Book Reviews
“The most important book is the one you haven’t read yet.”
The literature of love, romance and sex help us better understand the wonders and vulnerabilities of human sexuality.
We curate and update our collection regularly, so check back often. And check out the Love & Sexcess Bookstore for great discount prices.
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Sweet Liar – Recommendation
New York Times Bestselling author Laurelin Paige is offering up a sizzling hot gift, just in time form Christmas. Great gift for your lover or yourself.
We haven’t read this one, so no review, but we’ve read loads of Laurelin Paige – see Fixed On You book review (shelf/row 13) – and this one promises to be as erotically romantic and exquisitely sexual as her other bestsellers.
“An off the charts STEAMY“May/December” romance between a sexy and powerful British businessman and a beautiful and starry-eyed college coed.” – Patty, Wrapped Up in Reading
Why is the Penis Shaped Like That? – Review
“You may be surprised to discover just how highly specialized a tool the penis is.”
If the penis could talk, what a story it would tell. Because it is a work of art that is “highly specialized,” popular, talented and ignored.
The penis is known throughout the world by all the men and the vast majority of women and yet, so little is known about “him” (seems only right to call him a “him.” Actually, many have a nickname, known to only a handful of insiders).
Why the dichotomy? It’s certainly not because he’s unimportant or not liked or unpopular.
He’s everywhere and yet who he really is, and why he acts the way he does is a mystery to both owners and his sought-after companion, vagina owners.
Sex for One – Recommendation
“Masturbation is the joyful and ongoing love affair that each of us has with ourselves throughout childhood, adulthood, and the golden years of old age.”
Amazon review:
The classic guide to fully enjoying the pleasures of self-love, full of warmth, intelligence, and informative line drawings.
Confronting one of our last and most deeply rooted taboos—masturbation—noted sex expert and pro-sex feminist Betty Dodson, Ph.D., takes the shame out of self-love by creating a straightforward and appealing guidebook that reveals masturbation as a satisfying, vital form of sexual expression.
Dr. Dodson demonstrates how anyone can learn to make love alone with feelings of guilt or loneliness, and explains why masturbation is sexually and spiritually fulfilling for both men and women.
Sex for One demonstrates that self-loving is not just for times in-between lovers or for social misfits. Masturbation is the joyful and ongoing love affair that each of us has with ourselves throughout childhood, adulthood, and the golden years of old age.
Buy at Amazon>>
For much more visit Betty Dobson’s website >>
Coming soon to a bookstore near you – Recommendation
We need all the knowledge, insight and guidance we can get when it comes to sex. Get some from Getting It
Note: Book publishes Dec. 29, 2020. Pre-order at Amazon
Getting It by Allison Moon, author and sex educator, has penned a pragmatic book that helps us understand what casual sex means and offers an instructive and empowering deep dive into how to get it, do it well, and feel great about it every step of the way.
Read more from Amazon>>
More The Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) – Recommendation
“There is no glory in a grind that literally grinds you down to dust.”
Amazon review:
Throughout her life, Elaine Welteroth has climbed the ranks of media and fashion, shattering ceilings along the way. In this riveting and timely memoir, the groundbreaking journalist unpacks lessons on race, identity, and success through her own journey, from navigating her way as the unstoppable child of an unlikely interracial marriage in small-town California to finding herself on the frontlines of a modern movement for the next generation of change makers.
Welteroth moves beyond the headlines and highlight reels to share the profound lessons and struggles of being a barrier-breaker across so many intersections. As a young boss and often the only Black woman in the room, she’s had enough of the world telling her—and all women—they’re not enough. As she learns to rely on herself by looking both inward and upward, we’re ultimately reminded that we’re more than enough.
Book available at Amazon >>
I Love Female Orgasms – Review
We can never know too much about the wonderful complexity of women’s orgasms. It’s an endless reservoir of sexual pleasure.
“It’s still a radical act to say that women need and deserve access to information about their own sexual pleasure.”
What men and women don’t know about sex and their sexuality is one of the great disservices of our society, not to mention a debilitating depression of our potential for happiness and fulfillment.
This is a great book if you want orgasms to be an endless source of pleasure and fulfillment. And it covers much more than just orgasms, everything from masturbation and oral sex to female ejaculation and sex toys.
To not read this book before expecting great sex is … well, inexcusable, unless you’re already having marvelous and multiple orgasms every time you have sex … right?
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (20% off).
Unhooked – Review
Wow! Ouch! And WTF? Every parent should know all of this if they expect to be a good parent, guide and coach in all the things that matter in their daughter’s sexual life. If not, every daughter needs to read this book.
“Hooking up offers girls the opportunity to exert their independence, explore their sexual desires and capabilities and try to keep their emotional lives under control. But some experts in the field of adolescence, even as they acknowledge the upsides, say hooking up can also act as an obstacle to real intimacy, which they call the hallmark of a satisfying adult life. They see potential for long-term dangers to young women and young men—physical, emotional and practical—if hooking up comes to define a way of being.”
