Here are 100 books that Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Sex fans have personally recommended if you like
Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Sex.
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Before children, I had a robust sex drive. When my second daughter was born, poof—it disappeared. Upon asking, I discovered that my friends were also struggling. I immersed myself in the research literature and found solutions—yet was dismayed that this information wasn’t readily available to women. So, I translated the scientific literature into an accessible self-help book. My passion was ignited. I immersed myself in sex education and therapy, publishing my second book based on the experiences of students in a university-level human sexuality course I teach. I find deep meaning translating sexual science for the lay public and helping people gain knowledge and comfort with sex.
This book is written for men about how to pleasure women (with oral sex).
The author, a well-known sex therapist, reveals at the start of the book how he discovered the art of cunnilingus. He suffered from premature ejaculation and thought he could thus never please a woman—until he discovered (in his own words) that “the tongue is mightier than the sword!”
Ian writes from a knowledgeable, compassionate voice, giving readers information and skills to please their female partners. I’ve recommended this book to countless individuals. The term “cliterate” first appeared on the back of this book cover.
When I wanted to use it on my book cover, I called Ian and asked his permission. He graciously said, “Of course! The more cliterate people in the world, the better!”
“Every man’s must-read. Tell your guy to put down the remote and pick up She Comes First.” —Cosmopolitan
Ian Kerner offers a radical new philosophy for pleasuring women in She Comes First—anessential guidebook to oral sex from the author of Be Honest—You’re Not That Into Him Either. The New York Times praises Kerner’s “cool sense of humor and an obsessive desire to inform,” as he “encourages men through an act that many find mystifying.” An indispensable aid to a healthier, more fulfilling sex life for her and him, She Comes First offers techniques and philosophy that have already earned raves…
For most of my 31 years of marriage, my husband and I have walked alongside couples who are preparing for marriage, in the throes of marriage, or trying to salvage their marriage. We get why it’s challenging and absolutely believe that there is hope and healing in the context of marriage for everyone. I’ve written two books on the topic and am passionate about helping couples find the resources they need to grow and strengthen their marriage covenants. Marriage books tend to be a bit shallow and offer quick fixes. We need honest, practical, wise resources if we want to grow.
Most faith-based books on sex focus on male desire, male need, and how wives are supposed to please their men. I find this unhelpful, boring, and unbiblical. Much of what passes as “Christian understanding” with regard to sex in marriage is influenced by culture and drive-by pornography. Gregoire’s book is specific (like really specific), respectful, and empowering.
What if it's not your fault that sex is bad in your marriage?
Based on a groundbreaking in-depth survey of 22,000 Christian women, The Great Sex Rescue unlocks the secrets to what makes some marriages red hot while others fizzle out. Generations of women have grown up with messages about sex that make them feel dirty, used, or invisible, while men have been sold such a cheapened version of sex, they don't know what they're missing. The Great Sex Rescue hopes to turn all of that around, developing a truly biblical view of sex where mutuality, intimacy, and passion reign.…
When I decided to work on my sex life, I devoured both Christian and secular books looking for answers. I not only wanted to understand God’s design for sex, but I also needed help learning to create the amazing sex life that God wanted for me. Since that time, I have taught Awaken Love classes to thousands of Christian women and heard their stories. I continue to look for resources that are empowering for wives, within God’s boundaries, in line with women’s experiences, practical and thought-provoking.
Orgasmshelped me make sense of how my body works and how together, my husband and I could create a mutually satisfying sex life. The detailed illustrations enlightened us on how to align our bodies to hit the right spots – rather than aimlessly thrusting about. Orgasmsis a secular book that is respectfully written but with enough detail to really help.
When I decided to work on my sex life, I devoured both Christian and secular books looking for answers. I not only wanted to understand God’s design for sex, but I also needed help learning to create the amazing sex life that God wanted for me. Since that time, I have taught Awaken Love classes to thousands of Christian women and heard their stories. I continue to look for resources that are empowering for wives, within God’s boundaries, in line with women’s experiences, practical and thought-provoking.
Just the other day I got an email from a wife worried about her aging husband losing confidence, and I immediately recommended All Night Long. Sex doesn’t have to end when our husbands slow down. In fact, sex can get better than it has ever been before because change is an opportunity for growth. This book is filled with activities that will help boost your confidence and make your sex life sizzle.
