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The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality
Rachel Hills · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorGirls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
Peggy Orenstein · 319 pages
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
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
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.
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
Promiscuities: An Opinionated History of Female Desire
Naomi Wolf · 286 pages
Promiscuities follows a group of adolescent girls as they gradually become aware of themselves as sexual beings and discover what our culture tells them being female means. Drawing on her own experiences as well those of her contemporaries, Naomi Wolf reveals the secrets of our coming of age: the sexual games, forbidden crushes, losses of virginity, and rites of initiation. She also uncompromisin
Whores 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
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
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
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
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
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
Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex
Judith Levine · 301 pages
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
Intercourse
Andrea Dworkin · 315 pages
Dworkin argues that in a male supremacist society, sex between men and women constitutes a central part of women's subordination to men.
Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both
Laura Sessions Stepp · 304 pages
Features a new Afterword for this edition. A controversial look at today's sexual hook-up culture, and "[a] book...you won't stop talking about."-Patricia CornwellFrom the front lines of today's sexual battlefield comes an eye-opening examination of the hookup culture, seen through the personal experiences of the teenage girls and young women who live it-and who are left unprepared for its consequ
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
Marriage and Morals
Bertrand Russell · 254 pages
Bertrand Russell on fatherhood, Christian ethics, romantic love, feminism, sex education, love, marriage, prostitution, trial marriage, family, divorce, eugenics, population control and sexuality.
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,
Vamps & Tramps: New Essays
Camille Paglia · 532 pages
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
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