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Promiscuities: An Opinionated History of Female Desire
Naomi Wolf · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorWhores in History: Prostitution in Western Society
Nickie Roberts · 380 pages
'If prostitution is the world's oldest profession, then men writing about it is certainly the second oldest.' It was to retrieve an important part of women's history from the hands of male writers - who have defined prostitution from their own point of view as the client sex - that Nickie Roberts undertook this invigorating blend of social history and sexual politics. In her far-reaching narrative
Cunt: A Declaration of Independence
Inga Muscio · 277 pages
An ancient title of respect for women, the word "cunt" long ago veered off this noble path. Inga Muscio traces the road from honor to expletive, giving women the motivation and tools to claim "cunt" as a positive and powerful force in their lives. With humor and candor, she shares her own history as she explores the cultural forces that influence women's relationships with their bodies. Sending o
The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Jessica Valenti · 267 pages
The United States is obsessed with virginity — from the media to schools to government agencies. In The Purity Myth Jessica Valenti argues that the country's intense focus on chastity is damaging to young women. Through in-depth cultural and social analysis, Valenti reveals that powerful messaging on both extremes — ranging from abstinence curriculum to "Girls Gone Wild" infomercials — place a you
Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
Peggy Orenstein · 319 pages
Women on Top
Nancy Friday · 441 pages
Nancy Friday's groundbreaking books My Secret Garden and Forbidden Flowers offered an unprecedentedly detailed and honest look at the inner fantasy lives of ordinary women. In Women on Top, Friday returns to this topic, collecting detailed sexual fantasies from over 150 contemporary women from diverse backgrounds. Based on intimate personal interviews and letters, this book updates the conversatio
Bad Feminist
Roxane Gay · 360 pages
A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once l
How to Be a Woman
Caitlin Moran · 313 pages
Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them? Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with l
Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love
Elizabeth Prioleau · 366 pages
"[A] glossy, steam-heated analysis of temptresses and their tactics." —The New York TimesIn this road map to restoring feminine sexual power, Betsy Prioleau introduces and analyzes the stories and stratagems of history's greatest seductresses. These are the women who ravished the world—from such classic figures as Cleopatra and Mae West to such lesser-known women as the infamous Violet Gordon Wood
Pornography: Men Possessing Women
Andrea Dworkin · 300 pages
Presents a study of the damaging effect of pornography and its ramifications on society. From publisher description.
Girl Up
Laura Bates · 339 pages
They told you you need to be thin and beautiful. They told you to wear longer skirts, avoid going out late at night and move in groups, never accept drinks from a stranger, and wear shoes you can run in more easily than heels. They told you to wear just enough make-up to look presentable but not enough to be a slut; to dress to flatter your apple, pear, hourglass figure, but not to be too tarty. T
The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality
Rachel Hills · 272 pages
"Fifty years after the sexual revolution, we are told that we live in a time of unprecedented sexual freedom. But beneath the veneer of glossy hedonism, millennial journalist Rachel Hills argues that we are in the grip of a new brand of sexual control. Cosmopolitan meets Foucault in this full-scale investigation of the role that sex plays in today's culture. Coming of age in the early 2000s, Rache
Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World
Shereen El Feki · 345 pages
A groundbreaking examination of changing sexual attitudes and behaviors in the Middle East identifies the sexual factors behind key political, economic, social, and religious trends impacting the region.
Whores and Other Feminists
Jill Nagle · 291 pages
Whores and Other Feminists is the first volume to examine sex work and the sex industry through the eyes of self-identified feminist sex workers - strippers, prostitutes, porn writers, producers and performers, dominatrices - and their allies. Comprising a range of voices from both within and outside the academy, this collection draws from traditional feminisms, postmodern feminism, queer theory,
A return to modesty: Discovering the lost virtue
Wendy Shalit · 291 pages
Where once a young woman had to be ashamed of her sexual experience, today she is ashamed of her sexual inexperience. Where not long ago an unmarried woman was ashamed to give public evidence of sexual desire by living with someone, today she must be ashamed to give evidence of romantic desire. From sex education in grade school to coed bathrooms in college, today's young woman is being pressured
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
Ariel Levy · 240 pages
Meet the female chauvinist pig -- the new brand of "empowered woman" who embraces "raunch culture" wherever she finds it. In her groundbreaking book, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy argues that, if male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, female chauvinist pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women -- and of themselves. Irresistibly
Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality
Gail Dines · 204 pages
This book takes an unflinching and intimate look at porn -- its hard-core and racist content, its unchecked profits, and how it distorts our identities. Astonishingly, the average age of first viewing porn is now 11.5 years for boys, and with the advent of the Internet, it's no surprise that young people are consuming more porn than ever. And, as Gail Dines shows, today's porn is strikingly differ
Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution
Shiri Eisner · 284 pages
Depicted as duplicitous, traitorous, and promiscuous, bisexuality has long been suspected, marginalized, and rejected by both straight and gay communities alike. Bi takes a long overdue, comprehensive look at bisexual politics--from the issues surrounding biphobia/monosexism, feminism, and transgenderism to the practice of labeling those who identify as bi as either "too bisexual" (promiscuous and
Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work
Melissa Gira Grant · 136 pages
Sex work and conditions within the sex industry are frequent topics of discussion in mainstream culture and media, but rarely do these discussions include sex workers themselves, and rarely do they deviate from the position that sex workers must be saved from their evil industry's position that New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof repeatedly advocates. This work turns this position on its hea
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
Gail Collins · 471 pages
Tells how American women got from there to here, in politics, fashion, economics, sex, families and work in the past five decades.
The Second Sex
Simone de Beauvoir · 747 pages
**The Second Sex** (French: *Le Deuxième Sexe*) is a 1949 book by the French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, in which the author discusses the treatment of women throughout history. Beauvoir researched and wrote the book in about 14 months between 1946 and 1949. She published the work in two volumes: *Facts and Myths* (*Les faits et les mythes*), and *Lived Experience* (*L’expérienc
Vamps & Tramps: New Essays
Camille Paglia · 532 pages
Women Living Deliciously
Florence Given · 302 pages