The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. The study of sexual physiology -- what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better -- has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists...  more

The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. The study of sexual physiology -- what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better -- has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic. Author Mary Roach devoted two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women -- or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place. 16 illustrations.

Undressed to Impress After the bust out success of The Big Book of Breasts TASCHEN presents the perfect companion, The Big Penis Book. When it comes to pleasure, size doesn't matter; as we all know it's quality, not quantity, that counts. But let's admit it: a big penis is undeniably...  more

Undressed to Impress After the bust out success of The Big Book of Breasts TASCHEN presents the perfect companion, The Big Penis Book. When it comes to pleasure, size doesn't matter; as we all know it's quality, not quantity, that counts. But let's admit it: a big penis is undeniably compelling. Big shoulders, big lapels, and big hair may come and go, but the big penis never goes out of fashion. With those possessing more than 8 inches (20 cm) making up less than 2% of the world's population, this rare accessory will always fascinate. In The Big Penis Book we explore the centuries-old fascination with the large phallus, a fascination common to men and women alike. This hefty book is profusely illustrated with over 400 historic photos of spectacular male endowments, including rare photos of the legendary John Holmes. The majority of the photographs are from the 1970s, when the sexual revolution first freed photographers to depict the male entirely nude. Photographers include Bob Mizer of Athletic Model Guild, David Hurles of Old Reliable, Colt, Falcon, Sierra Domino, Third World, and Champion Studios, with each of these iconic photographers interviewed or profiled, along with information about each of their models. And if this isn't enough, the book closes with a special surprise comparable to the Guinness Book of Records' Norma Stitz featured in The Big Book of Breasts! Can you guess what body part Dian is dissecting next?

When Ayn Carrillo-Gailey confronted her boyfriend about his porn habit, he pronounced her "pornophobic." Determined to prove she wasn't phobic, simply more enlightened, Ayn set out to learn all she could about this phenomenon. Like any good researcher, she added her new quest to her daily To-Do...  more

When Ayn Carrillo-Gailey confronted her boyfriend about his porn habit, he pronounced her "pornophobic." Determined to prove she wasn't phobic, simply more enlightened, Ayn set out to learn all she could about this phenomenon. Like any good researcher, she added her new quest to her daily To-Do list: 1. Drop off dry cleaning 2. Call Mom 3. Visit sex toy store on Melrose Acting as an amateur anthropologist introduced Ayn to a world populated by everyday people. Her quest aroused the curiosity of her female friends: her knitting group quickly turned into informal information sessions, as the women—single or married, involved or not—were desperate for information. What does XXX mean vs. un-rated? What's the difference between topless dancers and strip clubs? Why is some of it actually not that stimulating? And why are men obsessed with it? Along the way, Ayn ditched the porn-obsessed boyfriend, and learned that one should not try to make change from a stripper's G-string tips, nor is the Hustler store the best place to make a first impression on a hot guy. Pornology is the result of one woman's quest to pierce the veil that modestly covers something many women actually want to know about. Suprising, hilarious, informative, and ultimately non-judgmental, this narrative is one readers won't put down—once they admit they're curious enough to pick it up!

When the stewardess brought me off the plane in a wheelchair, I lowered my head. I was too scared to even look at my father. I didn't want to see the disappointment and horror on his face. All that hate I had accumulated for him over the years, all the resentment against him for not...  more

When the stewardess brought me off the plane in a wheelchair, I lowered my head. I was too scared to even look at my father. I didn't want to see the disappointment and horror on his face. All that hate I had accumulated for him over the years, all the resentment against him for not understanding what I was going through, just released with the tears. "So, where are your parents?" the stewardess asked me after a few minutes. "I can't wait here with you much longer." I looked up and wiped my eyes. My father was standing ten feet away. He didn't even recognize me. In the underbelly of Las Vegas, a cesspool of warring biker gangs and seedy strip clubs transformed the gawky, brace-faced Jenna Massoli into the bombshell Jenna Jameson. Today, Jenna Jameson is the biggest star in the history of adult movies, consistently ranked as one of the most beautiful women alive. But behind the glamour and the meteoric rise to fame was a path paved with tragedy and heartbreak. As a teenager drawn into a chaotic world ruled by rape, abuse, and murder, Jenna plunged into a downward spiral of addiction, even as she became one of the most photographed women in adult magazines. Determined to overcome this past, Jenna rebounded in the adult-film business, where she encountered sadistic directors, experienced lovers of both sexes, amorous celebrities (from Howard Stern to Marilyn Manson to Tommy Lee), bitter rival starlets, and finally, glory, as she went on to become the biggest porn star the world has ever seen. But her struggle for happiness did not end when the accolades began. For years she wrestled with her resentment at her estranged father, the loneliness of growing up from the age of two without a mother, and her enduring childhood desire to find a man who could give her the security and love she never had. Her unforgettable memoir is many things at once: a shocking sexual history, an insider's guide to the secret workings of the billion-dollar adult-film industry, and a gripping thriller that probes deep into Jenna's dark past. An unparalleled exploration of sexual freedom, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star ventures far beyond the flesh, into the heart-shredding tragedies and adrenaline-pumping triumphs of a woman who has already lived a hundred lifetimes. Always witty and humorous even as she faces the demons of her past, Jenna offers hilarious anecdotes about one of the most controversial businesses in history, and shares outrageous advice, including her ten commandments of dating and sex, how to become a "suitcase pimp," and how to make it in the business as a female (or a male). Add to this never-before-seen photographs from Jenna's private collection and others taken exclusively for this book, and the result is certain to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.

At a time when almost any victimless sexual practice has its public advocates and almost every sexual act is fit for the front page, the easiest, least harmful, and most universal one is embarrassing, discomforting, and genuinely radical when openly acknowledged. Masturbation may be the last...  more

At a time when almost any victimless sexual practice has its public advocates and almost every sexual act is fit for the front page, the easiest, least harmful, and most universal one is embarrassing, discomforting, and genuinely radical when openly acknowledged. Masturbation may be the last taboo. But this is not a holdover from a more benighted age. The ancient world cared little about the subject; it was a backwater of Jewish and Christian teaching about sexuality. In fact, solitary sex as a serious moral issue can be dated with a precision rare in cultural history; Laqueur identifies it with the publication of the anonymous tract Onania in about 1722. Masturbation is a creation of the Enlightenment, of some of its most important figures, and of the most profound changes it unleashed. It is modern. It worried at first not conservatives, but progressives. It was the first truly democratic sexuality that could be of ethical interest for women as much as for men, for boys and girls as much as for their elders. The book's range is vast. It begins with the prehistory of solitary sex in the Bible and ends with third-wave feminism, conceptual artists, and the Web. It explains how and why this humble and once obscure means of sexual gratification became the evil twin -- or the perfect instance -- of the great virtues of modern humanity and commercial society: individual moral autonomy and privacy, creativity and the imagination, abundance and desire.

Sex. No other city in America capitalizes on the power of sex like Las Vegas. Author Jack Sheehan, a writer who has lived in Las Vegas for thirty years and knows the true dark side of the city, pulls back the curtain of the adult sex industry and examines the lives of the people give Sin City...  more

Sex. No other city in America capitalizes on the power of sex like Las Vegas. Author Jack Sheehan, a writer who has lived in Las Vegas for thirty years and knows the true dark side of the city, pulls back the curtain of the adult sex industry and examines the lives of the people give Sin City its naughty reputation. Jack was able to get XXX-rated film stars, the top madam in town, beautiful call girls who command $1,000 per hour and up, swingers, and the most alluring exotic dancers on the Strip to tell him everything, both on and off the job and how anything goes in the arena of sexual self-expression. Sheehan discusses his visit to the largest adult video convention in the world, accompanied by a porn star who has appeared in over 300 films, to attend the Adult Video News Awards. He then talks with Mayor Oscar Goodman, Sheriff Bill Young, and casino owner Steve Wynn to discuss their concerns over the sex industry's role in Las Vegas. Skin City focuses on those whose names will never be on marquees but are the ones who create the legendary mystique of Las Vegas. It's a story that's never been told but lurks in the fantasies of us all.

