Book excerpt: Research is finally acknowledging that sex differences in pain perception are experimental opportunities rather than obstacles. For the International Association for the Study of Pain, 32 specialists in 18 contributions explore basic biopsychosocial considerations for sex, gender, and pain research; and sex-related differences in experimental pain responses, and in clinical conditions (e.g. headache disorders, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome). The concluding paper by K. Berkley (neuroscience, Florida State U., Tallahassee) proposes a developmental lifespan framework for the complex issue of whether there is characteristic female pain as vs. male pain. Fillingim is in the U. of Florida's College of Dentistry. For those keeping count of such matters, there is about a 40:60 percent ratio of female to male authors. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.