These stories about the sex lives of late high school and college-age girls are honest, revealing, fascinating and wonderfully ‘educational.’ Even if you don’t read the whole book, buy it and read a few of the stories. And at the end, “A Letter to Mothers and Daughters,” by the author is worth the price of the book.
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (20% off).
Sexually Woke– Review
What if it were possible to have the best sex of your life at 40, or even 70?
The wisdom of midlife sex is essential to living life to the fullest and being true to ourselves and this book tells us what we don’t yet realize.
Someone once said, “Life is all practice until your forty.” Perspicacious. And mostly true. Especially in our sex lives. Some of us learn from practice and trial and error, others don’t, and for those who need more insight this book is a treasure trove.
OB/GNY, Dr. Susan Hardwick-Smith, has crafted a book that shares the intimate experiences of hundreds of her patients, giving women everywhere so much of what they need to know in growing their sexual being into fulfillment.
Read Book Review >>
Laid – Review
“Seventeen years old, three sexual partners, and zero pleasant experiences or relationships to justify any of them. I realized that if this was getting laid, maybe I should try standing up.” – Shannon Boodram
Every story in this book is a raw and revealing. Boodram has edited these real-life stories into five chapters based on five common young-adult sexual scenarios: hook ups, positive experiences, physical consequences, date rape, and abstinence.
Each story is like talking with a best friend and Boodram’s purpose is to help young women free themselves from the myths and traps of their sex lives and discover what an amazing sex life can be.
“Hooking up is nothing more than settling; it is the microwavable burrito of sex.”
Don’t have less sex, have more romance.
Read Book Review >>
Buy the book at Indigo or Amazon.
Open Me – Review
This is fiction running on the edge of reality. The story of a virgin-once-removed and a summer of sexual exploration that goes beyond coming-of-age to a deep emotional and physical pursuit of sexual freedom and inner discovery.
“The love you feel is for yourself, Roxana. It is freedom speaking its joy to you.”
Forget Nancy Drew, Harlequin Dare and porn, every teenage girl should read Open Me – as well as every thirty-something woman who left too many things unsaid and undone back then. This can take the reader a long way toward avoiding the regret of later saying, ‘If only I’d known then, what I know now.’
“His shuddering, shaking breaths. ‘Power, I thought, power, power. My power.”
Exquisitely written, erotically narrated, it is eye opening, heart opening, sex opening.
Highly recommended!
Read Book Review >>
Buy the book at Indigo or Amazon.
The Second Sex – Review
This book is as important today as it was seventy years ago (1949) and not unlike Tarana Burke raising awareness for women’s rights with #MeToo, so too did Simone de Beauvoir. Today’s older elitists who still feel awkward under the #MeToo banner would not be so uncomfortable if they had read The Second Sex. They would be strong proponents of #MeToo.
This book should be on every woman’s bookshelf, and man’s – anyone who wants to better understand the reality that is woman. The fight for women’s rights started long before this but this is where the roots of the #MeToo movement made a significant surge forward. de Beauvoir was a literary force, a scholar, an intellect and an independent, sexually unconventional woman.
“A free woman may refuse to be owned without wanting to renounce … her yearning to be possessed.”
In many ways, de Beauvoir saw the line between sexual men and sexual predators and the difference between sexual advances and the advancement of men’s accountability. The distinction is critically important too both women and men.
Read Book Review >>
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (20% off) >>
Passionista – Review
Ladies, this fascinating, non-fiction book has damn near everything you need to know about him, sexually speaking, right down to his perineum.
And guys, forget giving her a dozen roses, give her this book. Roses don’t last, this will last forever – or at least as long as you’re having sex with her.
This is all about him – we mean all!
This is not your average sex-tips and techniques manual – although it’s engorged with blood-rushing advice and hands-on specificity about almost every emotion, hang-up and inch of a man – things a guy never knows about himself and what a woman needs to know if she has any intentions of being a great lover.
This book eradicates denial, our denial that we know so very little about sex, about our partner’s true needs, about the physical, chemical and emotional way our bodies respond to sex. This lack of knowledge is inexcusable!
“Sex is the one place where, if there’s enough love and trust in the other person’s genuine desire, the sheer pleasure of letting go can be experienced in a concert of all the senses, which is not only sexually cathartic, but can be emotionally bonding in a way unparalleled by any other form of human interaction.”
An important caveat in all this exploration is that “the relationship must be strong enough to bend and grow without breaking.” It requires trust, honesty and love.
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (20% off).
Pussy: A Reclamation – Review
“My charge to you – as a doctor who has spent a lifetime assisting women in healing their bodies – is that you have the courage to read Pussy: A Reclamation.” – Dr. Christiana Northrup.
The title of this book grabs your attention but it is the content that will grab your inner spirit and lift the real woman in you into the light of reality, possibility, opportunity, pleasure, beauty and personal growth. Its mission: No more devaluing what is, in fact, the source of immense power, strength, love, pleasure and … life itself: Woman!