Indecent is not your average I-stripped-my-way-through-college memoir. Sarah Katherine Lewis is a veteran of the sex industry who started small — doing lingerie modeling and striptease shows — but for reasons including the desire to earn more money and curiosity about other types of...  more

Indecent is not your average I-stripped-my-way-through-college memoir. Sarah Katherine Lewis is a veteran of the sex industry who started small — doing lingerie modeling and striptease shows — but for reasons including the desire to earn more money and curiosity about other types of sex work, she moved into porn, and ultimately into illegal work.Lewis is smart, self-aware, and bitingly funny. Where other writers in this genre have generally shielded themselves from letting things get too bad or go too far, Lewis comes face-to-face with the unimaginable. Her experiences with customers, whose fetishes and behaviors range from obscene to bizarre to twisted, are often recounted with outrageous and caustic humor. Lewis is a brilliant observer of human nature and has a read on her employers and coworkers that lends unique insight into the seedy underground of the more hardcore sex industry. Lewis is a sex worker by choice. She neither condemns nor condones the work, though she depicts her experiences with a gallows humor that reveals the complexity of professional adult sex work. Indecent offers readers an insider's account of hard-earned lessons and acute insight gained from over a decade in the trenches of one of America's most insidious and lucrative industries.

Compared to the citizens of just about every other nation, Americans are the least adept at having affairs, have the most trouble enjoying them, and suffer the most in their aftermath and Pamela Druckerman has the facts to prove it. The journalist’s surprising findings...  more

Compared to the citizens of just about every other nation, Americans are the least adept at having affairs, have the most trouble enjoying them, and suffer the most in their aftermath and Pamela Druckerman has the facts to prove it. The journalist’s surprising findings include: Russian spouses don’t count beach resort flings as infidelity South Africans consider drunkenness an adequate excuse for extramarital sex Japanese businessmen believe, “If you pay, it’s not cheating.” Voyeuristic and packed with eyebrow-raising statistics and interviews, Lust in Translation is her funny and fact-filled world tour of infidelity that will give new meaning to the phrase “practicing monogamy.”

Tristan Taormino has dished out sex advice to Howard Stern, Dick Clark, and the Playboy Advisor. Now the best-selling author of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women collects 70 hand-picked reports on everything from lap dancing to group masturbation to lesbian pornography. In these essays,...  more

Tristan Taormino has dished out sex advice to Howard Stern, Dick Clark, and the Playboy Advisor. Now the best-selling author of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women collects 70 hand-picked reports on everything from lap dancing to group masturbation to lesbian pornography. In these essays, Taormino combines explicit passions with an outspoken sexual candor that shocks and amuses readers. Taormino, an award-winning adult film star, is the author of "Pucker Up," a column that appears weekly in The Village Voice.

From the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, massaging female patients to orgasm was a staple of medical practice among Western physicians in the treatment of "hysteria," an ailment once considered both common and chronic in women. Doctors loathed this time-consuming procedure and for centuries...  more

From the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, massaging female patients to orgasm was a staple of medical practice among Western physicians in the treatment of "hysteria," an ailment once considered both common and chronic in women. Doctors loathed this time-consuming procedure and for centuries relied on midwives. Later, they substituted the efficiency of mechanical devices, including the electric vibrator, invented in the 1880s. In The Technology of Orgasm, Rachel Maines offers readers a stimulating, surprising, and often humorous account of hysteria and its treatment throughout the ages, focusing on the development, use, and fall into disrepute of the vibrator as a legitimate medical device.

The only thing the writers in this book have in common is that they've exchanged sex for money. They're PhDs and dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $2,500-a-night call girls and $10 crack hos, and everything in between. This anthology lends a voice to an underrepresented population that is...  more

The only thing the writers in this book have in common is that they've exchanged sex for money. They're PhDs and dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $2,500-a-night call girls and $10 crack hos, and everything in between. This anthology lends a voice to an underrepresented population that is simultaneously reviled and worshipped.Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collection of short memoirs, rants, confessions, nightmares, journalism, and poetry covering life, love, work, family, and yes, sex. The editors gather pieces from the world of industrial sex, including contributions from art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle, best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry (Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent), sex activist and musical diva Candye Kane, women and men right off the streets, girls participating in the first-ever National Summit of Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, and Ruth Morgan Thomas, one of the organizers of the European Sex Work, Human Rights, and Migration Conference. Sex is a billion-dollar industry. Meet the real people who are its flesh and blood.

The author of this book did something so simple and obvious that it never occurred to anyone before: Talked to guys about their use of porn. For decades, experts from every imaginable discipline and political perspective talked about what happens to men when they look at pornography, but none of...  more

The author of this book did something so simple and obvious that it never occurred to anyone before: Talked to guys about their use of porn. For decades, experts from every imaginable discipline and political perspective talked about what happens to men when they look at pornography, but none of them ever bothered to check the accuracy of their remarks against what the men themselves might have to say. David Loftus surveyed men about their experiences, perceptions, attitudes, tastes, and recommendations for social policy; let them say whatever they liked; then compared their comments to what the "experts" have said over the years. The contrast is astounding.

The Middle East has long been something of a mystery to Westerners, and in particular, the sexual mores of the region continue to fascinate. Arabs are often described as being in a state of Islam-induced sexual anxiety and young Muslims? frustrations are said to be exacerbated by increasing...  more

The Middle East has long been something of a mystery to Westerners, and in particular, the sexual mores of the region continue to fascinate. Arabs are often described as being in a state of Islam-induced sexual anxiety and young Muslims? frustrations are said to be exacerbated by increasing exposure to the licentiousness of the West. Here, Middle East expert John R. Bradley sets out to uncover the truth about sex in countries like Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Yemen.  Among many startling revelations, Bradley reports on how "temporary" Islamic marriages allow for illicit sex in the theocracies of Iran and Saudi Arabia; "child brides" that are sold off to older Arab men according to ancient tribal traditions; the hypocrisy that undermines publicized crackdowns on the thriving sex industry in the Persian Gulf; and how, despite widespread denial, homosexuality is still deeply ingrained in the region's social fabric. Richly detailed and nuanced, Behind the Veil of Vice sheds light on a taboo subject and unravels widely held myths about the region. In the process, Bradley also delivers an important message about our own society?s contradictions.

