Read My Lips: A Complete Guide to Vaginal and Vulvar Health, Culture, and Pleasure


Debby Herbenick - 2011
    The primary purpose of Read My Lips is to educate women and men about the vulva and vagina in a manner that is smart, informative, and entertaining. Readers, both women and men alike, will come to think differently about women's genitals and become a little more curious and a lot more comfortable with them. They will learn more about the female body in terms of health, sex, pleasure, culture, and art. Though based on sound scientific and medical research, Read My Lips will be accessible to the masses, so women and men who are curious about the clitoris, Brazilian waxing, labiaplasty or whether the G-spot really exists, will find something of interest in these pages. Chapters focus on sex and the vulva/vagina which, in spite of the many interesting cultural and historical aspects of vulva and vagina lore, remains of central interest to many people - as it should given that women's genitals and how they work, especially in regard to sex, remain a mystery to so many well-intentioned lovers. In keeping with the overall theme of celebration and education, the authors take a sex-positive, pleasure-focused perspective on women's genitals, pointing out the parts that can help women to enjoy sex and feel more comfortable in their own bodies. Tips on technique will also be shared alongside information on vaginal health.

A Patient's Guide to PCOS: Understanding--and Reversing--Polycystic Ovary Syndrome


Walter Futterweit - 2006
    PCOS is by far the most common hormone imbalance in women of this age group, yet few women understand the threat it poses to their health—or how to prevent it. In A Patient's Guide to PCOS, Dr. Walter Futterweit, a foremost authority on PCOS in America, tells women everything they need to know about this condition and how to treat it. Drawing on his twenty-five years researching and treating the condition and his ongoing long-term study of more than a thousand women with PCOS, Futterweit discusses• what PCOS is and how it affects your body• what to eat and how to exercise to control PCOS• all the treatment options, including the latest drug therapies• how to reverse PCOS-induced infertility and restore healthy skin and hair• resources for preventing, diagnosing, and treating PCOSThis comprehensive guide contains everything women need to know about PCOS—from identifying warning signs and seeking a diagnosis to finding emotional support in recovery—to regain their health and resume their lives.

The Epidemic: A Global History of AIDS


Jonathan Engel - 2006
    Engel seamlessly weaves together science, politics, and culture, writing with an even hand—noting the excesses of the more radical edges of the ACT UP movement as well as the conservative religious leaders who thought AIDS victims deserved what they got.The story of AIDS is one of the most compelling human dramas of our time, both in its profound tragedy and in the extraordinary scientific efforts impelled on its behalf. For gay Americans, it has been the story of the past generation, redefining the community and the community's sexuality. For the Third World, AIDS has created endless devastation, toppling economies, social structures, and whole villages and regions. And the worst may yet be to come: AIDS is expanding quickly into India, Russia, China, and elsewhere, while still raging insub-Saharan Africa.A distinguished medical historian, Engel lets his characters speak for themselves. Whether gay activists, government officials, public health professionals, scientists, or frightened parents of schoolchildren, they responded as best they could to tragic happenstance that emerged seemingly from nowhere. There is much drama here, and human weakness and heroism too. Writing with vivid immediacy, Engel allows us to relive the short but tumultuous history of a modern scourge.

Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America


Andrea Tone - 2001
    A down-and-out sausage-casing worker by day who turned surplus animal intestines into a million-dollar condom enterprise at night; inventors who fashioned cervical caps out of watch springs; and a mother of six who kissed photographs of the inventor of the Pill -- these are just a few of the individuals who make up this riveting story.

The Penis Book: A Doctor's Complete Guide to the Penis--From Size to Function and Everything in Between


Aaron Spitz - 2018
    Aaron Spitz has that answer--and many more. Let Dr. Spitz--clinical professor at UC Irvine's Department of Urology and a regularly featured guest on The Doctors--become your best friend as he fearlessly guides you through the hairiest and the scariest questions in The Penis Book. An unflinching, comprehensive guide to everything from sexually transmitted infections to the science of blood flow, The Penis Book prominently features an easy-to-follow holistic five-step plan for optimum penis health, including plant-based eating recommendations, information on some penis-healthy foods, and suggested exercises for penis wellbeing. Useful to men and women alike, The Penis Book is a one-stop-shop for the care and maintenance of the penis in your life.

