If the most recent sex surveys suggest Americans are conservative in bed, Bakos (Sexual Pleasures) describes a busy subculture-fueled by changing mores among the avant-garde, fear of disease and boredom and our historical sexual repression-pushing sexual boundaries. Researching her breezily anecdotal report, the author confesses, infrequently turned her on; indeed, her book is intriguing but troubling. Bakos begins with the mildly adventurous-those involved in anal sex and spanking-then moves on to S&M, both straight and gay, paid domination, fetishes, body piercing (which she sees as linked to S&M) and swing clubs. While her interviewees defend their practices, many seem to be working through traumatic childhood experiences. Bakos is skeptical of nonjudgmental therapists who can't condemn the cruelties of "destructive consensual behaviors"; she thinks light kink is sexy, heavy kink is not. Those involved in heavy kink have trouble with intimacy, she notes; and these oft-geeky types do not resemble the fantasies purveyed on MTV. But be on guard: "These are not expert conclusions" but just the author's. For interested readers unmotivated to do their own surveys.

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