"[Kat] Long covers the great upheavals that have pushed the advantage in the sex wars one way or the other..."?Village Voice ?Long's The Forbidden Apple is a fast-paced and vivid overview documenting the conflicts between evangelical moralists and defenders of sexual expression, commercial and...  more

"[Kat] Long covers the great upheavals that have pushed the advantage in the sex wars one way or the other..."?Village Voice ?Long's The Forbidden Apple is a fast-paced and vivid overview documenting the conflicts between evangelical moralists and defenders of sexual expression, commercial and otherwise.  Anyone interested in New York City or sex will have to pick this up.??Timothy Gilfoyle, author, City of Eros and A Pickpocket?s Tale ?Long has provided a fascinating overview of sex in New York City since the Civil War.  Everything you always wanted to know?and a lot you would never have suspected!??Kevin Baker, author of Strivers Row, Paradise Alley and Dreamland The Forbidden Apple: A Century of Sex & Sin in New York City reveals the endless battle between outlaw sex and moral righteousness that has been fought on the streets of America?s most licentious city. Beginning with Gilded Age New York, where upper-class men of society routinely slummed with prostitutes and burlesque dancers?then wrote scathing condemnations of the ?Lost Sisterhood? for the next day?s papers?and ending with Rudolph Guiliani?s crackdown on the city?s sexual life, The Forbidden Apple details the major trends in New York?s sexual history, including the Victorian-era battles over prostitution; the women?s movement at the turn of the twentieth century; the hedonistic roaring twenties; the rise of Times Square as the city?s sexual epicenter in the 1940s and 1950s; the birth of the gay rights movement in the 1960s; the decadence and pornography of the 1970s, and the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The first-ever comprehensive sexual history of New York City, The Forbidden Apple shows how many of this country?s most important sexual trends got their start in New York, and also demonstrates how the repressive forces of morality and decency have waged war against the forces of sexual liberation and freedom throughout the city?s history. Kat Long is a journalist and author specializing in sexuality and the social history of New York. She was the chief writer of the annual best-selling guidebook Sexy New York City and is the former managing editor of GO Magazine. Her work has been published in Playgirl, The Village Voice, BUST, and other media.

Sex Work Matters brings together sex workers, scholars and activists to present pioneering essays on the economics and sociology of sex work. From insights by sex workers on how they handle money, intimate relationships and daily harassment by the police, to the experience of male and...  more

Sex Work Matters brings together sex workers, scholars and activists to present pioneering essays on the economics and sociology of sex work. From insights by sex workers on how they handle money, intimate relationships and daily harassment by the police, to the experience of male and transgender sex work, this fascinating and original book offers new theoretical frameworks for understanding the sex industry. The result is a vital new contribution to sex-worker rights that explores the topic in new ways, especially its cultural, economic and political dimensions. Readers weary of the sensational and often salacious treatment of the sex industry in the media and literature will find Sex Work Matters refreshing.

A groundbreaking collection of essays on the sex industry. Sex for Sale contains original studies on sex work, its risks and benefits, and its political implications. The book covers areas not commonly researched, including gay and lesbian pornography, telephone sex workers, customers of...  more

A groundbreaking collection of essays on the sex industry. Sex for Sale contains original studies on sex work, its risks and benefits, and its political implications. The book covers areas not commonly researched, including gay and lesbian pornography, telephone sex workers, customers of prostitutes, male and female escorts who work independently, street prostitution, sex tourism, legal prostitution, and strip clubs that cater to women. The book also tracks various trends during the past decade, including the "mainstreaming" and growing acceptance of some types of sexual commerce and the growing criminalization of other types, such as sex trafficking. Sex for Sale offers a window into the lived experiences of sex workers as well as an analysis of the larger gender arrangements and political structures that shape the experiences of workers and their clients. The book greatly contributes to a growing research literature that documents the rich variation, nuances, and complexities in the exchange of sexual services, performances, and products. This book will change the way we understand sex work.

In 1978, seeking an education, a career, and a form of self-expression, Lisa Falour went to New York, where she began a bondage career that spanned two decades. I Was for Sale candidly describes Falour's extraordinary sexual life as a bondage model and her simultaneous pursuit of a career on...  more

In 1978, seeking an education, a career, and a form of self-expression, Lisa Falour went to New York, where she began a bondage career that spanned two decades. I Was for Sale candidly describes Falour's extraordinary sexual life as a bondage model and her simultaneous pursuit of a career on Wall Street. From the back cover: By turns shocking and intriguing, provocative and poignant, 'I Was For Sale' candidly tells of the extraordinary sexual life and practices of a bondage model, and in this instance, one who simultaneously pursued a career on Wall Street. Lisa B. Falour went to New York in the late 1970s seeking education, a career, and self-expression, and ended up "walking on the wildside" as a bondage model for hire. This autobiographical story of a modern-day Betty Page documents New York in the late 1970s, at a time when the punk scene was at its height, and sex, drugs, and rock & roll ruled the streets. From the rich and famous to the poor and notorius, Lisa B. Falour rubbed shoulders with them all. Her book, 'I Was For Sale', stands as a testament to a truly bizarre life and time.

From the Whore of Babylon to Pretty Woman, the exchange of sex for money is often cited as the oldest profession. Now, eminent historian Nils Johan Ringdal delivers a magisterial, extremely readable world history of this most maligned-and most persistent-form of human commerce. Beginning with...  more

From the Whore of Babylon to Pretty Woman, the exchange of sex for money is often cited as the oldest profession. Now, eminent historian Nils Johan Ringdal delivers a magisterial, extremely readable world history of this most maligned-and most persistent-form of human commerce. Beginning with the epic of Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, and ancient cultures from Greece to India and beyond, Love for Sale takes the reader on a tour through the entire recorded history of prostitution up to the modern red-light district. It shows how different societies have dealt with prostitutes: ancient Greece, Rome, and India incorporated them into several social echelons, including the priestess class; their close relations with artists in 19th-century Europe made them muses to the modern sensibility; and the Victorians campaigned against them. Love for Sale closes with Sydney Biddle Barrows, the rise of the sex-workers' rights movement and contemporary "sex-positive" feminism, and a realistic look at the true risks and rewards of prostitution in the present day.

Generations of social thinkers have assumed that access to legitimate paid employment and a decline in the ?double standard? would eliminate the reasons behind women?s participation in prostitution. Yet in both the developing world and in postindustrial cities of the West, sexual commerce has...  more

Generations of social thinkers have assumed that access to legitimate paid employment and a decline in the ?double standard? would eliminate the reasons behind women?s participation in prostitution. Yet in both the developing world and in postindustrial cities of the West, sexual commerce has continued to flourish, diversifying along technological, spatial, and social lines. In this deeply engaging and theoretically provocative study, Elizabeth Bernstein examines the social features that undergird the expansion and diversification of commercialized sex, demonstrating the ways that postindustrial economic and cultural formations have spawned rapid and unforeseen changes in the forms, meanings, and spatial organization of sexual labor.Drawing upon dynamic and innovative research with sex workers, their clients, and state actors, Bernstein argues that in cities such as San Francisco, Stockholm, and Amstersdam, the nature of what is purchased in commercial sexual encounters is also new. Rather than the expedient exchange of cash for sexual relations, what sex workers are increasingly paid to offer their clients is an erotic experience premised upon the performance of authentic interpersonal connection. As such, contemporary sex markets are emblematic of a cultural moment in which the boundaries between intimacy and commerce?and between public life and private?have been radically redrawn. Not simply a compelling exploration of the changing landscape of sex-work, Temporarily Yours ultimately lays bare the intimate intersections of political economy, desire, and culture. (20070612)

Everyone's had it. But for some reason very few want to talk about it. Very few, that is, except the writers at Nerve.com. They've had some pretty bad sex and they have no problem kissing and telling. The stories in this unprecedented collection feature the most hilarious, heartbreaking,...  more

Everyone's had it. But for some reason very few want to talk about it. Very few, that is, except the writers at Nerve.com. They've had some pretty bad sex and they have no problem kissing and telling. The stories in this unprecedented collection feature the most hilarious, heartbreaking, cringeworthy bad sex. We have chest-waxing gone awry; an unsavory attraction to a Frasier look-alike; hours-long hand jobs; Vienna sausages; and much much more. The stories are at once frank, outrageous, funny, and intense. What Nerve has done here should really be considered a public service -- they did it so we wouldn't have to.

