Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive


Kristen J. Sollee - 2017
    This innovative primer highlights sexual liberation as it traces the lineage of “witch feminism.” Juxtaposing scholarly research on the demonization of women and female sexuality that has continued since the witch hunts of the early modern era with pop occulture analyses and interviews with activists, artists, scholars, and practitioners of witchcraft, this book enriches our contemporary conversations about reproductive rights, sexual pleasure, queer identity, pornography, sex work, and more.Kristen J. Sollee is instructor at The New School and founding editrix of Slutist, an award-winning sex positive feminist website."

Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire


Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - 1985
    Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most influential texts in gender studies, men's studies and gay studies," this book uncovers the homosocial desire between men, from Restoration comedies to Tennyson's Princess.

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good


Adrienne Maree Brown - 2019
    Drawing on the black feminist tradition, including Audre Lourde’s invitation to use the erotic as power and Toni Cade Bambara’s exhortation that we make the revolution irresistible, the contributors to this volume take up the challenge to rethink the ground rules of activism. Writers including Cara Page of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation For Justice, Sonya Renee Taylor, founder of This Body Is Not an Apology, and author Alexis Pauline Gumbs cover a wide array of subjects— from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs—creating new narratives about how politics can feel good and how what feels good always has a complex politics of its own.Building on the success of her popular Emergent Strategy, brown launches a new series of the same name with this volume, bringing readers books that explore experimental, expansive, and innovative ways to meet the challenges that face our world today. Books that find the opportunity in every crisis!

Communion: The Female Search for Love


bell hooks - 2002
    She continued her national dialogue with the bestselling Salvation: Black People and Love. Now hooks culminates her triumphant trilogy of love with Communion: The Female Search for Love.Intimate, revealing, provocative, Communion challenges every female to courageously claim the search for love as the heroic journey we must all choose to be truly free. In her trademark commanding and lucid language, hooks explores the ways ideas about women and love were changed by feminist movement, by women's full participation in the workforce, and by the culture of self-help.Communion is the heart-to-heart talk every woman -- mother, daughter, friend, and lover -- needs to have.

Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity


Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore - 2006
    By examining the perilous intersections of identity, categorization, and community, contributors challenge societal mores and countercultural norms. Nobody Passes explores and critiques the various systems of power seen (or not seen) in the act of “passing.” In a pass-fail situation, standards for acceptance may vary, but somebody always gets trampled on. This anthology seeks to eliminate the pressure to pass and thereby unearth the delicious and devastating opportunities for transformation that might create.Mattilda, aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore, has a history of editing anthologies based on brazen nonconformity and gender defiance. Mattilda sets out to ask the question, “What lies are people forced to tell in order to gain acceptance as 'real'.” The answers are as varied as the life experiences of the writers who tackle this urgent and essential topic.

How to Date Men When You Hate Men


Blythe Roberson - 2019
    You'll have a blast reading this and then date...or not date anyone because you are living your best single life with new best friend Roberson by your side." - Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair

Brainstorm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences


Rebecca M. Jordan-Young - 2010
    That's taught as fact in psychology textbooks, academic journals, and bestselling books. And these hardwired differences explain everything from sexual orientation to gender identity, to why there aren't more women physicists or more stay-at-home dads.In this compelling book, Rebecca Jordan-Young takes on the evidence that sex differences are hardwired into the brain. Analyzing virtually all published research that supports the claims of "human brain organization theory," Jordan-Young reveals how often these studies fail the standards of science. Even if careful researchers point out the limits of their own studies, other researchers and journalists can easily ignore them because brain organization theory just sounds so right. But if a series of methodological weaknesses, questionable assumptions, inconsistent definitions, and enormous gaps between ambiguous findings and grand conclusions have accumulated through the years, then science isn't scientific at all.Elegantly written, this book argues passionately that the analysis of gender differences deserves far more rigorous, biologically sophisticated science. "The evidence for hormonal sex differentiation of the human brain better resembles a hodge-podge pile than a solid structure... Once we have cleared the rubble, we can begin to build newer, more scientific stories about human development."

Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution


Laurie Penny - 2014
    Unspeakable Things is a book that is eye-opening not only in the critique it provides, but also in the revolutionary alternatives it imagines.

Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic


Esther Perel - 2006
    She invites us to explore the paradoxical union of domesticity and sexual desire, and explains what it takes to bring lust home.In her 20 years of clinical experience, Perel has treated hundreds of couples whose home lives are empty of passion. They describe relationships that are open and loving, yet sexually dull. What is going on?In this explosively original book, Perel explains that our cultural penchant for equality, togetherness, and absolute candor is antithetical to erotic desire for both men and women. Sexual excitement doesn't always play by the rules of good citizenship. It is politically incorrect. It thrives on power plays, unfair advantages, and the space between self and other. More exciting, playful, even poetic sex is possible, but first we must kick egalitarian ideals and emotional housekeeping out of our bedrooms.While Mating in Captivity shows why the domestic realm can feel like a cage, Perel's take on bedroom dynamics promises to liberate, enchant, and provoke. Flinging the doors open on erotic life and domesticity, she invites us to put the "X" back in sex.©2006 Esther Perel (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers

The Adonis Complex: How to Identify, Treat and Prevent Body Obsession in Men and Boys


Harrison G. Pope Jr. - 2000
    More than ever, men are struggling with the same enormous pressure to achieve physical perfection that women have dealt with for centuries. From compulsive weightlifting to steroid use, from hair plugs to cosmetic surgery, growing numbers of men are taking the quest for perfect muscles, skin, and hair too far, crossing the line from normal interest to pathological obsession. This new obsession with appearance, known as the Adonis Complex, afflicts boys and men of all ages and from all walks of life. In its more severe forms, the Adonis Complex poses a health threat that is as insidious and deadly as eating disorders are for women and girls. But this groundbreaking book offers hope and help for the men caught in the oppressive cycle of body obsession.Harrison Pope, Katharine Phillips, and Roberto Olivardia reveal the often hidden signs and symptoms of the Adonis Complex.Weightlifting and exercise compulsions: Their quest for a more muscular body can become so single-minded that men often sacrifice relationships and career goals and may even stunt their emotional and physical development.Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Unlike healthy men, those with body image problems have no idea how they really look -- and obsessively try to fix flaws that others don't notice. Boys as young as six or eight report body dissatisfaction, and as a result many suffer loss of self-esteem or depression.Eating disorders: Several millionmen have suffered from compulsive binge eating or from anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Countless others with milder forms of eating disorders diet and worry about being fat even when they actually look just fine.Steroid abuse: Trying to achieve increasingly unrealistic physical ideals, more than a million men -- including a large number of teenagers -- are abusing steroids. Millions more are buying billions of dollars' worth of "muscle-building" food supplements and diet aids.Creating a down-to-earth program for change, the authors introduce two original diagnostic tools. The first, a simple thirteen-question quiz, helps readers identify the extent of their body image concerns. The second, the Body Image Test, helps readers learn how they perceive their bodies and how they think others see them. Using the compelling and insightful stories of many boys and men, the authors address a wide range of topics, from coping with sex and intimacy problems and difficulties at work, to low self-esteem and shame. They also explain how to seek medication treatment and specialized forms of therapy for more extreme cases. With this book, men suffering from the Adonis Complex will have the power to change their lives.

Sovereignty: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Men


Ryan Michler - 2018
    Unfortunately, most men have spent much of their lives giving away that sovereignty. Every time a man passes blame or shirks his responsibility, every time he makes excuses for his performance, and every time he trades his unlimited potential for a little perceived safety and security, he willingly submits himself to the mercy of others. Is it any wonder that men, in general, seem to have lost their way? You don’t have to look very far to recognize that men don’t seem to possess the same amount of vigor and purpose they once did. Take one sobering statistic—the rate of suicide in men—and you begin to see how damaging the effects of the voluntary subjugation of men to their families, their businesses, and their governments can be. It’s not hard to understand why we give up control to others—it’s easy and we’re expected to. Sovereignty: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Men is a call for men to once again rise up and establish themselves as they once were—a revolution if you will. Inside the pages of this book, we’ll uncover the battle each man will inevitably engage in, the external forces fighting against the call to masculinity, and the internal struggle all men must overcome. But make no mistake, this revolution is not a call for men to go their own way and rally against society. It’s a call for men to become fully the men they are meant to be so they may more adequately take care of themselves and those they are responsible for. Men have always been expected to protect, provide, and preside over themselves, their families, their businesses, and their communities. By embodying the thirteen Sovereign Virtues we detail inside, every man will be more capable of fulfilling his masculine duties and responsibilities. The words in this book go well beyond principle and theory, however, as we build the framework for establishing a battle plan to combat the external and internal threats to our masculine power and give every man the tools, resources, guidance, direction, and ability to reclaim what has always been his: his sovereignty.