“Female sexual pleasure, rightly understood, is not just about sexuality, or just about pleasure. It serves, also, as a medium of female self-knowledge and hopefulness; female creativity and courage; female focus and initiative; female bliss and transcendence; and as medium of a sensibility that feels very much like freedom. To understand the vagina properly is to realize that it is not only coextensive with the female brain, but is also, essentially, part of the female soul.” — Naomi Wolf
We put this book into the must-read category for any woman who wants to embrace who she is, as an independent woman who has the confidence to live her life the way she wants it lived.
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (20% off).
Use Your Mouth– Review
“Watch their feet, not their mouth.”
The old axiom above is for measuring the value of a person’s actions over their words – and it’s a good guide – but Shamyra Howard’s short, pithy book, Use Your Mouth, puts a whole new emphasis on the value of our mouth, particularly as a starter for some of the more difficult conversations about intimacy we need to have with our partners.
This is a quick, easy, insightful read and a good first step in building, renewing or rehabilitating one of the most important cornerstones in a relationship – communications.
“Your brain is your largest sexual organ.” – Shamyra
In the context of how our brain is hard-wired to our sexuality, Shamyra covers how it responds to intimacy and we need to understand this connection. But there is another connection that should be explored – the amount of knowledge in our brain that fuels and fosters all conversation.
Here’s a quick review of a must-read book if you want to kick-start more and better conversations about intimacy. Plus, some other recommended reading and resources. Read more, learn more, love more!
Erotic Integrity – Review
“Complacency is the death of intimacy and eroticism.” – Dr. Claudia Six,
Complacency is the first-cousin of ignorance and together they stop most of us from ever realizing our human potential. Nowhere is that more common, or more disastrous, than in our sexual lives. Put in colloquial terms: As long as we’re faking it, we’re losing.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates
Dr. Six has coined a most appropriate nomenclature that reflects Socrates’s ancient principle. She states, “Erotic integrity begins when we examine who we are sexually and erotically.” Socrates would have agreed and might have said, “The unexamined sexual life is not worth a good, damn fuck.” Or something like that – you get the idea. Certainly, he would have recommended reading this book.
Dr. Six sets out three basic steps for achieving a more rewarding sex life and takes on that doubt-ridden voice that’s incessantly yammering in your head and addresses, with candor, a whole bunch of common, everyday – and not so everyday – questions.
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (25% off).
Delta of Venus by – Review
“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.”– Anais Nin
The literary value of this book is inherently evident and as important as the erotic value, and these short stories are part of the undervalued social contribution made by erotic literature across recent history, from D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1915) to The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis (2011). Written in the 1940s, not published until 1977, Anais Nin (1903-1977) crafted this exotic collection for an erotic collector (perhaps the Jeffrey Epstein of the day?).
“Women (and I) have never separated sex from feeling, from love of the whole man.” – Anais Nin
Nin was an exquisite French writer of female erotica and one of the first to write erotica. Her rhythmic narratives weave characters through sexually explicit scenes as naturally as the wanderings in their lives, and as raw. In keeping with her principle, she wrote what most writers were “unable to say.”
Nin’s writing has been instrumental in raising classic, erotic literature to a comfort level, and an acceptance of human sexuality, that is above the bigotry of puritan sex education and religion. Today’s erotica has much to thank Nin for and yet, most cannot equal her gift.
Mathilde – a short story by Anais Nin
Mathilde’s pleasure in caressing the men was so immense, and their hands passed over her body and fondled her so completely, so continuously, that she rarely had an orgasm.
Mathilde wanted to heighten her value by resistance, and she was on her guard when they entered the cabin. She had easily rebuffed the audacious hands of the men she brushed against when marketing, the sly buttock pats by the husbands of her clients, the pinching of her nipples by male friends who invited her to the movies. None of this stirred her. She had a vague but tenacious idea of what could stir her. She wanted to be courted with mysterious language. This had been determined by her first adventure, as a girl of sixteen.
A fascinating 15 minute read.
12 Rules for Good Men – Review
With only 12 rules to apply it’s possible most men can do this – get better at being good men. We all know most men don’t bother reading instruction manuals or asking for directions but this is one time it’s worth making an exception to the rule – or the deeply ingrained bad habit.
“The only way to get rid of a bad habit is to replace it with a good habit.” – Og Mandino
Reading Jed Diamond’s book, 12 Rules for Good Men should be that exception. It’s diagnostic – digs into our billion year history, which is enlightening – and prescriptive but it’s not like reading how to fix a washing machine manual. And women should read it – if they give a damn about their man. Or the next man they meet. Or all men – even the misogynists. It can go a long way to understanding them, and in the end, that’s good for women.
In the Introduction, Diamond sets the stage for the book with three key questions:
- Did I live a fully authentic life?
- Did I love deeply and well?