Whether deconstructing Bratz dolls or the tragedy of Abu Ghraib, this urgent book reveals that porn has become the mainstream and the mainstream has become porn Sarracino and Scott argue that we no longer have to purchase pornography to get porn because we increasingly live porn in our daily...  more

Whether deconstructing Bratz dolls or the tragedy of Abu Ghraib, this urgent book reveals that porn has become the mainstream and the mainstream has become porn Sarracino and Scott argue that we no longer have to purchase pornography to get porn because we increasingly live porn in our daily lives. Resolutely pro-sex, they contend that, to make the most of our hard-won sexual freedom, we must thoughtfully—and honestly—evaluate what is both liberating and damaging about porn.

Michelle Maverick, a legal prostitute in Neveda, takes you inside the brothel where she works and gives a first-person account of her experiences there. Written in diary format, the book is an excellent source of information for people who frequent or are curious about brothels and also for...  more

Michelle Maverick, a legal prostitute in Neveda, takes you inside the brothel where she works and gives a first-person account of her experiences there. Written in diary format, the book is an excellent source of information for people who frequent or are curious about brothels and also for women who are thinking about entering the business. Unlike other books written about brothels, this one is written by someone on the inside. From the interesting characters she meets and the details of their interludes to the issues faced by a working woman and mother, Michelle addresses it and shares it all in her own words.

Prostitution and Pornography examines debates about the sex industry and the adequacy of the liberal response to critiques of the sex industry. The anthology focuses particularly on the very different ways prostitution and pornography are treated. Unlike other books that deal with the sex...  more

Prostitution and Pornography examines debates about the sex industry and the adequacy of the liberal response to critiques of the sex industry. The anthology focuses particularly on the very different ways prostitution and pornography are treated. Unlike other books that deal with the sex industry, this volume brings together academics and industry veterans and survivors to discuss the ways prostitution, pornography, and other forms of commercial sex are treated, and to ask questions about the role that ideas about the self, personal identity, and freedom play in our attitudes about the sex industry.

In our culture, porn makes the man. So argues Robert Jensen in Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. Jensen's treatise begins with a simple demand: "Be a man." It ends with a defiant response: "I chose to struggle to be a human being." The journey from masculinity to humanity is...  more

In our culture, porn makes the man. So argues Robert Jensen in Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. Jensen's treatise begins with a simple demand: "Be a man." It ends with a defiant response: "I chose to struggle to be a human being." The journey from masculinity to humanity is found in the candid and intelligent exploration of porn's devastating role in defining masculinity. Getting Off seamlessly blends personal anecdotes from Jensen's years as a feminist anti-pornography activist with scholarly research. In his trademark conversational style, he shows how mainstream pornography reinforces social definitions of manhood and influences men's attitudes about women and how to treat them. Pornography is a thriving multi-billion-dollar industry; it drives the direction of emerging media technology. Pornography also makes for complicated politics. These days, anti-porn arguments are assumed to be "anti-sex" and thus a critical debate is silenced. This book breaks that silence. Alarming and thought-provoking, Getting Off asks tough, but crucial, questions about pornography, sex, manhood, and the way toward genuine social justice. Robert Jensen is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity.

In Pink Box, photographer Joan Sinclair takes us on a journey inside the secret world of fuzoku (commercial sex) in Japan, a world where kawaii (cute) collides with consumerism and sex. Unrivaled in their creativity and the sheer number of choices, the clubs featured in this book offer their...  more

In Pink Box, photographer Joan Sinclair takes us on a journey inside the secret world of fuzoku (commercial sex) in Japan, a world where kawaii (cute) collides with consumerism and sex. Unrivaled in their creativity and the sheer number of choices, the clubs featured in this book offer their clientele every fantasy imaginable. Subway groping, visits to the nurse's office, and comic book character encounters are just the beginning of the immense list of possibilities that are played out in colorful playrooms for adults where no detail is overlooked. Sinclair's photographs capture it all, while an introduction by sociologist James Farrer provides a brief history of commercial sex in Japan and places the images in the context of contemporary Japanese culture.

Before it was a show business genre, burlesque was an attitude. It was parody, outrageousness, exaggeration, pastiche--even grotesquerie. If in 19th- and 20th-century America the term came to signify a variety show of light comedy, dance, and strip tease, eventually descending to a plateau of...  more

Before it was a show business genre, burlesque was an attitude. It was parody, outrageousness, exaggeration, pastiche--even grotesquerie. If in 19th- and 20th-century America the term came to signify a variety show of light comedy, dance, and strip tease, eventually descending to a plateau of triviality, cheap sexuality, and predictable gaudy costumes, it has now--Woo Hoo! Ladies!--been resuscitated. (It's amazing what a feminist revolution can accomplish when pasties and sequins are introduced.) In New Burlesque, Katharina Bosse takes a trip across the United States to meet and document every proponent of the unabashed renaissance that she can get her camera lens around. Her colorful series of let-it-all-hang-out portraits of Babette la Fave, Kitten DeVille, Kitty Crimson, Ruby Darling, Dirty Martini, D'Milo, Starlet O'Hara, Scarlette Fever, Ursulina, and their many sisters give a wild, wicked stage to the very grown-up darlings of a new century. Whether pictured in a saloon or a kitchen, by the side of a country road or in front of a parking lot, these dames show it just how they please. Starring Honey Touché, Dagger Lee, Bonnie Dunn, Kitten on the Keys, Zoe Bonini, Queen of Hearts, Farhana, Ming Dynatease, Vivienne Va-Voom, Trixie Tanqueray, Lorelei Lane, and all their friends! Paperback, 6.5 x 9 in. / 96 pgs / 38 color.

Two maverick neuroscientists use the world's largest psychology experiment-the Internet-to study the private activities of millions of men and women around the world, unveiling a revolutionary and shocking new vision of human desire that overturns conventional thinking. For his...  more

Two maverick neuroscientists use the world's largest psychology experiment-the Internet-to study the private activities of millions of men and women around the world, unveiling a revolutionary and shocking new vision of human desire that overturns conventional thinking. For his groundbreaking sexual research, Alfred Kinsey and his team interviewed 18,000 people, relying on them to honestly report their most intimate experiences. Using the Internet, the neuroscientists Ogas and Gaddam quietly observed the raw sexual behaviors of half a billion people. By combining their observations with neuroscience and animal research, these two young neuroscientists finally answer the long-disputed question: what do people really like? Ogas and Gaddam's findings are transforming the way scientists and therapists think about sexual desire. In their startling book, Ogas and Gaddam analyze a "billion wicked thoughts" on the Internet: a billion Web searches, a million individual search histories, a million erotic stories, a half-million erotic videos, a million Web sites, millions of online personal ads, and many other enormous sources of sexual data in order to understand the true differences between male and female desires, including: •Men and women have hardwired sexual cues analogous to our hardwired tastes-there are sexual versions of sweet, sour, salty, savory, and bitter. But men and women are wired with different sets of cues. •The male sexual brain resembles a reckless hunter, while the female sexual brain resembles a cautious detective agency. •Men form their sexual interests during adolescence and rarely change. Women's sexual interests are plastic and change frequently. •The male sexual brain is an "or gate": A single stimulus can arouse it. The female sexual brain is an "and gate": It requires many simultaneous stimuli to arouse it. •When it comes to sexual arousal, men prefer overweight women to underweight women, and a significant number of men seek out erotic images of women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. •Women enjoy writing and sharing erotic stories with other women. The fastest growing genre of erotic stories for women are stories about two heterosexual men having sex. •Though the male sexual brain is much more different from the female sexual brain than is commonly believed, the sexual brain of gay men is virtually identical to that of straight men. Featuring cutting-edge, jaw-dropping science, this wildly entertaining and controversial book helps readers understand their partner's sexual desires with a depth of knowledge unavailable from any other source. Its fascinating and occasionally disturbing findings will rock our modern understanding of sexuality, just as Kinsey's reports did sixty years ago.

