Polysexuality was the tenth issue of the journal Semiotext(e)

Semiotext(e)

Semiotext is an American independent publisher. It is widely credited for having introduced so-called "French Theory" to North America through its magazine issues and Foreign Agents series. In 2000, the MIT Press began distributing Semiotext, taking it over from the anarchist publishing collective...

, designed to illustrate "the plural aspects of sexuality

Human sexual behavior

Human sexual activities or human sexual practices or human sexual behavior refers to the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide variety of reasons...

." It was edited by Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 psychoanalyst

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

 François Peraldi and first published in 1981. The front cover depicted a bare-bottomed leatherman

Leatherman

Leatherman is the trade name for a line of multi-tools, knives and LED flashlights manufactured and marketed by Leatherman Tool Group of Portland, Oregon, USA.-Company history:Timothy S...

 sitting on a motorcycle

Motorcycle

A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

. The back cover depicted a suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 victim, bent over, tied-up and with blood

Blood

Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....

 dribbling down his leg

Human leg

The human leg is the entire lower extremity or limb of the human body, including the foot, thigh and even the hip or gluteal region; however, the precise definition in human anatomy refers only to the section of the lower limb extending from the knee to the ankle.Legs are used for standing,...

s. It contained several black and white illustrations. Polysexuality was reprinted in 1995, in a new edition noting that Peraldi had died of AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 in 1993.

It reprinted material by writers and philosophers

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 such as Pierre Klossowski

Pierre Klossowski

Pierre Klossowski was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska, and his younger brother was the painter Balthus.-Life:...

, Paul Verlaine

Paul Verlaine

Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...

, Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...

, Alain Robbe-Grillet

Alain Robbe-Grillet

Alain Robbe-Grillet , was a French writer and filmmaker. He was, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon, one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman trend. Alain Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice...

, Félix Guattari

Félix Guattari

Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...

, Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...

, Jean-François Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and the analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition...

, William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

, Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio is a cultural theorist and urbanist. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with diverse references to architecture, the arts, the city and the military....

, Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...

, Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan

Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...

, Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes

Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...

, and Guy Hocquenghem

Guy Hocquenghem

Guy Hocquenghem was a French writer and queer theorist.-Biography:Guy Hocquenghem was born in the suburbs of Paris and was educated at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux and the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. At the age of fifteen he began an affair with his high school philosophy teacher, René...

, together with an introduction written by François Peraldi. It contained thirteen chapters: Self Sex, Soft Sex, Alimentary Sex, Sex of the Gaze, Ambiguous Sex, Animal Sex, Child Sex, Morbid Sex, Violent Sex, Discursive Sex, Philosophical Sex, and Critical Sex. Self Sex was about masturbation

Masturbation

Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...

, Animal Sex about bestaility

Zoophilia

Zoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...

, and Child Sex about pedophilia

Pedophilia

As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...

. It was attacked in the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 for its alleged advocacy of bestiality

Zoophilia

Zoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...

.