- Did I make a positive difference in the world?
The goal is to answer these question with an emphatic YES. And reading this book is a good first step in getting to the a yes for all three. And for #2, there are dozens of books on how to be better at love and sex, several of them review in our Book Review section.
The Vagina Bible – Review
Long before a “bunch of guys” wrote the Bible in the 10th century B.C., our cave-dwelling ancestors lived according to a litany of mythical beliefs, knowing little about their evolutionary partners’ anatomy and biology – and caring even less. Fast-forward 3000 years and most men, particularly elected Neanderthals in legislatures, haven’t evolved at all, still stuck in Biblical mythology.
Dr. Jen Gunter, a gynecologist and author of The Vagina Bible, has written an informative and insightful Bible for women, which is also essential reading for men. So much so, she’s sending copies to the entire US Congress.
“I prefer to think about menstruation as a natural resource,” she said. “Every person on the planet owes their life to it.” – Dr. Jen Gunter
Gunter is on a mission to eradicate the ignorance that causes so many problems for women and speaks to the men’s ignorance of female biology, sexual anatomy and reproductive wonders – especially in legislative assemblies (Canada too),
This book should be in every man’s to-read pile, on his bedside table. Of course, every intellectually curious woman will find it enlightening.
The Game of Desire – Review
“Skillful seduction is not a gift bestowed on the beautiful, it’s a series of learned behaviors acquired by the bold.”
This book is a must-read if you want to build a fulfilling, romantic, satisfying sex-filled life for yourself. And Shannon Boodram is the kind of woman you will want to read, listen to and follow. She’s a sexpert and a regular contributor to Playboy Advisor.
Between the covers of this book is all you need to know – well, almost all – about how to become a master dater in sixty days. Despite our deep human need for close, comfortable, safe relationships we do so very little to understand, practice and improve them, just bouncing from one to another with no learning, no reflection, no inner discovery.
This book can change that!
It covers everything from “making dating your favorite hobby” and “how to make your best dating profile” to “how and why woman should make the first move” and “why applying vaginal fluids to other body parts (e.g., neck) can make you irresistible.”
Great Sex, Naturally – Review
One-in-four women, over 40 million American women, “struggle with diminished libido … and 63% of women experience sexual dysfunction during their lives and low sexual desire is their most frequent concern.”
This should concern every woman – and every man who loves a woman. BTW, this doesn’t happen only in ‘mid-life,’ it happens to many women in their 20s and 30s. So if you desire prime sex in the prime of your life, read this book.
It should be on every couple’s bookshelf. It’s chock-full of not just good foods for good sex but a breakdown of ingredients and supplements that make for healthy living and better sex – everything from nutrition and aphrodisiacs to erectile dysfunction and exercise.
And everyone should know, as recommended by Dr. Laurie Steelsmith, the “Dynamic Dozen: Super-libido foods to enhance your great sex diet.”
And read the article on aphrodisiac foods, “Lose Weight, Gain Sex.” >>
Good reading. Good eating. Good sex!
Dash of Peril – Review
“She imagined sex with Dash would be … fine. Satisfying, sure … No risk. No danger.”
Lori Foster sells a lot of books for good reason: Nitty-gritty, real, raw stories as backdrop for nitty-gritty, real, raw sexual attraction.
This one puts a tough, take-no-crap female cop in close proximity to, you guessed it, a tough, handsome hunk with a too-much-of-a-pun-intend name, Dash Riske. Com’on with the double-barreled, two-pun names. Just because solving the abduction of women and sex trafficking is a dangerous dash to justice, filled with peril, risk and risqué sex, it doesn’t warrant cornball names. But cover to cover …
Story of O – Review
“I read Story of O and I think, you know, if you’ve read Story of O you’ve kind of read the ultimate.” —J. K. ROWLING
J. K. Rowling knows a thing or two about “the ultimate” in storytelling and when it comes to the ultimate in erotic, sadomasochistic fiction, Story of O can take its place alongside the Marquis de Sade’s classic erotica, including Justine.
“Depending on your erotic wishes and habits, Story of O will disturb you, frighten you, make you angry, make you upset, confuse you, disgust you, or turn you on. Maybe everything at once. Decades after its publication, the novel has not lost its shock value.”
Half a century ago, Pauline Reage dared to tell this tale of dark obsession and try to shock us out of our apathy and ignorance of our deep sexual desires and needs. This book will make you think about your own human sexuality without ever having to experience what she does, and that is the good fortune of its contribution.
“Story of O is one of those books which marks the reader, which leaves him/her not quite, or not at all, the same as he/she was before he read it.”
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (20% off).
The Billionaire’s Innocent – Review
“Zair groaned, and Nora thought it was the best thing she’d ever heard.”
It’s not likely that groans can be interpreted as “love” because no matter how rich they are, they groan just like everyone else. Except in this tale of a billionaire and his innocent young woman, things aren’t the same and perhaps on the other side of the groans and deep sexual desire there is a silver (and much gold) lining.