Where did the word "love" come from? Has there ever been a gay pope? Who invented the condom? How did Valentine's Day originate? From the lascivious to the romantic, from the hard-core to the scientific and the scholarly, this engaging and eye-opening compendium of little known facts about sex...  more

Where did the word "love" come from? Has there ever been a gay pope? Who invented the condom? How did Valentine's Day originate? From the lascivious to the romantic, from the hard-core to the scientific and the scholarly, this engaging and eye-opening compendium of little known facts about sex is both informative and endlessly entertaining. Employing the same careful research and driven by the unadulterated obsession with roots that made his Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things a bestseller, author Charles Panati explores the histories of myriad unmentionable subjects--dirty words, kissing, risqu clothing, courtship, birth control, drag queens, sexual paraphernalia, wedding rituals--and brings them into the light of day where they belong. Without flinching, winking, or talking down to his audience, he offers straightforward explanations of terms and practices of widespread interest to humans yet not commonly discussed. He also helps clarify many confusing and controversial issues of human sexuality. Filled with facts and historical anecdotes that are sure to surprise even the most informed reader, this rich new collection of browsable information is as fun and provocative as its subject matter.

Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science—as well as religious and cultural institutions—has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and...  more

Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science—as well as religious and cultural institutions—has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages. How can reality be reconciled with the accepted narrative? It can't be, according to renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda JethÁ. While debunking almost everything we "know" about sex, they offer a bold alternative explanation in this provocative and brilliant book. Ryan and JethÁ's central contention is that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. Human beings everywhere and in every era have confronted the same familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways. The authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity. With intelligence, humor, and wonder, Ryan and JethÁ show how our promiscuous past haunts our struggles over monogamy, sexual orientation, and family dynamics. They explore why long-term fidelity can be so difficult for so many; why sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens; why many middle-aged men risk everything for transient affairs with younger women; why homosexuality persists in the face of standard evolutionary logic; and what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality. In the tradition of the best historical and scientific writing, Sex at Dawn unapologetically upends unwarranted assumptions and unfounded conclusions while offering a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do.

When a bad boyfriend leaves with the contents of her checking account, professor and novelist Angell (The Illusionist; Wings; etc.) decides to stabilize her finances by responding to an ad seeking escorts. Surprisingly, the world she enters isn't all that different from the Boston dating scene...  more

When a bad boyfriend leaves with the contents of her checking account, professor and novelist Angell (The Illusionist; Wings; etc.) decides to stabilize her finances by responding to an ad seeking escorts. Surprisingly, the world she enters isn't all that different from the Boston dating scene she already knew; it's just far more lucrative. At least her clients are relatively clear about what they want, and Angell is able to teach by day and have "dates" by night for more than three years. Separation of her two worlds is crucial but not difficult: "what we do as prostitutes... does not constitute sex in our minds." The characters who populate this tour are often sympathetic, as is Angell, though her repeated assurances sometimes ring hollow in the face of her after-hours job's drug use, abuse and manipulative behavior. To process her own participation in prostitution, and to feed the fascinated responses of others, Angell eventually teaches a university-level class on its history that is, ironically, partly responsible for advancing her career to the point where she stops doing "calls" altogether. It also helped that she was nearly busted by an undercover cop, lost a dear friend to drugs and committed the faux pas of falling in love with a client. Now married, Angell winds down with a call to legalize prostitution to encourage regulation of this vast industry. Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Equal parts memoir, how-to and social satire, Mistress Ruby Ties it Together is a guided tour through New York's S underworld, where the author worked as a professional dominatrix to subsidize her writing career.  As Mistress Ruby, this former Catholic school girl took confessions from...  more

Equal parts memoir, how-to and social satire, Mistress Ruby Ties it Together is a guided tour through New York's S underworld, where the author worked as a professional dominatrix to subsidize her writing career.  As Mistress Ruby, this former Catholic school girl took confessions from some of the country's most powerful men.  Within the sanctity of the dungeon, they revealed to her their darkest lusts, fears and frailties -- as well as their sincere desire to connect with the opposite sex.  Each of these provocative essays provides an insider's view of human deviation; together, they present a startling portrait of our everyday selves. Mistress Ruby is a striking, candid, and humorous look behind the dungeon doors to a darker -- and often unexplored -- side of human nature.

Having originally landed in Japan in 2003 after college at McGill to work as a kindergarten teacher, Jacobson was fired from her job at the Happy Learning English School in Yokosuka city because the psychiatrist she saw for anxiety revealed her condition in a letter to her employer. Outspoken...  more

Having originally landed in Japan in 2003 after college at McGill to work as a kindergarten teacher, Jacobson was fired from her job at the Happy Learning English School in Yokosuka city because the psychiatrist she saw for anxiety revealed her condition in a letter to her employer. Outspoken about discrimination against women in Japanese society, fond of drinking and prone to eating disorders and self-cutting, Jacobson drifted among teaching jobs before settling into the more lucrative but taxing employment as a hostess at the Palace, on Tokyo's Ginza strip, where the reigning mama-san taught her the fine art of being a decorative bar flower who serves men drinks and light conversation without being touched. Jacobson soon found her job leaching into all aspects of her life, and the paid dates, drinking and partying prompted a destructive spiral of cutting and blacking out. Truly fascinated by Japanese mores, Jacobson nonetheless elevates her story with compelling digressions into ukiyo (the floating world), geisha tradition and the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, among other topics, for a candid version of cultural immersion. 

Penis envy? P'shaw. From the bestselling author of How to Make Your Man Behave In 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers comes (ahem) The Clitourist, a witty and empowering guide to the hottest spot on a woman's body. For something so important to so many, there is a...  more

Penis envy? P'shaw. From the bestselling author of How to Make Your Man Behave In 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers comes (ahem) The Clitourist, a witty and empowering guide to the hottest spot on a woman's body. For something so important to so many, there is a shocking lack of information available on the clitoris. An intimate biography of a gal's best friend, The Clitourist boldly attempts to fill that void, educating and entertaining the reader on every level, from structure and function to care and upkeep, not to mention handy dandy arousal methods. And though funny, The Clitourist is not afraid to tackle the really tough questions like, if we can put a man on the moon, why not on a woman's clitoris during intercourse? As revolutionary in subject matter as The Vagina Monologues, as frank as Sex and the City, The Clitourist is a celebration of the female body as well as just a plain hoot that women will delight in buying for themselves, their sisters, and their friends (and heck, maybe even their moms and grandmothers, too). It's a gift for anyone who has a clitoris, and for anyone who loves someone who has one. (And that's a lot of people!)Test your cliteracy:True or false:* The clitoris is the only organ found on either men or women that exists for pleasure alone, hence many scientists' belief that women's genitals are more highly evolved than men's.* Vibrators were invented in the 1800s by Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville as a psychological cureall for women.Answers: All too true!

Lust brings out the liar in everyone. Every erection has Pinocchio written up and down its length—yes, everybody wants to be REAL, a real boy, an honest woman, unafraid and upright—but then desire, the ultimate honesty, does us in. Desire doesn't give a whit about shame. Our secrets,...  more

Lust brings out the liar in everyone. Every erection has Pinocchio written up and down its length—yes, everybody wants to be REAL, a real boy, an honest woman, unafraid and upright—but then desire, the ultimate honesty, does us in. Desire doesn't give a whit about shame. Our secrets, our exaggerations and distractions, it's all just a lot of twisting in the wind as far as sex is concerned—what we want WILL come out. "Is our sexuality a basic, good, and precious thing that somehow became terribly misunderstood? Or is there something really evil out there in Sex Land that attaches itself to our libidos and is only held back by vigilance and caution?" asks Susie Bright in her bestselling book The Sexual State of the Union. Bright pushes the borders of propriety until they blur and become irrelevant in the face of our inherent need to touch and be touched. With candor and passion, Susie Bright proves that sexual knowledge can indeed be salvation and inspiration.

