More than religion, money, travel, and murder, sex fascinates us. We discover it during childhood but encounter it much later. We know less and imagine more. Our curiosities lead us to enlist our parents as the prime dramatis personae in this intrapsychic theater of sex and yet it is these very scenarios that we must repudiate in order to achieve satisfactory sexual functioning as adults. The biologically laid down hard-wired capacities for orgasmic pleasure now fully awaken as conventional morality is set aside and a powerful desire is felt to merge the concavities and convexities of one’s body with the reciprocal contours of one’s partner. Gradually, how-ever, mystery and transgression that were integral to the erotic desire at its origins diminish. This is more so in the setting of sustained dyadic relationships, especially marriage. Compensation then is offered in the form of attachment, safety, deepening empathy, mutuality, and companionship. Sex, at this stage, becomes one among many aims, pleasures, and motivating forces in life. This journey is, however, not simple. Roadblocks exist at every step of the way. These range from the early “psychical consequences of anatomical differences between sexes” (Freud, 1925) and the later societally induced gender conundrum to the fusion of “affectionate” and “sensual” currents (Freud, 1912) in the sexual realm as well as the achievement of genital primacy, a somewhat illusory concept in itself. As if this was not enough, there are the challenges of synthesizing pregenital and genital excitements, homosexual and heterosexual objects choices and the various permutations of affect, fantasy, and actual behavior in the realm of sexuality. Matters are complex indeed No wonder then the matter of sex has been approached from wide ranging perspectives. From the perspective of instruction aimed at enhancing pleasure, the compendia range from the Kama Sutra to The Joy of Sex. From the perspective of prurient interest, the list ranges from Marquis de Sade’s depraved rantings to the Internet pornography of today. From the perspective of fictionalized narrative, the texts range from the breath-stopping erotic passages in Arabian Nights to the Dumas’ Lady Chatterly’s Lover. From the perspective of empirical observation, the material ranges from KrafftEbbing’s Psychopathia Sexualis to the Hite Report on the current patterns of adult sexual behavior. And, from the perspective of depth psychology, the writings range from Freud’s broad-based observations to the contributions of contemporary psychoanalysts including Lionel Ovessey, Robert Stoller, Masud Khan, Otto Kernberg, Charles Socarides, Ethel Person, Richard Isay, Richard Friedman, and Ralph Roughton.It is with this backdrop that we present the two book reviews in this issue.The first is a collection of Ethel Person’s papers on the topic of sexuality. The second is an edited volume on contemporary psychoanalytic views of sexuality with largely British voices contributing to it. The first book is reviewed by Ruth Fischer, the distinguished child and adult analyst from Philadelphia,and the second book is reviewed by Tamara Feldman, a bright, young scholar of female sexuality. Both reviewers bring a remarkably solid knowledge base to their task and write with an attitude that combines collegial poise with autonomy of thought. The books they review become richer, as it were, in the light of these reviews. Read on and see for yourself.