Nora Grant’s innocence could be the undoing of the tough, polished, wealthy royal Zair al Ruyi. Or, in such twisted tales, something unexpected and unimaginable.
Rose Blooms – Review
97% of people frequently have sexual fantasies and sex with multiple partners is the fantasy of choice.
If you are not fantasizing, you are in the minority – and probably haven’t even read this far. For all the rest of you, welcome to the crowd. Fantasy is good. And when not ‘in your own head,’ what better place to explore and stimulate your world of fantasy than in a hot, page-turning story?
Rose Blooms is one of those stories. Hot. Intriguing. Down and dirty. Real – according to research. The book is custom-tailored to the most common and popular fantasy, group sex, but goes one-step, one person further. It’s about two couples, neighbors, Rose and Andy Shaw and Jordan and and Louis. Louis and Jordan’s relationship is the proverbial ‘new chapter’ for Rose and Andy, and the fake veneer is ripped off of both couples true desires. Something many of us need.
A quick, hot story running on the edge of reality.
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (25% off).
Tell Me What You Want – Review
“American adults [Canadians too] have a pretty restricted idea of what normal sex is, which is problematic because it leads a lot of people to feel internalized shame about their sexual desires.”
If the old cliche, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” is enough to get you in trouble then what kind of excuse is ignorance of sexual desires? No sexual partner should put up with it – if either one of you give a fuck about the other.
This book exposes our huge, sexual icebergs and reveals the power of uncovering fantasies and opening up oceans of new sexual exploration. It’s so chock-full of information, insight and stories that we’ve provide a small sampling in this review to give you a cross-section of what you can discover.
Madonna and Britney Spears sing the praises of sexual fantasies (video included in review) and we highly recommend that after listening to the music you buy the book and read it – together.
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (25% off).
Three Women – Review
Three women’s stories that prove reality can be more compelling than fiction.
Unfulfilled desire could not be more needed, more real. More riveting. This is non-fiction storytelling at its best, revealing the pain, pleasure and hypocrisies of love, marriage, infatuation and lust in heterosexual partnerships, everywhere. Well, at least in these three women’s lives. These real-life dramas rival the Greek tragedies of Sophocles – he skipped the sex, these women don’t.
What the fuck do you know about young women. We don’t remember what we want to remember. We remember what we can’t forget. (Maggie)
Reading the stories, it’s hard to imagine that any woman – let alone three – could be this embroiled in wrenching emotional voids and remain sane enough to tell their stories of unrequited love, As sad as the might be, they should allow every female reader to walk away with a renewed sense of self and a reinvigorated strength to pursue her own needs and desires.
Bonus
At the end, Lisa Taddeo includes notes for a reading group discussion and she answers a number of FAQ questions. Any reading group who wants to further the goals of #MeToo, or #WeTwo, should make this a book-of-the-month assignment.
Read Book Review >>
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (25% off).
Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny – Review
#MeToo keeps hitting a brick wall and it’s held together, brick by brick by women who support misogyny, intentionally and unintentionally.
Too many women want the status quo of a patriarchal society and they support misogyny.
Manne describes how misogyny is deeply embedded, and that purging it from our society can be metaphorically the social equivalent of trying to rid California of the threat of wild fires. Damn near impossible. The essence of her explanation – articulated in lucid prose – is anchored in the male-female roles that we are all aware of: “Givers and takers.” Darwin would say, it’s the origin of the species. Women are givers, men are takers and it’s as innate as “natural selection,” “sexual selection,” and the culturally coded behavior we witness everyday.
If there is anywhere a woman can change a man’s perspective, it’s in a loving relationship – key word, loving. If the love is not there, equally, it won’t work. But if it is there, a woman can give her man more of what he needs and get more of what she needs because she is, naturally and genetically, the primary “giver.” She has the power. (#Powherful).
#MeToo needs #WeTwo – the power of two, two lovers, together, taking on the insidious foundation of misogyny.
Read Book Review >>
Buy the book at the Love & Sexcess Bookstore (20% off).
The Happiness Curve – Review
Every “Thirty-Something” woman and man should read this book if you want happiness to pave your road through life, especially the dreaded “midlife crisis.”
“Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research.” – Carl Jung
Carl Jung was a little premature in his age prediction. The bottom of the slump is in the mid-to-late forties and renewal begins around fifty. In fact, the forties are usually the most disruptive and a time when marriages and partnerships are at greatest risk. The “good, the bad and the ugly” all seem to converge during this time.
Jung’s point about “research” is a good one and it should start in your thirties, and it can get off to a good start with this excellent book.
“Every thinking adult should read this stimulating intellectual adventure story, which is also a genuinely helpful guidebook to life.”– Scott Stossel, National Editor, The Atlantic
Not to read this book while your in your thirties is to drive your fancy-ass, red sports car into the dark unknown of your forties – with no road map, no headlights on and your partner not wearing a seat belt. As in crazy – stupid.
Manhood: The Bare Reality – Review
Inside a man’s heart, mind, body and soul … and what he thinks of his manhood. 100 men open up their deepest thoughts – and bathrobes – in these short, perspicacious stories that every woman should read, should want to read – and want to know.
What women do not know about men could fill a book – a whole fuckin’ library – and yet, too few have much inclination to want to better understand the men they love and live and sleep with. This predilection toward ignorance is a curse on a relationship and sexual illiteracy about a lover undermines a loving relationship. A woman’s innate, culturally embedded tendency to feel embarrassment or shame about the bare realities of a man is … well, self-destructive.
Laura Dodsworth has done it again (see other books) as she rips the covers off the guilt, discomfort and indifference and opens up the possibilities for women – and men – to better realize the bare realities of love – of self and someone else.
“Penises are so linked to our psyche. Language says it all, we call a penis our ‘manhood’.”
What else could a woman hope for than to truly know the reality of her man? So pull up a chair ladies and read about what men think, in their own words.
“It’s really hard to be a man sometimes.”
Come As You Are – 2nd Review
In concert with the article, “The G-spot doesn’t exist,” we are re-posting our book review of Dr. Emily Nagoski’s excellent work, Come As You Are. It’s a must-read if you don’t want to continue stuck in the quicksand of everything else related to the wonders of sex. We continually highlight people like Emily Nagoski because they make a great contribution to the understanding our human sexuality.
We’ve been lied to about women’s sexuality and the truth is very different. It’s quite normal, very exciting and easily understood. Read this New York Times bestseller and learn enough knowledge and guidance to affect the rest of our sex life, and all of life itself.
“This book contains information that I have seen transform women’s sexual well-being. I’ve seen it transform men’s understanding of their women partners.”
This is a sex gold mine, from nuggets to the motherload. No matter your age, your stresses, your hang ups, Dr. Nagoski scientifically proves so many things that are critical to your sexual being. It is a wealth of information waiting for you to explore, mine, mull, muse and use to transform your sex life.
For sex, and your sexual being, to be the best that it can be, requires – like all things worthwhile – understanding, which in turn requires knowledge, which in turn requires dedication and practice. And practice makes perfect … as in perfect ecstasy.
Are You Scaring Him Away? – Review
Their “fear” tells you more than anything else – and that should make you fearful.
“Immature men scare easily. … they are terrified of relationships. They run for the hills.”
Brian Nox writes many pithy, insightful books and this is one of them (also see, Fck Him!). This is a short, breezy and right to the point. Basically, women should never waste their time and precious resources fuckin’ around with shallow, immature, frightened men.
Frightened of commitment. Actually, frightened of women – strong, high-standard women. If you are one, they’ll know it soon enough and disappear. If you aren’t, then learn how to become one and then you disappear when caught in a relationship with one of these guys. Unfortunately, there’s too many of them.
But as Brian Nox says, “there’s an abundance of great men out there.” But you won’t find them until you “change your inner-self, your understanding and behavior.”
“Men are big kids. It’s sometimes easier to use some reverse psychology, just as you would while raising a rebellious three-year old.”
This book is more about you than him. And worth the read.
The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity – Review
“Affairs and secrets go hand in hand, and this book contains many secrets.”
A must-read for “anyone who has ever loved.” That’s almost all of us. And certainly for those of us who have experienced infidelity as a victim or perpetrator. That’s at least half of us.
“Why do happy people cheat?”
This book can start an important conversation about fidelity, desire, jealousy, honesty and forgiveness. It asks you to get beyond sexual and emotional taboos and understand our many varied personal and cultural attitudes about love, lust, sex and commitment – and why we risk it all.
Through deeply, personal stories, we learn how couples have worked their way to the other side and how it can be worth trying. Because most of us only have one or two, or maybe three, long-term relationships and before giving up on the current one, perhaps it can become a new relationship, together.
“No aspect of a couple’s life elicits more fear, gossip, or fascination than an affair.”
If the old maxim, “You can’t solve a problem until you understand it” is true, then this book is your pathway to understanding and solving one of life’s bigger problems.
F♥ck Him! – Review
“Fuck him in this case is not physical, it’s mental.”
The author starts the book by saying, “I am in no way talking about the sexual act,” and then offers insights, advice and relationship principles that can go a long way in helping women grow into being a “high-value woman,” a woman who takes no shit from men, gets what she wants and yet, never “plays games” or tries to “impress a man.”
Sounds like where we’d all like to be – women and men – and the author walks you through how to get there.
If your goal is to strengthen your inner self, bring out the real you, be you, not something you think a man wants, then there’s lots between these covers that will help between the covers.
Sex needs to be earned, and sex needs to be enjoyed by the both partners at all times and the author asks you not to think he’s going to run away if you don’t give him enough sex.
“Trying to be sexy never ever is sexy. It’s perceived as weakness by most men.”