Susie Bright has gained a reputation as one of the world's leading writers on sex and sexual politics. Bright's stories in magazines like Salon, Playboy, and Bust have drawn cultish followings, and her books are national bestsellers. Mommy's Little Girl contains selected writing since the birth...  more

Susie Bright has gained a reputation as one of the world's leading writers on sex and sexual politics. Bright's stories in magazines like Salon, Playboy, and Bust have drawn cultish followings, and her books are national bestsellers. Mommy's Little Girl contains selected writing since the birth of Bright's now twelve-year-old daughter, Aretha. Challenging the idea that a woman cannot be a mother and sex goddess at the same time, this book positions Bright as a beacon of hope for women who feel that their days of openness about their sexuality must come to an end after they have a child. Bright describes how her daughter and her classmates have made her aware of how sexually charged children are these days, yet dangerously lack a proper education about their own bodies. From reminiscing on her role as "lesbian consultant" to the directors of The Matrix to her hilarious instruction for both men and women on how to ruin their sex lives in twelve easy steps, Bright's always provocative, often hilarious prose is sure to appeal to anyone with a heartbeat, and tops it off with the perfect end to perfect sex - a recipe for lustful cherry pie!

For the first time, porn legend Aiden Shaw takes fans behind-the-scenes to the gay adult film world that made him a star. My Undoing ventures from locales such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and London, to the sets of premiere studios like Falcon, Catalina, and Studio 200.Yet, this is...  more

For the first time, porn legend Aiden Shaw takes fans behind-the-scenes to the gay adult film world that made him a star. My Undoing ventures from locales such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and London, to the sets of premiere studios like Falcon, Catalina, and Studio 200.Yet, this is not the typical adult film memoir, where stars drop names and titillate readers with explicit moments. Although My Undoing shares in unsparing detail all the hot stories about the sex and drugs that fueled Aiden's life, it more profoundly follows him through a course of rocky and unfulfilling relationships. As Aiden eloquently and often humorously points out, the romantic life of an adult film superstar is sometimes lonely and lacking in love. But not love only in the form of a relationship, rather also love from within himself. The book is equally moving for his revelations about his Irish Catholic family, his Positive HIV status in the sex industry, and his recovery from a near fatal car accident that left him temporarily paralyzed.

There is a not-so-new, not-so-secret destination where a growing number of American black men are traveling for the kind of sex and freedom they say they can't find with black women. Thousands of unsuspecting women are kissing their men good-bye while they go on "business" trips to Rio where...  more

There is a not-so-new, not-so-secret destination where a growing number of American black men are traveling for the kind of sex and freedom they say they can't find with black women. Thousands of unsuspecting women are kissing their men good-bye while they go on "business" trips to Rio where they meet up with some of their friends and have sex every way they can imagine-no strings, no hassles, and no conscience. This social worker is a Ph.D. student at the Mandel School of Applied Social Science at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. He is the founder of The Renaissance Male Project Inc. and a New Voices Fellow 2005. He has made appearances on both national and regional television and radio shows, and print publications such as Essence magazine, The Toledo Blade, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

In this hard-hitting anthology, journalist Shannon T. Boodram collects the compelling and personal firsthand accounts of young people dealing with sex in today?s world. Laid covers a range of important topics, from teens? first times to STIs, abstinence to unplanned pregnancies. Boodram, an...  more

In this hard-hitting anthology, journalist Shannon T. Boodram collects the compelling and personal firsthand accounts of young people dealing with sex in today?s world. Laid covers a range of important topics, from teens? first times to STIs, abstinence to unplanned pregnancies. Boodram, an up-and-coming voice for her generation, engages teens and twentysomethings in honest dialogue and explores how they see and experience sex, how and why it shapes their beliefs, and what they have learned about themselves and their sexuality through their actions. Laid is a great conversation-starter, and doesn?t shy away from the personal topics. A great resource for young people, Laid invites teens and young adults to take a close-up look at sex and sexuality. Boodram?s chapters offer more than 40 personal narratives, from both female and male voices, with in-depth analyses, facts, and Q&As to further the discourse. Responsible and thought-provoking, Laid offers a range of honest perspectives on young adult sexuality in today?s easy access culture

The author describes how she worked her way through college as a dominatrix in a midtown Manhattan dungeon, a tenure marked by unchecked risk-taking that eventually gave way to a pit of self destruction from which she had to claw her way out.

What really goes on inside the mysterious VIP room? Find out first-hand, as career stripper Lacey Lane unlocks the doors to the secret sanctums at the center of the action in gentlemen's clubs across America. CONFESSIONS OF A STRIPPER puts you in the middle of the VIP Room, where freaks,...  more

What really goes on inside the mysterious VIP room? Find out first-hand, as career stripper Lacey Lane unlocks the doors to the secret sanctums at the center of the action in gentlemen's clubs across America. CONFESSIONS OF A STRIPPER puts you in the middle of the VIP Room, where freaks, fetishists, scammers, and even normal guys match wits with the dancers. Here, outlandish fantasies are bought and sold, and almost nothing is beyond the realm of possibility. These true stories, culled from Lane's years of performing in dozens of clubs around the country, also provide the lowdown on the ins and outs of the topless trade, including suggestions on tipping, finessing the bouncers, negotiating for services, avoiding sucker traps, and yes, even scoring a date with a dancer.

In this sexy, darkly funny, and surprisingly poignant memoir, famed New York call girl Natalie "Natalia" Mclennan tells her full story for the first time. A cautionary tale about a bright, confident young woman who sells her future for easy money and glamour, "The Price" takes readers inside the...  more

In this sexy, darkly funny, and surprisingly poignant memoir, famed New York call girl Natalie "Natalia" Mclennan tells her full story for the first time. A cautionary tale about a bright, confident young woman who sells her future for easy money and glamour, "The Price" takes readers inside the world of the twenty-five-year-old-girl "New York" magazine labeled "The $2,000-An-Hour Woman."

A former model becomes a hostess at a Tokyo nightclub and discovers the loneliness at the core of this Japanese subculture.

With a recent burst of feature films, documentaries and books on strippers, the business of exotic dancing is hotter than ever. Over the last decade, there has been a steadily expanding interest in exotic dance, from its role as an art form to its benefits as a means of exercise. Themselves...  more

With a recent burst of feature films, documentaries and books on strippers, the business of exotic dancing is hotter than ever. Over the last decade, there has been a steadily expanding interest in exotic dance, from its role as an art form to its benefits as a means of exercise. Themselves former dancers, Egan, Frank and Johnson explore the complex experiences of producing and consuming exotic dance. Their goal in this book is to move beyond the old debates and provide a first-hand look at the world of exotic dancing. The essays here provide personal perspectives and strip bare workplace policies and conditions, legal restrictions, customer behavior and the struggle to overcome the stereotypes associated with the profession.

