I seen how compromised that plea is. (Compare with Tolstoy: 'It is a wonderful thing to be loved because of oneself, but it is a far more wonderful thing to be loved in spite of oneself.') 
  
  The fact that often I have other feelings than Nussbaum expresses does not concern me, because she often has perspectives that broaden or hone my own thoughts. In the chapter on prostitution and its illegality I had to agree with most of what she writes simply from a libertarian point of view rather than one of morality. The morality issues are complex - perhaps irresolvably complex. Just as there are men with 'dangerous' sexuality, so there are women. Perhaps it's only an issue for men because they demand or expect control. For me, all of Nussbaum's discussions seem to centre on the effects on women that prostitution entails - this is not inappopriate even though it may not be balanced. The problem I see with prostitution is that it panders to the man's 'need' to have sex. They can get it on demand. This reduces their sensitivities to the needs of the women in their lives, including the need (wise or not) for a woman to have a faithful partner. In Australia we had an advisor on women's affairs to the Federal Government write a piece in a newspaper where she expressed the view - based on her own practice - that a woman should always make sure her husband knew where the red light district was in a city they were visiting, so he could satisfy his 'need' when she herself felt incapable. For me this is an appalling suggestion - as if men cannot have self-control and should not be expected to. But, for all of that, like Nussbaum I would not see prostitution as worthy of being made illegal.
  
  For me this was a thought-provoking read. It had some incredibly ugly things to describe, to consider. But it helped me to structure my thoughts in this difficult area - perhaps it will help me guide my boys as they reach maturity. 
  
  Other recommendations: 
  'Springtime Awakening' - Wedekind 
  'The Well of Loneliness' - Radclyffe Hall (I hated the outcome of this) 
  'Matilda' - Mary Shelley (her biographical details are worth exploring too) 
  'Godwin on Wollstonecraft' - William Godwin (Mary Shelley's father; Mary Wollstonecraft was her mother) 
  'Upheavals to Thought' - Nussbaum 
  'Living my Life' - Emma Goldman 
  'Let Me Alone' - Anna Kavan 
  'Conditions of Love' - John Armstrong
  