Hormonal: A Conversation About Women's Bodies, Mental Health and Why We Need to Be Heard


Eleanor Morgan - 2019
    Eleanor Morgan dismantles the stubborn taboos that exist surrounding women and their health-rejecting the idea that female bodies are mysterious, unknowable, and most importantly, in need of constant surveillance lest they go awry. Morgan rigorously investigates the modern landscape of women and health, from contraception to PMS, anxiety and depression, examining the relationship between our bodies and what goes on inside them over the course of our reproductive lives, our biochemistry, and our psychological wellbeing.With refreshing frankness, Morgan connects the historical stigma of the 'hysterical' woman to the edicts of the medical establishment, the #MeToo movement and more, detailing how women's pain is still systematically dismissed and coded by men. She advocates for more openness and more questioning of the systems that dictate how women inhabit their bodies and the language we use to talk about ourselves, examining why so much stigma and misinformation still exists and how we can learn to accept ourselves as we are. 'A powerful and beautifully written account of Morgan's experiences with anxiety and depression . . . courageous and compelling' Guardian on Anxiety for Beginners

Fat City


Karen Hitchcock - 2015
    “Nothing,” he says. I look him in the eye. Nothing? He nods. I ask him about his chronic skin infections, his diabetes. He tears up: “I eat hot chips and fried dim sims and drink three bottles of Coke every afternoon. The truth is I’m addicted to eating. I’m addicted.” He punches his thigh.In Fat City, Karen Hitchcock unpicks the idea of obesity as a disease. In a riveting blend of story and analysis, she explores chemistry, psychology and the impulse to excess to explain the West’s growing obesity epidemic.

Embodiment. the Manual You Should Have Been Given When You Were Born


Dain Heer - 2006
    It's about functioning with your body from the perspective of beingness. It explores how you, as an infinite being, can experience greatness with your body. What if your body were an ongoing source of joy? This book may go against everything you've ever thought, everything you've been taught and everything you've read; and everything you have brought that everyone else believes. It doesn't claim to give you all the answers. Instead it will encourage you to ask the questions that will allow you to enjoy the body you currently have and to create your body so that you can truly enjoy it.

Coming to Term: Uncovering the Truth About Miscarriage


Jon Cohen - 2005
    The result of his mission is a uniquely revealing and inspirational book for every woman who has lost at least one pregnancy – and for her partner, family, and close friends. Approaching the topic from a reporter's perspective, Cohen takes us on a surprising journey into the laboratories and clinics of researchers at the front, weaving together their cutting-edge findings with intimate portraits of a dozen families who have had difficulty bringing a baby to term. Couples who seek medical help for miscarriage often encounter conflicting information about the causes of pregnancy loss and ways to prevent it. Cohen's investigation synthesizes the latest scientific findings and unearths some surprising facts. We learn, for example, that nearly seven out of ten women who have had three or more miscarriages can still carry a child to term without medical intervention. Cohen also scrutinizes the full array of treatments, showing readers how to distinguish promising new options from the useless or even dangerous ones. Coming to Term is the first book to turn a journalistic spotlight on a subject that has remained largely in the shadows. With an unrelenting eye and the compassion that comes from personal experience, Jon Cohen offers a message that is both enlightening and surprisingly hopeful.

The Secret Pleasures of Menopause


Christiane Northrup - 2008
    . . life has just begun! It is the beginning of a very exciting and fulfilling time, full of pleasure beyond your wildest dreams!Dr. Northrup believes that it’s time for you to step forward and learn to enjoy the best years of your life! Even though studies show that menopause doesn’t decrease libido, ease of reaching orgasm, or sexual satisfaction, the majority of menopausal women aren’t experiencing the pleasure and sexual satisfaction that is their birthright. It is a long-held misconception that menopause signals “the beginning of the end,” and nothing could be further from the truth.In this fascinating book, Dr. Northrup candidly guides you toward experiencing life after 50 as the most pleasurable time of your life!