Professor Gail Dines has written about and researched the porn industry for over two decades. She attends industry conferences, interviews producers and performers, and speaks to hundreds of men and women each year about their experience with porn. Students and educators describe her work as...  more

Professor Gail Dines has written about and researched the porn industry for over two decades. She attends industry conferences, interviews producers and performers, and speaks to hundreds of men and women each year about their experience with porn. Students and educators describe her work as "life changing." In Pornland?the culmination of her life?s work?Dines takes an unflinching look at porn and its affect on our lives. Astonishingly, the average age of first viewing porn is now 11.5 years for boys, and with the advent of the Internet, it?s no surprise that young people are consuming more porn than ever. But, as Dines shows, today?s porn is strikingly different from yesterday?s Playboy. As porn culture has become absorbed into pop culture, a new wave of entrepreneurs are creating porn that is even more hard-core, violent, sexist, and racist. To differentiate their products in a glutted market, producers have created profitable niche products?like teen sex, torture porn, and gonzo?in order to entice a generation of desensitized users. Going from the backstreets to Wall Street, Dines traces the extensive money trail behind this multibillion-dollar industry?one that reaps more profits than the film and music industries combined. Like Big Tobacco?with its powerful lobbying groups and sophisticated business practices?porn companies don?t simply sell products. Rather they influence legislators, partner with mainstream media, and develop new technologies like streaming video for cell phones. Proving that this assembly line of content is actually limiting our sexual freedom, Dines argues that porn?s omnipresence has become a public health concern we can no longer ignore.

Fear of being abandoned keeps nineteen-year-old Harmony Dust trapped in an abusive and cruel relationship. She thinks she has hit bottom-tens of thousands of dollars in debt, struggling to get by, and so controlled by her boyfriend that she doesn't protest when he begins openly sleeping around....  more

Fear of being abandoned keeps nineteen-year-old Harmony Dust trapped in an abusive and cruel relationship. She thinks she has hit bottom-tens of thousands of dollars in debt, struggling to get by, and so controlled by her boyfriend that she doesn't protest when he begins openly sleeping around. Things can't get worse . . . until someone tells her how much money she can make as an exotic dancer. For the next three years, Harmony lives a double life as Monique, a dancer in a fully-nude strip club.

A literary, comic tour de force from San Francisco journalist Bob Armstrong on his rise and fall as a middle-aged, highly-educated, NPR-listening pimp From the world’s most literary ex-pimp comes the wild ride of his band of sexual outlaws through San Francisco’s nightworld. Bob...  more

A literary, comic tour de force from San Francisco journalist Bob Armstrong on his rise and fall as a middle-aged, highly-educated, NPR-listening pimp From the world’s most literary ex-pimp comes the wild ride of his band of sexual outlaws through San Francisco’s nightworld. Bob Armstrong, aka Vanilla Slim, leapt into the darkest corner of the sex industry after living in journalism’s sewer; he was a struggling freelancer and editor of a sex magazine. A sensible and articulate white man far removed from the crime-ridden world he would enter, Armstrong was an unlikely pimp, to be sure. Yet, seeking a taste of danger, he started a prostitution outfit called the Zen Escort Service, charging $500 for a go with one of his girls. His adventures, recounted here in lively and powerful prose, ended with a prison stint. The pimping game has never been portrayed with such style and insight as in VANILLA SLIM, and the mistress of America—San Francisco—has never been undressed quite like this. Armstrong takes readers along as he arranges dates, drives his dolls through the city streets, and waits for them nearby while snorting speed and reading THE NEW REPUBLIC. He strives to understand the women who work for him and the men who call in search of company. And he shows how the streets of San Francisco serve as a fitting playground for an aging libertine to go on a tear. "In the classic tradition, American writers support themselves by driving a cab, working on newspapers or in advertising, or teaching. Not this literary fellow. He set himself up in a cozy little business as a white pimp, handling the nitty-gritty for a group of special service young women…. He tells his story with wit, charm, elegance, and of course a bit of rue concerning his period in jail. This book may be Armstrong’s farewell to the sex trade, but it surely inaugurates a literary career." –Herbert Gold, author of BOHEMIA

Best-selling author Gerrie Lim is back with Invisible Trade II, the surprising sequel to his earlier book, Invisible Trade: High-Class Sex for Sale in Singapore. An incisive expose of the hidden upscale escort industry in Singapore, this fascinating read introduces the women who work in it, the...  more

Best-selling author Gerrie Lim is back with Invisible Trade II, the surprising sequel to his earlier book, Invisible Trade: High-Class Sex for Sale in Singapore. An incisive expose of the hidden upscale escort industry in Singapore, this fascinating read introduces the women who work in it, the men who pay for it and how an entire industry is able to successfully thrive behind closed doors.

So you want to be a call girl? Girlfriend experience was founded in new Jersey in June 2002. Since then, ours service has grown reputable and sought-out in all the North East. Our rapid success has been accomplished through honesty, reliability, and exceptional customer service. Here at GFE we...  more

So you want to be a call girl? Girlfriend experience was founded in new Jersey in June 2002. Since then, ours service has grown reputable and sought-out in all the North East. Our rapid success has been accomplished through honesty, reliability, and exceptional customer service. Here at GFE we value our customers and go the extra mile to show our appreciation by offering them the individual care and attention they deserve. We cater only to upscale clientele that has been screened to ensure the highest level of safety, and our models are individually selected for beauty, class and tenderness. Our reputation has brought us to new heights of success; maintaining this reputation demands excellence, patience, hard work, and motivation.

FOR $6,000 A NIGHT, WOULD YOU? Miss S is smart, sassy, sexually frustrated, and broke. A university art student with rent money due, she spots an ad for a different type of student job - in a brothel. Offered a job on the spot, Miss S is amazed by her new working world. Suddenly, she can earn...  more

FOR $6,000 A NIGHT, WOULD YOU? Miss S is smart, sassy, sexually frustrated, and broke. A university art student with rent money due, she spots an ad for a different type of student job - in a brothel. Offered a job on the spot, Miss S is amazed by her new working world. Suddenly, she can earn enough money doing something she is good at and get all the sex she needs. That is, if she can find a way to fit in with fellow working girls such as Tina the house snitch and Carry the resident shrink... not to mention the bizarre cast of clients. Everyone has a skeleton in their closet, a dirty little secret... you know the one I mean. I don't feel ashamed of mine. People are always interested in the details when they find out what I do, but are slightly ashamed to ask questions. I don't mind, as long as they are discreet. Confessions of a Working Girl is the true and intimate diary of Miss S's extraordinary first year in a brothel, revealing what goes on behind the secret curtains of sex for hire and what a Gemini half hour really involves ...

First song, dress on? ?It sounds like an obvious statement when I say that girls don?t grow up wanting to be strippers, but you?d be surprised. Most people ? civilians that is ? seem to think that even in the cradle we were wrapping ourselves around a greasy pole and grinding our hips to Britney...  more

First song, dress on? ?It sounds like an obvious statement when I say that girls don?t grow up wanting to be strippers, but you?d be surprised. Most people ? civilians that is ? seem to think that even in the cradle we were wrapping ourselves around a greasy pole and grinding our hips to Britney Spears.?When we get drunk the regrets come out. ?I?m a good girl, really I am,? sighs one. She takes a drag of her cigarette and I think to myself, I?m not a good girl. Not really. Not anymore. But I sure as hell would like to be.? With forty-three countries, twelve boats, dozens of flights, a fistful of ?life experience? behind her and a lot of ambition fueling her dreams, twenty-five-year old Ruth Fowler arrives in New York City. A Brit with a Cambridge degree and a middle-class background, she doesn?t think it will be too hard to start a new life. But getting a work visa in post-9/11 U.S.A. proves to be tricky, and to kick-start a writing career, Fowler starts documenting her experiences. She funds her efforts with cash-in-hand jobs and a stint writing for The Village Voice, but it doesn?t take long for funds and hope to run out ? sending her to the heart of Manhattan's dark underbelly, the strip clubs and ?Champagne Rooms? of Times Square. As ?Mimi,? she has a chance of survival. But when this persona threatens to consume every vestige of Fowler?s identity, when her life spirals out of control and her true self remains so deeply buried that it seems impossible to resurrect, relying on ?Mimi? seems like the biggest mistake she has ever made. No Man?s Land is a shocking, raw account about losing identity?and finding it again.

