Introduction
"Models and Madness" is another outstanding erotic classic, originally published in Paris. Even in the free and liberal atmosphere of the "Avante Garde" Left Bank, its daring boldness of expression on straight and offbeat sexual adventures left the critics gasping. But in spite of the details of erotic stimulation and emphasis with which this story is replete, the story of the attractive heroine is a valid psychological documentation of a young woman's search for love. Rarely have the actual sensations experienced by a woman in eyery conceivable type of love situation been so vividly and truthfully depicted. Eeverything is told, nothing held back -from so called "normal" love to the outermost regions of sophisticated perversion.
"Models and Madness" aroused considerable controversy because of its frankness with sexual and psychological deviations. The reader is warned that even among psychiatrists, the line that separates the functions between the sexes is all too often blurred: the very masculine man and the very feminine woman may have very surprising tastes in their choices of sex partners.
Our love-ready heroine begins as a young nurse in a large London hospital -and soon finds that her male patients have peculiar ideas on how to recuperate their virility. Even as she walks the London streets, or rides a bus she seems to become enmeshed in one sex adventure after another. Her queer journeys lead to the Japanese embassy, to secret temples where elaborate sex rites are practised and finally to an exclusive London dress house. There she finds that the models do much more than dress and undress in the latest styles.
With keen insight, the author shows how despite her giddy whirls on the sexual merry-go-round of swinging London, she dramatically begins to solve her gropings for love. As Dr. Allan Saunders, the brilliant psychoanalyst has remarked on this problem.
"The need for the feeling of being loved from childhood and through sexual maturity had been sadly neglected in both psychological studies and in literature. Although reams have been written on love, very little has been done on making a thorough distinction between loving and being loved. The signigicance of the difference between these two emotional states, and their ensuing sexual problems expecially in women has never been deeply explored.
A woman's sexual reactions to the feeling of being unloved can lead to the most perverse and bizarre manifestations. As a result, her sex behavior can have repercussions which cause serious problems to those who would love her. The receptive female need to be loved and the opposed male drive of giving love, must find normal physical channels of expression. If these basic psychic needs remain frustrated, then we must expect the ego to seek satisfaction in the spurious delights of ovent physical perversion."
Viewed in this light, the amorous adventures of our heroine are seen to be much more than sensational erotic escapades. The author brilliantly shows how sexual desire for a love-object can have an amazing revival, long after it is considered dead. Physical memories of sex scenes and situations one may have thought long forgotten suddenly spring to life from the depths of the subconscious. In turn, the resurgence of these unexpected physical sensations arouse actual sex desires which have been merely been laying dormant.
It will be seen that such revitalized memories, thought long buried, can rekindle the amorous flames of the past. It is apparent, that along with Freud, the author of this fast-moving tale believes that "most men's erections are actually resurrections, sacrificed upon the altar of female caprice."
Available up to now only in foreign privately printed, limited editions, "Models and Madness" is now, published for the first time in this country. This is the authentic, unexpurgated original manuscript not a line or word has been deleted!
Continental Classics presents this frank novel as an important addition to the literature of erotica for the emotionally mature reader.
Allen Lee, M.A. New York City, July 1967