Options
Subtitle: A Personal Expedition Through the Sexual Frontier
Language: English
First Edition
Place of Publication: New York, N.Y.
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Year of Publication: 05/1978
Format: 144x215mm
Pages: 290
Illustrations: 1 black-and white of the writer on back flap by Ronnie Kaufman
Jacket design: Bob Korn
Binding: boards in colour dust cover
Weight: 507 gr.
Original price USD 8.95
Current Price: €16,91 (book €9,13, sales tax €0.55, shipping €7.23) plus €2,50 ELTA declaration
Supplier: Gladewater Books
Order Number: Alibris Purchase Order No.: 71410716
Order Date: 13/1/2023
Order Shipped: 13/1/2023
Order Received: 15/2/2023
Entry Number: 2023022
Entry Date: 15th February 2023
BOOK DESCRIPTION
"I don't remember exactly when it was that I noticed that something large had happened to family life since I was a kid. That marriages were obviously rotten, everybody was getting divorced, fidelity was a lie, expectations were nutty, and mostly everyone I knew was yanked apart by black bitterness at one end and purple romanticism at the other. All the belief systems seemed to be eroding and collapsing, and nobody had a remedy."
Thinking that the pioneers of new forms and bold experiments might have found solutions, journalist Marcia Seligson set out across the country to examine alternate lifestyles. "I experienced around me, every day, two inexorable tidal waves: the sweeping failure of traditional marriage and the valiant gropings for Something New."
It was a journey that took her to the frontiers of sexual freedom.
Her investigation entailed four years, thousands of miles and a score of amazing experiences, as she explored the heart of an unfamiliar, mind-blowing and mind-stretching territory. A mission as personal as it was journalistic, she "longed to find... a way to build my future loves wisely, viably... to solve the puzzle of my own basic life."
She begins by visiting the notorious Sandstone Ranch in California, watching—shocked and fascinated—as strangers make love to strangers in a waterbed-filled ballroom. She lives briefly with Pat and Steve Meyer in Miami, who had a successful open marriage years before the expression even existed. She introduces us to the young quartet in Maryland who look like the nice kids down the block but inside their spill-level live in a most uncommon family structure. We meet Donna, Bud and Marty, who sleep in a queen-sized bed and recently had their first child. And the Barrons, prominent San Francisco psychologists in their late fifties, whose sixteen-year utterly free marriage is a compelling and unmistakable triumph.
Marcia Seligson portrays her subjects as brave and foolish, misguided and noble. She plays devil's advocate, asking the very impolite questions the reader is silently, urgently asking. But she always listens seriously, coming to see that in breaking down the limitations of sexual monogamy, these rebels are really addressing themselves to one of the deepest concerns and struggles between women and men today: the need for personal independence balanced with the desire for a deep, mutual commitment in a relationship.
With remarkable candor she also explores he own conflicts, fears and battles with the demon of sexual jealousy. Probing, sensitive, funny, startling—-at moments shocking— Options challenges us to throw away our preconceived attitudes toward love and sex and marriage, and to look at ourselves and our relationships in a totally new way.