This book is not about Viagra -- it is about making love. Getting older really does mean getting better. As millions of baby boomers are passing the fifty-year mark, concern for their sex lives is reaching epidemic proportions. This book makes it clear -- sex at fifty, and beyond, can be the best sex yet! By taking the mystery out of the ageing process, this book educates, reassures, and reinvigorates. The key is to remember that we live in a fast-paced society, where not getting there quickly enough sometimes means losing out -- but this is not the case with…
My experience is derived from actual experience and my fight to survive. I found it within me to keep my wits about me and think, think, think about my surroundings and my assailant's movements and vulnerabilities. I waited for the one and only moment I would have to escape. Once free, I sought help and I told my story again and again until I found justice.
It introduced me to the status of women in ancient times when society worshipped the moon, a feminine deity. Women led religious rituals and they were regarded as the givers of life. By contrast, by the time of King David, man worshipped the Sun, a male deity, and women's status was lowered to become regarded as mere bearers of life.
Here is a classic study of the feminine principle in myths, dreams, and religious symbolism. In presenting the archetypal foundations of feminine psychology, the author shows how the ancient religious initiations of the moon goddess symbolized the development of the emotions. Understanding the psychological meaning of these initiations, she believes, can help to heal the troubled relations between men and women today.
Growing up I never thought I would become a sex therapist. But I suffered terribly from sexual dysfunction as a young adult and I had no one to talk to. I felt alone and isolated, and disconnected from a vital part of being alive. I wrote about my personal experiences in She Comes First and how I eventually found my way out of the fog of sexual anxiety and despair. But that meant going against the grain of how I thought sex was supposed to go. Today I’m dedicated to having those real conversations with real people and helping people give their “sexual selves” a voice so they can connect with others.
In her compelling book, Elisabeth Lloyd examines whether or not the female orgasm is an evolutionary adaptation resulting from the process of natural selection, or rather an evolutional by-product – like male nipples.
Ms. Lloyd examines twenty-one theories that seek to promote the female orgasm as an adaptation – from the role of orgasm in helping to facilitate the pair-bonding process to upsucking and sperm-competition – and finds each and every one of them lacking.
As a sex therapist I receive emails daily from women who are unable to achieve orgasm via intercourse and wonder, "What can I do to change this? What's wrong with me?" Well if we stop thinking of female and male orgasms as something that "naturally" should result from intercourse, we can liberate both men and women from the oppressive intercourse-discourse (a belief that there's a right way to have orgasms, and simultaneous ones at that).
Why women evolved to have orgasms--when most of their primate relatives don't--is a persistent mystery among evolutionary biologists. In pursuing this mystery, Elisabeth Lloyd arrives at another: How could anything as inadequate as the evolutionary explanations of the female orgasm have passed muster as science? A judicious and revealing look at all twenty evolutionary accounts of the trait of human female orgasm, Lloyd's book is at the same time a case study of how certain biases steer science astray.
Over the past fifteen years, the effect of sexist or male-centered approaches to science has been hotly debated. Drawing especially on…
I have worked in the mental health profession for over forty years. Currently, I serve as Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London, and as Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health at Regent’s University London, as well as Honorary Director of Research at the Freud Museum London. I also hold posts as Chair of the Scholars Committee of the British Psychoanalytic Council and as Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, and I have authored eighteen books and have served as series editor for some eighty-five further titles.
I regard myself as a big fan of Dr. David Scharff, founder of the International Psychotherapy Institute, based in Bethesda, Maryland, who has become one of the planet’s most esteemed psychoanalysts.
Scharff, along with his spouse, Dr. Jill Scharff, has pioneered the field of couple psychotherapy in the United States of America. Based on his clinical insights, he has produced a lucid, groundbreaking book about the childhood and adolescent origins of the sexual complications of adulthood, which has provided me with much wisdom about the ways in which marital sexual difficulties can be traced back to earlier experiences from the prepubertal and pubertal periods of life. Although intended predominantly for fellow mental health clinicians, Scharff’s book will appeal to a very wide readership indeed.
Dr. David Scharff explores the role of sexuality in human relationships by combining his extensive experience in individual, marital, family, and sex therapy with theoretical contributions from object relations theory and child development.
I am a scholar of global politics, and I am drawn to psychoanalysis because it studies the unseen in politics, or rather, those things that are often in plain sight but remain unacknowledged. For example, why is it that, especially in this information economy, we are well aware of the inequality and environmental destruction that our current capitalist system is based on, but we still continue to invest in it (through shopping, taking out loans, using credit cards, etc.)? Psychoanalysis says that it's because we are unconsciously seduced by capitalism—we love shopping despite knowing about the socioeconomic and environmental dangers of doing it. I’m fascinated by that process of disavowal.
