Saying that, I was in fact more interested in the historian than in her history. Picture everything that you've done in your professional life for the past 10 years. Maybe you switched jobs, got a degree, played Major League Baseball, produced a television sitcom. Groneman, a John Jay College professor, spent the past 10 years researching the sociological, medical and legal history of nymphomania. What kind of woman would let this subject flower in her brain for 10 long years? I couldn't get a sense of Groneman from her author photo. She had an artificial "say cheese for the camera" kind of smile planted on her face. I talked with her on the phone to arrange a meeting, and her voice was professional and curt.

When we finally got together in the late afternoon at a nearly empty Italian-ish restaurant that bordered Washington Square Park in New York, Groneman appeared to be a thoroughly sober woman. It was like sitting down with Jane Hathaway (the dour banker's secretary on "The Beverly Hillbillies"). After we ordered tea (her) and coffee (me), Groneman described her research, which entailed paging through 19th century medical records and court records from the 1940s. As she paused to sip her tea, I blurted out, "Are you yourself some kind of a repressed nymphomaniac?"

No, no, no. I said nothing of the sort. What I did say was: "Do you have a sense of humor?"

Groneman eyed me, and then tilted back her head to shoot out a short burst of laughter. "I had to, believe me!"

This broke the ice. She told me of cheerfully putting up with 10 years of snickers from colleagues. With grants officers who said, "Well, hmm. Nymphomaniacs. Think you could introduce me to some?" With the people at parties who all knew someone who was afflicted with this disorder.

Groneman recalled the story of a woman whose great-great aunt in Italy at the turn of the century was always locked up in the attic whenever any men came over because she was, you know, a nymphomaniac. These stories kept her going because some of them were funny.

How did you start your research?

I was standing in front of a 20th century American history class at John Jay College, where I teach, and we were discussing the social changes since the sexual revolution in 1960. One of my students asked as a joke, "Where have all the nymphomaniacs gone?" I didn't have an answer. So I began to think about the term 'nymphomania.' What did it mean? Where did it come from? How long has it been around? I mean, I'm a historian. Those are the questions that I'm interested in. I did some basic research and there were no full-scale books on the subject. Only a pop-psych book written in 1961. What fascinated me was, here was this term in everybody's mind, but no one had ever researched it in any real way. It was a topic that was incredibly multifaceted. Very sexy. It grabbed people. People were really interested when I talked about this research in the idea of excessive female sexuality. I realized I could use this subject to get a large audience who would be willing to read about the several hundred years of history that I wanted to tell, which would illuminate the question "Why do we have these attitudes about female sexuality?"

In a nutshell, what is a nymphomaniac?

It is an anachronism. It's not defining anything real. The term is still around mainly as a joke -- but with this edge that we think we still know what it means. I was just reading a Ruth Rendell mystery, and there was some discussion of this young woman who is called by her stepmother a "nymphomaniac." Is it useful as a term that defines anything real? Of course not. It never was. Over the last several hundred years we have had this slippery definition that purports to be scientific when it isn't.

What did nymphomaniacs do before the 19th century?

There's always been a notion of excessive female sexuality. In fact, the Greek term was "uterine fury." Women were generally thought to be as lusty as men up until the middle of the 18th century. Then comes the notion that women's sexuality is less than men's, a belief solidified by the middle class. Then nymphomania takes on much greater power.

Scientifically, what's the truth about female sexual desire compared with men's?

Natalie Angier in her recent book, "Woman: An Intimate Geography," says, "How would women know what their real natural unfettered sexuality is when they've never had the opportunity to explore it?" Our modern cultural assumption has always been that women's sexuality is less aggressive, less assertive, less passionate, less carnal than that of men. Certainly I think a lot of the control of female sexuality that we see in various modern societies -- whether it's clitoridectomy in Sudan or the veil in Islamic countries -- is about the fear that women's sexuality, if allowed to be let loose, would run rampant.

It has always seemed to me that male heterosexual sexuality was regulated by women.

We've definitely been put in that role. Men are terrified of women being blatantly sexual. I mean, why do men so readily call women "tramps" and "sluts" who are engaging in behavior that isn't very different from what the guy is doing? There's a bumper sticker someone called me about that says, "I'd love to meet a nymphomaniac whose father owns a liquor store." It's a fantasy that's funny, but the flip side is this kind of fear that if you did meet a nymphomaniac, you wouldn't measure up.

Has anyone made a distinction between a woman wanting sex constantly vs. a woman wanting sex constantly with a lot of different men?

Both of those have been labeled nymphomania.

But there's a difference.

Sure they're different. Alfred Kinsey became famous for his flippant comment, "What's a nymphomaniac? A woman who wants sex more than you do." That's the kind of nymphomania that is the "in the eye of the beholder" approach. I think there is no question that since the sexual revolution, women feel that they have the right to experience sexual satisfaction, and have sex with whomever they want to. I think they realize they don't dare let on to their new boyfriend that they've had more sexual partners than he has had.

How much has society changed in the 10 years since you started your research?

Oprah Winfrey thinks that 20 million people in the country are sex addicts.

I know you don't believe in that concept of "sex addicts."

Trust me, there are folks who really do believe it. There is a Web site for the National Sex Addicts Compulsive -- I forget what it is -- that lists hundreds of therapy groups and treatment centers. The DSM -- the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association -- used the term "sex addict" briefly, then dropped it. Mainstream psychologists and psychiatrists no longer believe in sex addiction, but it plays really well out there to the public.

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