F♥ck Him will help you with your emotional intelligence and your raw, emotional needs and show you how to use that knowledge in building the kind of relationship you want, need – and deserve.
Sex: The School of Life – Review
Why is kissing so significant and potentially so exciting?
We live under a cheerful delusion that sex might nowadays be easy. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. This book from The School of Life provides a relief from the loneliness and confusion, explaining how sex truly operates and what it aims at today.
From the physiology of kissing and the psychology of pornography to how our brains and organs respond to erotic stimulation this perspicacious little book is a wonderful sex companion.
Shame means that many couples still find it difficult to be honest with one another about who they are and what they need to feel satisfied. This cuts them off from sources of affection and honesty. Sexual loneliness remains a norm.
It explains how “our desire for sex takes us deep into considerations of ourselves as isolated, lonely creatures” and, most importantly, allows us to delve into understanding our sexual self and through that discover sex that can be “one of the great thrills of life – a source of release, closeness and huge pleasure.”
The Pregnant Widow – Review
This is a boomers’ lament of a time of unrequited love, lust, sex and need. It’s a book club bonanza for endless discussion of characters, human sexuality, feminism, lost lives and the writing genius of Martin Amis.
This book is tailored-made for book club members who want to analyze, parse and compare notes on the spectrum of literary craft and the range of sexual emotions that haunted the young men and women of the 1970s. Times remembered, opportunities lost, potency unrequited.
The plot, for what it’s worth, is like a continuum of foreplay, moving toward some expected climax with the undulations of linguistic arousal brilliantly connecting the episodes of sexual arousal.
Womanhood: The Bare Reality – Review
Every woman should see these photos and read this book
Stories are the threads that weave the fabric of our human consciousness, creating a bond that connects all that is human among us, all that we share in common. And nowhere is it more deeply rooted then in our sexuality, our universal bond.
And nowhere is it more important than among the women of the world.
Laura Dodsworth has captured for women a thread of that sexual bond and in an open, illuminating and enlightened way has laid it bare for all to see and read.
Let us reclaim our womanhood on our terms, in our own words and in our own image.
Women’s stories of their most intimate thoughts, feelings and beliefs come to life in a most intimate sharing of the most intimate words and photos.
Reading these stories is like hanging out with a whole bunch best friends and sharing all – without the social hang ups and condemnation.
Trapeze – Review
Every woman should read Anais Nin’s diaries
This is addictive reading about an addictive life – a woman addicted to a romantic life of love, lust, passion, adventure, lies and truths – and writing beautifully and honestly about all of it.
Nin’s story is not dissimilar to many women’s relationships, except Anais is bold enough to reveal her naked truth in writing, in unexpurgated diaries chronicling her mystifying, often perilous, always unconventional life in the fast-lane of early feminism and taboo sexuality, including bigamy.
“Great lovers never trust each other.”
Her diaries expose the layers and layers of a woman’s relationships with men, the ecstasy of lust, the depth of love, the pain of ‘personal baggage.” She struggles with the aching tension of hurting each other, the triggering of insecurities, the fear of rejection and shares it all, including letters from different lovers that open up their vulnerabilities and psychological traumas.
A must-read for all lovers.
This Is Pleasure – Review
This is a fictional story running on the edge of reality, written for the tens-of-millions of MeToo supporters marching in the big parade across the patriarchal landscape. It peeks behind the forbidden curtain of the movement, revealing a deeper truth, a deeper desire, swirling in the eddy of emotions between a man and a woman.
It’s a tragicomedy. Quin, a charming, delightful man is trying to converse and lament his way through a sexual harassment lawsuit with his good friend, Margot, both desperate to understand the sexual truths lurking in the swamp between male harassers and female victims, not visible in the intensity lights of the MeToo movement.
“Don’t you agree that sex is at the core of personality?” – Q
This is a wonderfully unvarnished story that reveals the fun, the hurt, the pain, the confusion for every man and woman trying to stumble from flirting to sex without getting caught in the quicksand of sexual harassment.
Soulmates – Review
“Soulmates is a deeply compelling, funny and sharply observed look at just how far we will go to achieve inner peace.”—Lena Dunham
“Soulmate” is an endearing descriptor that’s almost as over-used and insincere – certainly as inaccurate – as the word “love.” Everybody in Hollywood “loves” everybody in Hollywood and way too many people “love” Hollywood stars and celebrities, none ever discovering the true meaning of “love,” let alone “soulmate.” But this novel by Jessica Grose comes close as it weaves an intriguing, funny, compelling story of a woman’s rediscovery of her dead, ex-husband.
Fixed On You – Review
“When I fuck you, it will be for free.” – Hudson Pierce
In the real world there is always a cost to ‘fucking,’ which isn’t necessarily bad, as long as you are willing, and want to, pay the price. If the will and the want aren’t there, then it sure as hell isn’t ‘free.’
