This book is for students and researchers in the fields of philosophy, sexuality and gender studies, aesthetics, and comparative culture and religious studies. It examines erotic theory in the major pre-modern cultural and religious traditions that shaped our modern views of love and lovemaking. 'The unending struggle to reconcile the 'base' demands of the desiring body with the elevating aspirations of culture defines human history. Drawing on his pioneering work in somaesthetics, Richard Shusterman displays extraordinary erudition in presenting the ways in which seven great civilizations have fashioned an ars erotica seeking to do justice to both.' Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley