100 books like The Naked Truth

I love this memoir because Robin Rinaldi fiercely loves and trusts herself for being sexual, and shows us from the inside what it means to positively claim our sexuality in midlife.

Rinaldi undertook a brave and vulnerable journey—a year-long break from her companionable but passionless marriage to find passion by pursuing a variety of sexual traditions and relationships with men. Her story is not only an entertaining page-turner, but deeply vulnerable and satisfying. 

She chronicles her heart as well as her body, and reminds us that it is not always easy to take risks—there are challenges, heartaches, and rewards in creating a deeply satisfying life. Further modeling bravery, she also wrote an Atlantic article about transcending the slut shaming she received from writing the book.  

Delightful sexuality in a senior community! What better place to celebrate the different ways that women over 60 can enjoy a happy sex life—with themselves, men, women, or supernatural beings—than in a retirement community during the Pandemic lockdown? 

Stella Fosse skillfully and delightfully weaves stories of confident older women isolated in their cottages, alone or with partners, who know or discover what they want sexually, and find ways to pleasure themselves or others. Although residents are only allowed to wave at each other during their daily masked and distanced walk around the grounds, the more adventurous ones find ways to connect.

The stories all come together and culminate in a joyful post-pandemic unmasking at a romantic ball. Very sweet and positive!  

I love this anthology by women over fifty because it offers such a wide range of truths about our experiences with sex and intimate relationships.

More than fifty essays and poems cover a variety of honest reflections on the exquisite, the good, the not-so-good, and the challenging parts of older women relating sexually to men, to women, and to themselves.

Feelings expressed range from the ambivalence, disappointment, and ecstasy of dating, to the pleasures of being single, to the joy of long-term sex and commitment, to the acceptance of the sometimes sudden movement between these states. Can be read in one or two delicious gulps! 

I recommend this hot and sexy collection of erotic fiction and memoir because for me it doubles as a source of arousal and a mesmerizing glimpse of the range of sexual activities that seniors (mostly hetero, some lesbians, some gay men) imagine and carry out.

From the slow sex of long-term lovers, to hand jobs offered despite arthritic hands or carpel tunnel, to the variety of ways married couples orchestrate hot love-making, to the pleasure of “in-the-meantime” lovers, these stories sizzle and burn. They expand our view of what is sexually possible as we age, and provide an inspiring and stimulating bedside reference for singles and couples of all ages.

To be savored one story at a time, not gulped down as a whole. 

This recently published excavation of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is almost as thick as Beauvoir’s massive tract, but don’t let that put you off. The photo of Beauvoir on the cover conveys an insouciant “Yeah, sure” attitude, and Meryl Atman uncannily channels that sentiment into a dazzlingly authoritative and entertaining discussion of why the overwhelming majority of the criticism of Beauvoir’s famous tome happens to be misguided and wrong. The book is about gender, race, sexuality, class, and privilege, but it isn’t a polemic. It is an exercise in critical reading at its most invigorating.

Yuknavitch's prose is less a narrative and more a visceral experience. Reading it is like being caught in a riptide—disorienting, intense, and ultimately exhilarating. Her exploration of grief, sexuality, and survival doesn’t just skim the surface; it dives deep into the murky waters of human existence.

The raw honesty of her writing is both brutal and beautiful, making you feel like you’ve been handed the author’s very soul—scuffed, scarred, and utterly captivating.

While some aspects of our sexuality are innate, many are born through pivotal sexual experiences in our lives. This book breaks this down and encourages readers to unpack where their sexual desires came from so they can remove shame and have healthy sexual relationships. 

It encouraged me to be introspective about the root of my desires. For so long, I had steered clear of this. I believed that feeling the need to understand the origin of our desires was coming from a place of sex-negativity, an attempt to “justify” our current sexual behavior, which I don’t think requires justification. 

But after reading Morin’s book, I felt I understood my sexual desires better than ever before, and it led to me having more meaningful, passionate, and wild sex.

This is a classic work taking a Darwinian perspective on human sexual behavior. A central theme is that there are sharp differences between male and female sexuality. Male sexuality is more urgent and less discriminating than female sexuality. Males also have a stronger desire than females for sexual variety. This is because males can promote their reproductive success by mating with many females, whereas sexual variety provides no real reproductive advantage for females. Males are in competition with other males for access to mates, especially mates of high reproductive value. The author takes up the question of whether the female orgasm is an adaptation or a by-product of the male organism, concluding that it is a by-product.

Post #metoo there’s a lot more awareness around sexual abuse and assault, but still few books to help readers to understand why it impacts them the way it does. 

In The Courage to Be Me, cartooning psychologist Nina Burrowes presents what we know from the science of sexual trauma, and tells the stories of a group who support each other around their experiences. 

Having several different stories, all illustrated by different comic artists, emphasises the diverse forms that assault and abuse can take, and the ways in which they hit us all differently. Despite the tough topics covered, this is an uplifting book which helps the reader to see their experiences reflected, and to learn some skills for how to look after themselves around what happened with the kindness they deserve.

Again, I loved this book because it examines a young life from an unconventional point of view. How love and perceived romance can occur outside of acceptable cultural norms.

I love that music brings these people together. I love when a book makes me understand how what I might think is wrong or immoral is just another face of love and life.