The Continuum Publishing Co. The intent of this 155-page book is noble. It seeks to support an ethics of love and apply such a code of love to sexual behavior. Unfortunately, two assumptions upon which the effort is based are problematical. The first is that sexual behavior currently is forced into something other than love by a patriarchal society. The second is that expressions of human sexuality are a power struggle. This leaves the author with no place to go except to substitute maternalism for patriarchy and leave sex a battleground but with a new commander in chief. This may be what leads to the title of the book, Love Does No Harm, an essentially negative understanding of love. Apart from some repetitions of standard encouragements to be intimate and close, nowhere is love understood as a positive expression. The answer to the most thorny sexual issue, homosexuality, comes down to the understanding that if homosexuality does no harm, it is love and therefore is ethical. The book is politically correct, but apart from this offers little to those who seek knowledge of love. Whether love can be understood as an ethical principle or whether an ethical code can be based on love is not questioned or considered. However, the fact that the Apostle Paul repeatedly declares that the love of God means all things are lawful suggests that love may be something other than ethics. Reviewed by Ralph Underwager, Institute for Psychological Therapies, Northfield, Minnesota.
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