Sexual fetishism takes as many different forms as do neurotic symptoms, attaching itself to ob-jects, words and actions.

In this study of deviationary erotic activities, Dr. North looks at current medical and psychiatric theories on the subject and questions whether they are relevant to individual problems in the con-text of the cultural phenomena of our time.

The greater part of The Outer Fringe of Sex is devoted to the widespread nature of rubber fetishism and its associated sado-masochistic tendencies, a phenomenon to which a not inconsiderable manufacturing market has attached itself (intimations appear in Press advertisements of rubber aprons).

Much illustrative material is drawn from the author's own investigations concerning the fetishist. The last part of the book deals with the literature of rubber fetishism and there is an appendix of lengthy letters written by a deviant to a fetishist magazine which, in themselves, represent an extraordinary example of contem-porary erotic writing.

As a sociologist, Dr. North views this strange world with an object-ive eye that neither approves nor condemns.