The Tactical Guide to Women: How Men Can Manage Risk in Dating and Marriage


Shawn T. Smith - 2017
    The right woman can be the best part of a man’s life, and the wrong one can lead to personal and financial ruin. In today’s climate, no man should venture into romance without a reliable risk-management strategy. The Tactical Guide to Women delivers a solid plan for allowing the right women into your life, and keeping the wrong ones at a safe distance. You’ll discover how to: • Identify good women of low drama and high character • Reduce your vulnerability to women who seem perfect for you—but aren’t • Spot the early warning signs of emotional instability You’ll also learn: • Critical techniques for seeing women clearly • The most common mistakes that lead men into disastrous relationships • How to reduce the odds of a good relationship going bad Impeccably researched and backed by the author’s decade of clinical experience, The Tactical Guide to Women provides men with desperately needed, rarely discussed strategies for finding sanity, joy, and companionship. This is not another book about getting laid. This book is about not getting screwed.

My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies


Nancy Friday - 1973
    Women who read it were astonished to find in its pages the hidden content of their own sexual fantasies. More outspoken, graphic, and taboo-shattering than any book before its time, "My Secret Garden" quickly became the classic study of female sexuality. Today, millions of women have made Nancy Friday's groundbreaking bestseller a mainstay of feminist literature -- a liberating force that adds a sensational new dimension to their sexual fantasies and lives.

Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America


Ann Coulter - 2011
    The Democratic Party activates mobs, depends on mobs, coddles mobs, publicizes and celebrates mobs—it is the mob. Sweeping in its scope and relentless in its argument, Demonic explains the peculiarities of liberals as standard groupthink behavior. To understand mobs is to understand liberals.   In her most provocative book to date, Ann Coulter argues that liberals exhibit all the psychological characteristics of a mob, for instance:  Liberal Groupthink: “The same mob mentality that leads otherwise law-abiding people to hurl rocks at cops also leads otherwise intelligent people to refuse to believe anything they haven’t heard on NPR.” Liberal Schemes: “No matter how mad the plan is—Fraternité, the ‘New Soviet Man,’ the Master Race, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Building a New Society, ObamaCare—a mob will believe it.” Liberal Enemies: “Instead of ‘counterrevolutionaries,’ liberals’ opponents are called ‘haters,’ ‘those who seek to divide us,’ ‘tea baggers,’ and ‘right-wing hate groups.’ Meanwhile, conservatives call liberals ‘liberals’—and that makes them testy.” Liberal Justice: “In the world of the liberal, as in the world of Robespierre, there are no crimes, only criminals.”Liberal Violence: “If Charles Manson’s followers hadn’t killed Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, Clinton would have pardoned him, too, and he’d probably be teaching at Northwestern University.”   Citing the father of mob psychology, Gustave Le Bon, Coulter catalogs the Left’s mob behaviors: the creation of messiahs, the fear of scientific innovation, the mythmaking, the preference for images over words, the lack of morals, and the casual embrace of contradictory ideas. Coulter traces the history of the liberal mob to the French Revolution and Robespierre’s revolutionaries (delineating a clear distinction from America’s founding fathers), who simply proclaimed that they were exercising the “general will” before slaughtering their fellow citizens “for the good of mankind.” Similarly, as Coulter demonstrates, liberal mobs, from student radicals to white-trash racists to anti-war and pro-ObamaCare fanatics today, have consistently used violence to implement their idea of the “general will.” This is not the American tradition; it is the tradition of Stalin, of Hitler, of the guillotine—and the tradition of the American Left. As the heirs of the French Revolution, Democrats have a history that consists of pandering to mobs, time and again, while Republicans, heirs to the American Revolution, have regularly stood for peaceable order. Hoping to muddy this horrifying truth, liberals slanderously accuse conservatives of their own crimes—assassination plots, conspiracy theorizing, political violence, embrace of the Ku Klux Klan. Coulter shows that the truth is the opposite: Political violence—mob violence—is always a Democratic affair. Surveying two centuries of mob movements, Coulter demonstrates that the mob is always destructive. And yet, she argues, beginning with the civil rights movement in the sixties, Americans have lost their natural, inherited aversion to mobs. Indeed, most Americans have no idea what they are even dealing with.             Only by recognizing the mobs and their demonic nature can America begin to defend itself.

Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape


Jaclyn Friedman - 2008
    Feminist, political, and activist writers alike will present their ideas for a paradigm shift from the “No Means No” model—an approach that while necessary for where we were in 1974, needs an overhaul today.Yes Means Yes will bring to the table a dazzling variety of perspectives and experiences focused on the theory that educating all people to value female sexuality and pleasure leads to viewing women differently, and ending rape. Yes Means Yes aims to have radical and far-reaching effects: from teaching men to treat women as collaborators and not conquests, encouraging men and women that women can enjoy sex instead of being shamed for it, and ultimately, that our children can inherit a world where rape is rare and swiftly punished. With commentary on public sex education, pornography, mass media, Yes Means Yes is a powerful and revolutionary anthology.