‘It was just sex…’It’s a familiar claim. But it’s also an impossibility, as Darian Leader shows in this delightfully thought-provoking study. Our bodies aren’t just sticks that make fire when you rub them together, and our minds don’t simply stand by – as we can see from the pain, heartache and regret that so often accompany the highs of sexual excitement.

As acclaimed psychoanalyst Darian Leader argues, with his trademark clarity, energy and wit, sex is always about so much more than itself – it’s about phantasy, anxiety, guilt, revenge, violence, love. Drawing on his long analytic experience, historical research and case studies to explore their importance to every aspect of our sexual lives, Leader brilliantly reveals what we are really thinking about when we think about sex – and what we are really doing when we do it.