This book aims to be a short, intensive immersion into the perils, limits, and possibilities of human intimacy.

It is; that description says it all, albeit true via a stream-of-consciousness string of pearls, mostly in the shape of quotes from a bunch of notables. However, the author's details are what's most interesting to me.There are loads of notes on the title, such as this one:

Aristotle’s theory of dramatic structure (introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, dénouement) is nothing more or less than a diagram of the sexual act. It doesn’t mean the theory’s true, and it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It just means sex is everything.

Seeing how men seldom reveal their emotions to each other—and, a lot of the time, to themselves—this book reveals insight into the mental activities, proclivities, and thoughts, as strained through the author's mind.

I’m riveted when people are forced to yield to the demands of war: the moment in Hearts and Minds when two US soldiers, fondling their Vietnamese prostitutes, survey the centerfolds taped to the mirrored walls and (for the benefit of the camera) try to imitate heroic masculinity.

You’re frightened that you’re going to see yourself there. Or that you’re going to find out what your husband/dad/ lover/friend thinks about you that’s different from what you think about yourself. Or that you’re going to find out something about your spouse/child/parent you don’t want to know. Or worst of all that you’re going to like it. Sallie Tisdale

Alfred Hitchcock (whose mother would force him to stand at the foot of his bed for several hours as punishment) and cold, regal blondes.

Bernie Madoff ’s mistress has a new book out detailing her affair with everyone’s most hated financial advisor. She notes that he has a small penis, and while that didn’t seem to inhibit their sexual pleasure, she mentions it partially, I assume, in revenge for his treatment (emotional and financial) of her, and partly because she thinks it may somewhat explain his personality. Did Madoff ’s grandiosity emanate at all as compensation for his small penis? Did he know that his wealth would help women overlook the fact that he was underendowed? She seems to think so. Or was he naturally arrogant, insidious, and pathologically unconcerned with the welfare of others? Would he have behaved exactly as he did if he had a very large penis? Pepper Schwartz

In short, there are a lot of mini-stories strewn throughout this book, and it's not really provocative, and neither is it sensational, but it is interesting. I like delving into these minds, going for the small payoffs. And they're not small in the sense that I didn't spend time thinking about them, but I did, which is the thing; curt paragraphs, tautly presented, nicely stringed together in chapters that really made sense. I highly recommend reading this book.

We are, I know not how, double within ourselves, with the result that we do not believe what we believe, and we cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn. Michel de Montaigne