José Pierre 
Investigating Sex 
Surrealist Discussions

Are women’s orgasms more intense than men’s? What did Andr� Breton think of homosexuality? Can love be separated from physical desire?

In 1928 a group of surrealist writers and artists held twelve round table discussions to address these questions. Calling them ‚researches into sexuality, ‚ their bizarre and humorous conversations are now made available in this new edition in all their surreal and salacious detail. Their research spanned the most critical period for surrealism, a time of bitter political disputes, echoed in the intensity of these meetings and in the range of participants, including Andr� Breton, Paul Eluard, Yves Tanguy, Benjamin P�ret and Pierre Naville.

Well before the so-called sexual revolution, their erotic exchanges broke sexual taboos and encouraged surrealists to openly share the libidinal themes they explored in their writing and art. In doing so, Jo Ann Wypijewski writes in the new introduction, they are revealed as ‚lovers and prigs, fantasists and humanists, adventurers in mind if not always in flesh-flawed, foolish, brilliant, clangingly sexual human beings.‘

Über den Autor

Jos� Pierre was a playwright, novelist and art historian. He belonged to the postwar Paris surrealist group that formed around Andr� Breton. He was a member of Actual, an archive for the dissemination of the secret history of surrealism.