Posts Tagged ‘books’
Getting Off: A Woman’s Guide to Masturbation
Getting Off: A Woman’s Guide to Masturbation, by Jamye Waxman (Seal Press, 2007), is a jaunty, woman-to-woman guide to everything you need to know about how to “fiddle, twiddle, tug, rub, flick, circle, tap, and tease” — in other words, have “sex with the one person you have to love your whole life.”
Although much of the book reads like an instruction manual for young women just discovering how to pleasure themselves to orgasm, there is much of value for those of us who have been acquainted with our own hot spots for longer than the author has been alive. The illustrations by Molly Crabapple and Waxman’s explanations of different techniques and toys, for example, may lead even seasoned solo sex practioners to experiment with new options.
You’ll be the life of the party if you recount the history of vibrators (doctors invented them to help “cure” women of “hysteria”) or the ways parents used to be instructed to stop their children from — e.g. “Limit the amount of fluids children ingest. Urination draws too much blood — and awareness — to the genitals.” Certainly heed the advice about choosing safe sex toys and keeping them that way, and peruse the marvelous list of sex-positive websites. A good read, with plenty of enticing ideas and tips for enjoying sexy self-love!
America Unzipped: Brian Alexander pulls off the covers
Brian Alexander’s America Unzipped: In Search of Sex and Satisfaction (Harmony, 2008), is one of the most informative and entertaining books about sex that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Alexander, MSNBC.com’s “Sexploration” columnist, set out on a journey to explore the sexual mores and activities of middle America. Do “normal” Americans behave conservatively in the bedroom, or do they indulge in wild sexual expressions — even activities their neighbors and pastors might brand as “deviant” or “perverted”?
Alexander frequented sex parties, worked in a sex shop, explored kink, interviewed porn producers and actresses, attended rope bondage and fire play seminars, and thoroughly immersed himself in the world of non-vanilla sex (while still keeping his clothes on and his marriage vows intact). The result is a book filled with descriptions of the erotic lifestyles of people who might be your nurse, your librarian, a singer in your church choir, or your grandkid’s teacher.
And yes, the people enjoying kinky sex aren’t just the young ones. Alexander doesn’t make a big deal of it when a person he interviews or observes is silver-haired, and that’s one of the pleasures of this book — Boomers and elders who are enthusiastic about sex in any or all of its variations are mingled with all the other sex-positive folks. Kitty, age 50+, poses with her nightie on, then off, her behind to the camera, and posts her photos to a Web site. Don, 49, describes his “magnificent eruptions of bodily fluids” in chat rooms. Debra and Craig, 56, are unmarried swingers “reinventing ourselves” after their divorces. A man and woman, about 70, study elaborate rope-tying techniques at a seminar at the Hyatt. An elderly woman looks through her reading glasses as she uses a kitchen whisk to transmit electricity from a violet wand over the body of her husband. “Then she shocks the bald spot on the back of his head with the attentiveness of a grandmother knitting.”
Personally, I have vanilla and monogamous taste in sex these days (I got what I needed from earlier experimentation), but I support everyone’s right to do whatever they please with other consenting adults. And, I must admit, I find it fun to read about! I did feel a bit queasy at times: Goddess Heather (a bulked-up female bodybuilder dominatrix) “has a junkyard hanging from her cooter. Every one of her fifteen labia piercings holds a chain that reaches the floor, or an old, heavy lock.” A woman (willingly) cowers in a cage at a fetish party. And all that violet wand shocking stuff was, well, shocking. But one of the wonderful things about books and imagination is that we can take magic trips into other people’s experiences and emerge understanding more about the complexity of passion.
The Internet has done a lot to normalize sexual behavior previously thought of as weird or perverse, Alexander points out, whether it’s watching or acting in porn online, hooking up with like-minded folks for fetish parties, discovering where you can buy rubberwear, or whatever you might be seeking.
That leads me to wonder, has the Internet freed you to explore some erotic attraction? What have you done, or considered doing, that wouldn’t have been possible before we all had computers and online access? I invite your comments!
Book Review: For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance
When I received my copy of For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance, I turned first to my own contribution, “Making Joy and Love in Seasoned Bodies.” I found myself moved by my own story of the two devastating automobile accidents that left me with crippling injuries, my fight to reclaim my life and my love of dance, and how my love story with Robert interweaves with my celebration of health and joy.
Then I read every other essay in the book, thrilled by the psychological and social insight in these memoirs and the high literary quality of the collection. Kudos to editor Victoria Zackheim, who hand-picked each writer and edited each essay superbly.
The theme is how women see their bodies, their perspectives shaped by aging, mothers, partners, cancer, injuries, society, and their own obsessions about body image. Each essay is wrenched from the hearts and guts of their authors. The stories are new, yet familiar, because as women, we have experienced them personally or through our friends: a hypercritical mother whom we still try to please; saying goodbye to breasts; facing a loved one’s death; learning to love our bellies; striving for resiliency as we confront our aging. The stories are moving, inspiring, downright riveting.
I am proud to be a part of this exciting book. I recommend it for your holiday gift-giving, and for yourself.
Gloria Steinem: Doing Sixty & Seventy
I was excited to see that Gloria Steinem has written a new book about aging, titled Doing Sixty & Seventy, and eagerly ordered it. When I saw the book — just 68 pages long and printed in a font about three times normal size, I felt cheated. It’s not a “book” — it’s a series of two essays published in hard cover. Once I got past that realization and read the essays, I was glad that I had.
Steinem, one of the most influencial feminist/activists of our time, was the founder of Ms. magazine. She became an inadvertent spokesperson for aging issues after a reporter said to her on her fortieth birthday, “You don’t look forty.”
Her widely quoted reply: “This is what forty looks like. We’ve been lying for so long, who would know?”
Steinem is now seventy-plus, and still radical. In fact, she claims that women get more radical as they age. This book includes her essay, “Doing Sixty,” plus “Into the Seventies,” a preface (which is actually an additional essay) looking back twelve years after writing “Doing Sixty.”
Some tidbits from these thought-provoking essays:
“I used to joke that I thought I was immortal and this caused me to plan poorly.”
“It was only after I’d become an old lady myself that I lost the habit of imposing my sentimental interpretation on old people.”
“For women especially – and for men too, if they’ve been limited by stereotpyes — we’ve traveled past the point when society cares very much about what we do… Though this neglect and invisibility may shock and grieve us greatly at first… it also creates a new freedom to be ourselves — without explanation.”
“I used to think that continuing my past sex life was the height of radicalism. After all, women too old for childbearing were supposed to be too old for sex. Becoming a pioneer dirty old lady seemed a worthwhile goal — which it was, for a while. But continuing the past even out of defiance is very different from progressing. Now I think: Why not take advantage of the hormonal changes that age provides to clear our minds, sharpen our senses, and free whole areas of our brains? Even as I celebrate past pleasures, I wonder: Did I sometimes confuse sex with aerobics?
I’d love to hear from you about any of these or related topics. Please chime in!