PREVIOUS PAGE TABLE OF CONTENTS NEXT PAGE


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An impressive list of 170 dedicated scholars on six continents generously contributed their expertise, energy, and enthusiasm to these volumes. Their careful research, analysis, and integration of information from a wide variety of sources have resulted in the unique, richly detailed, and comprehensive portraits of sexual attitudes, values, and behavior of people in thirty-two countries that appear in these three volumes. As the editor and catalyst for these volumes, I was constantly inspired by the enthusiasm and scholarship they brought to their work. By all rights, I should say something special about each and every contributor. Unfortunately limited space will not allow me to comment on their individual contributions in helping create these volumes, although I do mention some of them in my Foreword. Here I can only add that even person mentioned as an author, advisor, or otherwise acknowledged by individual contributors in their chapters has played an important role in these volumes, and can be quite proud of their contribution. I thank them, one and all.

However, I must mention here a few individuals who played pivotal roles as we approached publication.

Jack Heidenry, my editor and good friend, deserves my hearty thanks for recognizing the importance of this unique reference work when it was little more than a fast-growing embryo. I thank Jack for his steady, patient support and especially his crucial advice in bringing about a firm publication date after considerable, unavoidable delays. Working with the Continuum staff, Evander Lomke, Ulla Schnell, Martin Rowe, and Gene Gollogly, has been both supportive and an education because of the problems we faced and solved together.

Ray Noonan - In late November 1996, the graphic design skills of a long-time friend and former student unexpectedly came to the fore. For a dozen years, I have known Ray Noonan as a colleague, roommate at conferences, and mentor for his doctoral research in the Human Sexuality Program at New York University. My vague awareness that Ray works in graphic design suddenly solved some major problems. Without Ray's fast, reliable, and creative graphics work, and his constant devotion to additional copyediting, we could not have moved from my computer text files to camera-ready page proofs in the phenomenal two months time Ray took to accomplish this crucial step.

As the work with Ray Noonan on repros raced along, Kittiwut Jod Taywaditep and Eli Coleman completely rewrote the Thailand chapter, tripling its length with invaluable new material. Michael Barrett and his team of Canadians valiantly pushed to come in at the very last minute with a marvelous early-1997 update for Canada. Osmo Kontula and Elina Haavio-Manila provided last-minute updates for Finland; Thomas Phelim Kelley updated Ireland. Julanne McCarthy, whom I met by chance while on a July 1996 vacation in France, created a gem of a chapter on Bahrain in four months time. Thanks to Maria Bakaroudis and James Shortridge for finding Kevan Wylie, and to Dr. Wylie and his team of British colleagues who produced an excellent chapter on the United Kingdom in record time. I also thank Tim Perper for putting me in contact with Dr. M. P. Lau, who happily agreed to our including his brilliant analysis of the nationwide “Sex Civilization” Survey of 20,000 Subjects in China.

My thanks to Dr. Paul S. Boyer, professor of earth sciences at Fairleigh Dickenson University, for his cartography skills.

In the United States entry, several key updates and important additions came in on very short notice from Barbara Garris on sex on the information superhighway, Patricia Goodson and Sally Conklin on sexuality education for the clergy, added material for the Latino section from Miguel Pérez and Helda Pinzón, and Linda Hendrixson on AIDS, women, children, and families. I also want to thank David Weis for his thoughtful summaries and introductions linking sections of the United States entry, his meticulous additional last-minute copyediting of the long United States entry, and his critical, constructive input along the way to production.

To all who contributed in whatever way to these three volumes, my sincere thanks. It has been a wonderful experience working with all of you on this unique sexological research project.


PREVIOUS PAGE TOP OF PAGE NEXT PAGE