This is one of the most intriguing books published in recent times, in my view, providing a lucid and beautifully written psychoanalytic account of both the strangeness and emancipatory potential of sexuality.
Sex for Zupančič is not about genital sexuality. Instead, it has an amorphous and undefinable quality to it; and this lack of meaning implies we can never get enough of it—e.g., the reason porn watchers get hooked on porn is because even the “full” view of sexual activity doesn’t quite satisfy, so one looks for more “fullness” (which one never finds) and watches more porn. And this elusiveness is what sex is about.
I love that Zupančič draws out the political potential of this viewpoint, seeing the excess and indefinability of sex as “trouble”/“troubling,” opening up ways for the subject to break out of the everyday status quo.
Why sexuality is at the point of a “short circuit” between ontology and epistemology.
Consider sublimation—conventionally understood as a substitute satisfaction for missing sexual satisfaction. But what if, as Lacan claims, we can get exactly the same satisfaction that we get from sex from talking (or writing, painting, praying, or other activities)? The point is not to explain the satisfaction from talking by pointing to its sexual origin, but that the satisfaction from talking is itself sexual. The satisfaction from talking contains a key to sexual satisfaction (and not the other way around)—even a key to sexuality itself and its…
I have worked in the mental health profession for over forty years. Currently, I serve as Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London, and as Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health at Regent’s University London, as well as Honorary Director of Research at the Freud Museum London. I also hold posts as Chair of the Scholars Committee of the British Psychoanalytic Council and as Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, and I have authored eighteen books and have served as series editor for some eighty-five further titles.
I have had a huge crush on Herr Professor Sigmund Freud since my undergraduate days. Back in the nineteenth century, most physicians locked up “lunatics” in local insane asylums with no endeavour to treat mental illness at all, but Freud challenged that negligent approach by having created the discipline of “talking therapy”, engaging in a very warm-hearted and sympathetic manner with his many analysands.
His classic monograph of 1905 on sexuality has taught me so very much throughout my career and has helped me to speak to my patients with frankness and curiosity about the challenges of their sexual histories and sexual preoccupations. In my estimation, Freud deserves credit not only as the founder of modern psychotherapy but also as the creator of contemporary sexology as well.
Available for the first time in English, the 1905 edition of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality presents Sigmund Freud's thought in a form new to all but a few ardent students of his work.
This is a Freud absent the Oedipal complex, which came to dominate his ideas and subsequent editions of these essays. In its stead is an autoerotic theory of sexual development, a sexuality transcending binary categorization. This is psychoanalysis freed from ideas that have often brought it into conflict with the ethical and political convictions of modern readers, practitioners, and theorists.
I’ve been pondering philosophical questions and trying to understand my queer sexuality since childhood. While checking out The Portable Nietzsche in my high school library, the librarian warned me the philosopher was “a bad man.” Then I had to read the book, which not only taught me to become critical of all forms of authority, but also, perhaps paradoxically, empowered me to embrace my queerness. As a college and graduate student, I studied many of the American academic movements based in Continental philosophy grouped under the rubric, “theory.” When queer theory emerged in the early 1990s’, I found a place for myself. I'm convinced that we should never stop putting our identities under critique.
Beyond Sexuality is the most consequential psychoanalytic intervention in queer theory.
Much of queer theory has used Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality to reject or downplay psychoanalysis. Dean argues that psychoanalysis, particularly in the writings and seminars of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, offers a far more useful theoretical model.
Such theorists as Judith Butler misconstrue sexual desire by focusing on identity, rather than language and its effects. Desire, according to psychoanalysis, does not arise from our identifications—not even our gender identifications—but from the failures of identity. Desire is not constructed in language but manifests precisely where language breaks down.
Beyond Sexuality also offers a psychoanalytic reading of HIV/AIDS in the aftermath of the AIDS crisis.
Combining psychoanalytic emphasis on the unconscious with a respect for the historical variability of sexual identities, this work of queer theory makes the case for vewing erotic desire as fundamentally impersonal. Dean develops a reading of Jacques Lacan that - rather than straightening out this notoriously difficult French psychoanalyst - brings out the queer tensions and productive incoherencies in his account of desire. Dean shows that Lacanian unconscious "deheterosexualizes" desire, and along the way he reveals how psychoanalytic thinkers as well as queer theorists have failed to exploit the full potential of this conception of desire. The book elaborates this…