The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability: For All of Us Who Live with Disabilities, Chronic Pain, and Illness


Miriam Kaufman - 2003
    For sufferers of ailments from chronic fatigue syndrome and spinal cord injury to multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, and others, the book provides encouragement, support, and expert information on sex positions, orgasm, and sex toys. It also features illustrations, a resource guide with hundreds of books, websites, and organizations.

Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families


Pamela Paul - 2005
    . . Pornified may stand as a Kinsey Report for our time."--San Francisco Chronicle Porn in America is everywhere--not just in cybersex and Playboy but in popular video games, advice columns, and reality television shows, and on the bestseller lists. Even more striking, as porn has become affordable, accessible, and anonymous, it has become increasingly acceptable--and a big part of the personal lives of many men and women. In this controversial and critically acclaimed book, Pamela Paul argues that as porn becomes more pervasive, it is destroying our marriages and families as well as distorting our children's ideas of sex and sexuality. Based on more than one hundred interviews and a nationally representative poll, Pornified exposes how porn has infiltrated our lives, from the wife agonizing over the late-night hours her husband spends on porn Web sites to the parents stunned to learn their twelve-year-old son has seen a hardcore porn film. Pornified is an insightful, shocking, and important investigation into the costs and consequences of pornography for our families and our culture.

When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973


Leslie J. Reagan - 1996
    Wade, it's crucial to look back to the time when abortion was illegal. Leslie J. Reagan traces the practice and policing of abortion, which although illegal was nonetheless widely available, but always with threats for both doctor and patient. In a time when many young women don't even know that there was a period when abortion was a crime, this work offers chilling and vital lessons of importance to everyone. The linking of the words "abortion" and "crime" emphasizes the difficult and painful history that is the focus of Reagan's important book. Her study is the first to examine the entire period during which abortion was illegal in the United States, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with Roe v. Wade in 1973. Although illegal, millions of abortions were provided during these years to women of every class, race, and marital status. The experiences and perspectives of these women, as well as their physicians and midwives, are movingly portrayed here. Reagan traces the practice and policing of abortion. While abortions have been typically portrayed as grim "back alley" operations, she finds that abortion providers often practiced openly and safely. Moreover, numerous physicians performed abortions, despite prohibitions by the state and the American Medical Association. Women often found cooperative practitioners, but prosecution, public humiliation, loss of privacy, and inferior medical care were a constant threat. Reagan's analysis of previously untapped sources, including inquest records and trial transcripts, shows the fragility of patient rights and raises provocative questions about the relationship between medicine and law. With the right to abortion again under attack in the United States, this book offers vital lessons for every American concerned with health care, civil liberties, and personal and sexual freedom.

Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections


Madeline Drexler - 2002
    She focuses on a different danger in each chapter-from the looming risk of lethal influenza to in-depth information on the public health perils posed by bioterrorism. With a novelist's descriptive eye and a thriller writer's sense of tension, she warns us that the most ceaselessly creative bioterrorist is still Mother Nature, whose microbial operatives are all around us, ready to pounce when conditions are right.

The Modern Midwife's Guide to Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond


Marie Louise - 2020
    As well as this, Marie Louise is renowned for bringing complex science to life. You’ll discover fascinating facts that underpin everything you and your baby will go through, including -- How your nervous system is synced with your baby and why baby already knows a lot about you when they are born- The unique process your baby goes through to pass through the birth canal and how you work together in labour- Incredible facts about breast milkPacked with the most up-to-date findings and expert insights, you'll find everything you need to prepare for motherhood and, most importantly, understand and appreciate just how amazing you and your baby both are!