In this pioneering study in religion and culture, Mielke acknowledges the power that pornographic images continue to assert in a culture whose conscious intention is to deny their attraction. Mielke's unique analysis brings together a wide range of sources—contemporary as well as historical Christianity, sex therapy, secular feminism, contemporary psychoanalysis, and behavioral science research studies—in an attempt to explain the prevalence of pornographic themes and imagery in human sexual arousal and fulfillment.