Fixed On You is a tough fix, despite the great sex, and in this hot-paced story, the fix is in (another bad cliche) from the start, taking the reader on a tense ride of never knowing if the fix gets fixed. The attraction between Alayna, the MBA waitress and her billionaire boss, Hudson, is irresistible and the sex is good, better than either have ever had. But …
The Dying Animal – Review
As The New York Review of Books declares on the cover, “A disturbing masterpiece.” And that it is.
This is a haunting mirror-mirror-on-the-wall story that pokes at the inner dilemma at men’s sexual core, and for women who can never quite reconcile being both a sex object and their sexual self.
Roth’s character, an aging professor trafficking in nubile students, takes us through the last fling of a dying animal. He weaves a self-indulging, male perspective of sexual desire, carnal need, unwanted attachment and desirous boredom, and his student, Consuela, is the means to his ends – unwanted but unavoidable.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – Review
Imagine Downton Abbey but closer to reality. Still with a pompous-ass Lord of the Manor, but a much more independent Countess, much more depth in characters and much more sex. But still the same desperate need for love.
Written in 1928 and banned until 1960, this seminal book is a historical cornerstone in erotic romance, a vanguard that declared life behind the social facade erected by ‘god-fearing’ hypocrites needed to be exposed, and writers can lead the way.
Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure – Review
Published in 1748, this is one of the most banned books in history. And one of the most delightful literary romps through euphemistic, metaphorical and real sex. The writing is a good example of pornography in prose.
The book’s title, Fanny Hill is the anglicisation of the Latin, mons veneris, the mound of Venus. It’s been said that “the book’s language and its protagonist’s character are it’s greatest virtues,” and the illustrations by Édouard-Henri Avril (famous erotic artist of the 18th-19th century) bring to life John Cleland’s honest but “forbidden” imagination. It’s exhibit #1 that the hypocrisy of sex is never-ending. Will we ever emerge from this hypocrisy, ever embrace the psychology and physiology of our natural, phallic desires?
Legal Seduction – Review
This is not a must-read. But if you must, the sex scenes are good, relative to how Harlequin turns the beauty of human complexity into skim milk fiction, lacking the nutritional, healthy ingredients that nourish our deepest desires. But if you want some good sex (who doesn’t) in a quick and easy read, then Legal Seduction is worth a “quickie” in your reading time.
The seduction of a sexy executive assistance is true-to-life, and the sexual encounters believable, if not sensuous. But a hot-shot legal firm brimming with virile young men is a stretch-to-far from the real world of arrogant, asshole lawyers.. The book should be in the National Enquirer section of the library, offering a one-day, headline sensation, including good sex, which makes it like a million other sexual affairs. Unfulfilling.
The Marquis de Sade’s stories are almost as legendary as the man himself – Review
The Marquis de Sade’s infamous novel, Justine, read in the era of Jeffery Epstein and modern day sex trafficking, reveals the unevolved state of the male species and their sexually destructive nature. The Marquis (1740-1814) has been labeled everything from “France’s Shakespeare” and a “philosopher of pornography” to a “rapist and pedophile” – certainly he was a “free spirit” when it came to freedom in sexuality.
But de Sade’s, and Epstein’s, idea of sexual freedom (men’s) is a woman’s imprisonment and Justine’s life story viscerally depicts the carnal violence and sickness these men infest society with. The book is a work of fiction, de Sade’s life was a work of cruelty.
Everyone who supports the MeToo movement needs to better understand the genetic reality women face. The Marquis de Sade did.
Sexus: The Rosy Crucifixion I– Review
Henry Miller (1891-1980) is synonymous with sex, or sexual literature, or as some refer to it, pornographic literature. He was a maestro of the music of sex. More people have heard of him than have read him, and if you’ve only heard of him then you owe it to your own sexual curiosity and appetite to have a serving or two of Miller. Sexus is a smorgasbord.
If we look beyond what some consider outrageously primal sex – and delirious stream of consciousness writing – we see a force that reveals the dominant place sex played in Miller’s life – and most people’s.
The Breast – Review
Vintage Roth. Who else would write a story about a man having a fixation for breasts and then turn into one? This is a literary peep-show, for men and women, to observe the male desires and fetishes of sex and how men are trapped in them. It offers an appreciation of Roth’s loving and candid relationship with human sexuality.
Roth, at his most visceral, weaves romance, sex, fantasy, humor and fate into a narrative shared from a most absurd, anatomical point of view – the ultimate personification of a sexual viewpoint.
Love, Sex, and Other Things You Might Find At The Airport – Review
Any book written by a guy with a first name, Zaron and a designated III after his last name has to be somewhere between good and funny. Well, both he and the book are. It’s like adult advice without adult supervision
It’s what all of us should have read as teenagers, in addition to the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Harry Potter and Stephanie Meyer’s series. If we really want to understand the intrigue of adolescent blossoming and the true mystery of teenage sex, then it would help if we’d had some of the reality served up in Zaron Burnett III’s candid conversation.
