Foucault for Beginners


Lydia Alix Fillingham - 1993
    Arguing that definitions of abnormal behavior are culturally constructed, Foucault explored the unfair divisions between those who meet and those who deviate from social norms. In Foucault For Beginners, the reader will discover Foucault’s deeply visual sense of scenes such as ritual public executions.

Women's Anatomy Of Arousal: Secret Maps To Buried Pleasure


Sheri Winston - 2009
    We're not just talking about Ye Olde G-Spot here. Women have an entire erectile network that, if properly stimulated, can elevate their erotic experience from "Oh!" to "Oh! Oh! Oh!"Join celebrated sexuality teacher Sheri Winston as she integrates ancient wisdom, lost knowledge and modern sexuality information in a sexy, fun, empowering guidebook that illuminates every woman's secret paths to fabulous, orgasmically abundant sex. Whether you're a woman or a man who loves women, this book is for you! When people apply the information and techniques she provides, the result is often a whole new level of sexual pleasure. Many women experience their first ejaculations and/or become multi- or mega-orgasmic. Men learn how to make their female partner REALLY happy.Women's Anatomy of Arousal includes discussions of anatomy and energetics, female ejaculation and expanded orgasm, and much more.There's even a short chapter for guys ("The Easy Girl's Guide to Making It Easy for Guys") summarizing the main points of the book!ingston, NY-based Center for the Intimate Arts.

Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People


Joan Roughgarden - 2004
    A distinguished evolutionary biologist, Roughgarden takes on the medical establishment, the Bible, social science—and even Darwin himself. She leads the reader through a fascinating discussion of diversity in gender and sexuality among fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, including primates. Evolution's Rainbow explains how this diversity develops from the action of genes and hormones and how people come to differ from each other in all aspects of body and behavior. Roughgarden reconstructs primary science in light of feminist, gay, and transgender criticism and redefines our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality. Witty, playful, and daring, this book will revolutionize our understanding of sexuality.Roughgarden argues that principal elements of Darwinian sexual selection theory are false and suggests a new theory that emphasizes social inclusion and control of access to resources and mating opportunity. She disputes a range of scientific and medical concepts, including Wilson's genetic determinism of behavior, evolutionary psychology, the existence of a gay gene, the role of parenting in determining gender identity, and Dawkins's "selfish gene" as the driver of natural selection. She dares social science to respect the agency and rationality of diverse people; shows that many cultures across the world and throughout history accommodate people we label today as lesbian, gay, and transgendered; and calls on the Christian religion to acknowledge the Bible's many passages endorsing diversity in gender and sexuality. Evolution's Rainbow concludes with bold recommendations for improving education in biology, psychology, and medicine; for democratizing genetic engineering and medical practice; and for building a public monument to affirm diversity as one of our nation's defining principles.

Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men


Anne Fausto-Sterling - 1987
    Features a new chapter and afterward on recent biological breakthroughs.

Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation


Eva Illouz - 2011
    They come in many shapes: loving a man or a woman who will not commit to us, being heartbroken when we're abandoned by a lover, engaging in Sisyphean internet searches, coming back lonely from bars, parties, or blind dates, feeling bored in a relationship that is so much less than we had envisaged - these are only some of the ways in which the search for love is a difficult and often painful experience.Despite the widespread and almost collective character of these experiences, our culture insists they are the result of faulty or insufficiently mature psyches. For many, the Freudian idea that the family designs the pattern of an individual's erotic career has been the main explanation for why and how we fail to find or sustain love. Psychoanalysis and popular psychology have succeeded spectacularly in convincing us that individuals bear responsibility for the misery of their romantic and erotic lives. The purpose of this book is to change our way of thinking about what is wrong in modern relationships. The problem is not dysfunctional childhoods or insufficiently self-aware psyches, but rather the institutional forces shaping how we love.The argument of this book is that the modern romantic experience is shaped by a fundamental transformation in the ecology and architecture of romantic choice. The samples from which men and women choose a partner, the modes of evaluating prospective partners, the very importance of choice and autonomy and what people imagine to be the spectrum of their choices: all these aspects of choice have transformed the very core of the will, how we want a partner, the sense of worth bestowed by relationships, and the organization of desire.This book does to love what Marx did to commodities: it shows that it is shaped by social relations and institutions and that it circulates in a marketplace of unequal actors.

The Pleasure's All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive


Joan Kelly - 2006
    Suddenly, Joan was being paid to do things she'd only fantasized about. Having spent several years scouring the Internet unsuccessfully for a man who would dominate her in the bedroom without getting on her nerves outside of it, Joan had nearly lost hope of satisfying her sexually submissive urges. Now, using her professional name, "Marnie," she was being paid to do only what she felt like with kinky men who didn't even expect to have any real sex in their sessions. To Joan, it almost felt like being paid to practice the art of self-centeredness---except for the part where she had to kneel and address strangers as "Master." The Pleasure's All Mine offers the reader a rare, intimate, often amusing, sometimes disturbing look into the life of a professional submissive---one whose drive for self-acceptance and respect is as relentless as her sexual need for the services she provides. Readers will experience many humorous, bizarre, frightening, and utterly entertaining events through the perceptive and insightful eyes of this writer.

The New Uxbridge English Dictionary


Jon Naismith - 2005
    This crafty revision of English vocabulary posits that Platypus should signify “to give your cat pigtails;” that Flemish should mean “rather like snot;” and that Celtic is in fact a prison for fleas. With nearly 600 new definitions, this side-splitting resource pushes the boundaries of the English language to riotous new limits.

GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary


Joan NestleLucas Dzmura - 2002
    The questions go beyond the nature of male/female to a yet-to-be-traversed region that lies somewhere between and beyond biologically determined gender. In this groundbreaking anthology, three experts in gender studies and politics navigate around rigid, societally imposed concepts of two genders to discover and illuminate the limitless possibilities of identity. Thirty first-person accounts of gender construction, exploration, and questioning provide a groundwork for cultural discussion, political action, and even greater possibilities of autonomous gender choices. Noted scholar Joan Nestle is joined by internationally prominent gender warrior Riki Anne Wilchins and historian Clare Howell to provide a societal, cultural, and political exploration of gender identity.Marketing Plans: National Advertising: The Advocate Academic mailing to gender studies and queer studies professors Media campaign hilighting authors Nestle and WilchinsJoan Nestle is the cofounder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York and the writer and editor of six books including the groundbreaking Women on Women series. Riki Anne Wilchins is the executive director of GenderPAC, the national gender advocacy group, and the cofounder of the Gender Identity Project of New York City's Lesbian and Gay Center. She is the author of Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender. Clare Howell is a senior librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation


Margaret Mead - 1928
      It details her historic journey to American Samoa, taken where she was just twenty-three, where she did her first fieldwork.  Here, for the first time, she presented to the public the idea that the individual experience of developmental stages could be shaped by cultural demands and expectations.  Adolescence, she wrote, might be more or less stormy, and sexual development more or less problematic in different cultures.  The "civilized" world, she taught us had much to learn from the "primitive."  Now this groundbreaking, beautifully written work as been reissued for the centennial of her birth, featuring introductions by Mary Pipher and by Mead's daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson.

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death


Caitlin Doughty - 2017
    From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry—especially chemical embalming—and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality.

The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings


Alan Soble - 1991
    In this new fifth edition of The Philosophy of Sex, Soble and co-editor Nicholas Power have collected thirty contemporary essays that explore philosophically, conceptually, and theologically the nature, social meanings, and morality of contemporary sexual phenomena. Contributors address myriad topics, including cybersex and the Internet, masturbation, contraception, sexual perversion, gay and lesbian sexuality, same-sex marriage, casual sex and promiscuity, pedophilia, rape and date rape, sexual use and objectification, sexual relationships between teachers and students, pornography, and prostitution. NEW to this edition: Each of the thirty essays is preceded by an informative introduction written by the two editors and each essay is followed by a set of provocative study questions developed by the editors to stimulate critical thinking about sexuality. Contributing authors, some of whom were commissioned for this new edition, include Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Nagel, Alan Goldman, John Finnis, Sallie Tisdale, Jerome Neu, Robin West, Louise Collins, Alan Wertheimer, Greta Christina, John Corvino, Cheshire Calhoun, Raja Halwani, Yolanda Estes, and others. The editors provide a comprehensive bibliography of over 700 philosophical and general readings in sexuality. Intended in part as a textbook for use in university courses in the philosophy of sex, gender, and ethics, the book is also a valuable resource for researchers in sexuality and a reader-friendly introduction to puzzles about sexuality for anyone who enjoys exploring this ubiquitous human experience.

Exhibitionism for the Shy


Carol Queen - 1995
    Founder and Publisher Emerita Joani Blank, then working as a sex educator and counselor, started writing her own books about sexuality at her clients' and other therapists' behest.The press currently has a list of eighteen sexual self-awareness titles, including innovative and practical non-fiction with non-judgmental techniques for strengthening sexual communication. Down There Press also publishes lively literary and photographic erotica.

The Alchemy of Love and Lust: How Our Sex Hormones Influence Our Relationships


Theresa L. Crenshaw - 1996
    By understanding these hidden hormonal agendas, we can influence them in return and enjoy happier, more fulfilling lives and relationships, while fully appreciating the characteristic differences between the sexes.Dr. Theresa Crenshaw, a renowned sex therapist, explains how body chemicals dictate our sexual peaks and cycles from adolescence to old age. The result of three decades of research that incorporates the most up-to-date findings, including the latest information on DHEA's potential health benefits, The Alchemy of Love and Lust is an eye-opening tour of key hormones and their link to moods, desires, and feelings in both men and women. Dr. Crenshaw shows how: Hormones may be behind the phenomenon of "love at first sight" Couples can become addicted to each other through scent and touch A specific hormone may keep men from making commitments Menopause can actually be prevented -- while sexual pleasure is increased Sex hormones improve the quality of life and, in many cases, our longevity

This Sex Which is Not One


Luce Irigaray - 1977
    In eleven acute and widely ranging essays, Irigaray reconsiders the question of female sexuality in a variety of contexts that are relevant to current discussion of feminist theory and practice. Among the topics she treats are the implications of the thought of Freud and Lacan for understanding womanhood and articulating feminine discourse; classic views on the significance of the difference between male and female sex organs; and the experience of erotic pleasure in men and women. She also takes up explicitly the question of economic exploitation of women; in an astute reading of Marx she shows that the subjection of woman has been institutionalized by her reduction to an object of economic exchange. Throughout Irigaray seeks to dispute and displace male-centered structures of language and thought through a challenging writing practice that takes a first step toward a woman's discourse, a discourse that would put an end to Western culture's enduring phallocentrism. Makin more direct and accessible the subversive challenge of Speculum of the Other Woman, this volume--skillfully translated by Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke--will be essential reading for anyone seriously concerned with contemporary feminist issues.

Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life


Emily Nagoski - 2015
    So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never exist—but as a result of the research that’s gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women’s sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all.The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others’ experiences. Because women vary, and that’s normal.Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm. Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it. Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible.And Emily Nagoski can prove it.