I haven't read the book. I probably will, just for the sake of knowing what everyone is talking about, when I can pick it up second hand somewhere.

It sounds a bit like a Gor book without the fantasy trappings, and I suspect the author's intent was to write erotic fantasy, not to make deep social statements. Lots of us, myself included, find things erotic in fantasy, that we would sensibly reject in reality. Are we, as a society, really so confused and lacking in critical thinking that we can't enjoy our fantasies while realizing that they aren't, and in many cases, shouldn't be real? The implications that we may not be, or that our leaders, both cultural and political, think we aren't and thus need to be protected from our fantasies, are profoundly disturbing.

As for the essay, I was a bit put off by the discussion of fairy tales at the beginning. I think we're all together too willing to look at fairy tales and folk tales in the context of modern society, pointing and laughing at the surface features without thinking about where their roots lie and what they said to people in their original context.