In a small village outside of Phnom Pehn, little children as young as five years old were forced to live as sex slaves. Day after day their hope was slipping away. Tireless workers from International Justice Mission (IJM) infiltrated the ring of brothels and gathered evidence to free the...  more

In a small village outside of Phnom Pehn, little children as young as five years old were forced to live as sex slaves. Day after day their hope was slipping away. Tireless workers from International Justice Mission (IJM) infiltrated the ring of brothels and gathered evidence to free the children. Headed up by former war-crimes investigator Gary Haugen, IJM faced impossible odds-police corruption, death threats, and mission-thwarting tip-offs. But they used their expert legal finesse and high-tech investigative techniques to save the lives of 37 young girls and secured the arrest and conviction of several perpetrators. Terrify No More focuses on this dramatic rescue story, and uses flashbacks to tell those of many other victims who were given a second chance at life by this amazing organization. Readers of John Grisham and Ted Dekker novels will appreciate the suspense, plot twists, and relentless pursuit of justice found in the true story of Terrify No More.

Gene Simmons--mega-rock star, businessman, marketing genius and self-proclaimed free spirit--follows up his bestselling books

A FRANK, FUNNY, EXPLICIT, AND INSPIRING MEMOIR ABOUT HOW DANCING NAKED IN GAY CLUBS IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL HELPED A COLLEGE PROFESSOR DISCOVER HIS TRUE SELF.I felt that I'd made a transformation as surely as Superman slipping out of a phone booth or Wonder Woman doing a sunburst spin. I was...  more

A FRANK, FUNNY, EXPLICIT, AND INSPIRING MEMOIR ABOUT HOW DANCING NAKED IN GAY CLUBS IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL HELPED A COLLEGE PROFESSOR DISCOVER HIS TRUE SELF.I felt that I'd made a transformation as surely as Superman slipping out of a phone booth or Wonder Woman doing a sunburst spin. I was bare-ass in a room of paying strangers, a stripper. After years of wondering what it would be like, I had done it -- faced a fear, defied expectation, embraced a taboo self. It was only the beginning....All I Could Bare is the story of a mild-mannered graduate student who "took the road less clothed" -- a decision that was life changing. Seymour embarked on his journey in the 1990s, when Washington, D.C.'s gay club scene was notoriously no-holds-barred, all the while trying to keep his newfound vocation a secret from his parents and maintain a relation-ship with his boyfriend, Seth. Along the way he met some unforgettable characters -- the fifty-year-old divorcé who's obsessed with a twenty-one-year-old dancer, the celebrated drag diva who hailed from a small town in rural Virginia, and the many straight guys who were "gay for pay." Seymour gives us both the highs (money, adoration, camaraderie) and the lows (an ill-fated attempt at prostitution, a humiliating porn audition). Ultimately coming clean about his secret identity, Seymour breaks through taboos and makes his way from booty-baring stripper to Ph.D.-bearing academic, taking a detour into celebrity journalism and memorably crossing paths with Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Mary J. Blige along the way. Hilarious, insight-ful, and touching, All I Could Bare proves that sometimes the "wrong decision" can lead to the right place.

This compulsively readable book perfectly captures the pop culture zeitgeist. It doesn't hurt that the history of American pornography is inextricably intertwined with all the subjects that captivate us: sex, drugs, beauty, fame, money, the Mafia, law enforcement and violence. McNeil (Please...  more

This compulsively readable book perfectly captures the pop culture zeitgeist. It doesn't hurt that the history of American pornography is inextricably intertwined with all the subjects that captivate us: sex, drugs, beauty, fame, money, the Mafia, law enforcement and violence. McNeil (Please Kill Me) focuses on the industry's dark underbelly: suicide (Savannah), fratricide (the Mitchell brothers), Mafia hits (John Gotti whacked Robert DiBernardo, the mob's point man in the porn business) and gangland slayings (John Holmes). But beyond the scintillating subject, it's McNeil's skillful technique that elevates this oral history, coauthored by journalists Osborne and Pavia, above the tedium of a courtroom transcript. Most chapters contain multiple story lines, which McNeil cleverly weaves together by the end. And the book's two most fascinating stories?about the making of Deep Throat and the Traci Lords child pornography case?involve unreliable narrators, which gives them a Rashomon-like quality. In the case of Deep Throat, the movie that catapulted hardcore pornography into the mainstream, its star, Linda Lovelace, claims she was forced to perform in the movie, though everyone else connected to the film contradicts her. As for Lords, her detractors make a compelling argument that far from being the victim she portrays herself to be in her book, she deceived the industry about her age so she could make a fortune and leverage her sob story into a mainstream Hollywood career. Whether recounting high-profile scandals or answering trivia about the origins of porn films and lap dancing, this is a relentlessly gripping read. -- Publishers Weekly

In this now-classic study, Linda Williams moves beyond the impasse of the anti-porn/anti-censorship debate to analyze what hard-core film pornography is and does--as a genre with a history, as a specific cinematic form, and as part of contemporary discourse on sexuality. For the 1999 edition,...  more

In this now-classic study, Linda Williams moves beyond the impasse of the anti-porn/anti-censorship debate to analyze what hard-core film pornography is and does--as a genre with a history, as a specific cinematic form, and as part of contemporary discourse on sexuality. For the 1999 edition, Williams has written a new preface and a new epilogue, "On/scenities," illustrated with 25 photographs. She has also added a supplementary bibliography.

"A stimulating look at two of today's most controversial subjects. . . . Sure to amaze and titillate anyone who's ever hoisted a videogame controller."-CNN Tech Correspondent Scott SteinbergNo book until Porn & Pong has explored how pornography and video games have influenced America's sexual...  more

"A stimulating look at two of today's most controversial subjects. . . . Sure to amaze and titillate anyone who's ever hoisted a videogame controller."-CNN Tech Correspondent Scott SteinbergNo book until Porn & Pong has explored how pornography and video games have influenced America's sexual mores and technological compulsions on a massive scale.The first Atari systems and their phallic joysticks began to sell by the million along with the rise of the VCR and the modern porn industry. Reality TV skyrocketed the same year as The Sims, and the surgically endowed Pamela Anderson was only outshined by one other woman: Lara Croft.Porn & Pong's publication comes at the time of the release of several highly anticipated adult-oriented games, including a new Leisure Suit Larry, Tomb Raider, and the sequel to the most controversial video game of all time, Grand Theft Auto. Author Damon Brown examines how politics, hidden agendas, and financial pressure affect the controversial art forms of gaming and pornography.Damon Brown writes for Playboy, Spin, New York Post, and the Inspector Gadget column for PlanetOut, the largest gay and lesbian website.

Erotic City is sex-fest central-a hip, upscale swingers club for grown-folks only, located in the heart of Atlanta. It is a grand, three-story sexual mecca where the uninhibited freaks come out four nights a week to get their ultimate groove on without fear of reprisal or judgment, yet judgment...  more

Erotic City is sex-fest central-a hip, upscale swingers club for grown-folks only, located in the heart of Atlanta. It is a grand, three-story sexual mecca where the uninhibited freaks come out four nights a week to get their ultimate groove on without fear of reprisal or judgment, yet judgment from the outside world threatens all that the club's owner, Milan Kennedy, has worked so hard to achieve. Pynk brings us a fast-paced, sexy ride through a world of having sex in public, bribery, judgments, and suspense that sheds light on family, churchgoers, relationships, revenge, and the amazing sex-filled world of those who swing.

An essential manual for anybody who s ever considered a career as a phone sex operator, escort, call girl, exotic dancer, adult film performer or any other kind of sex worker. The actual details of sex work; how to get a job, how to keep yourself safe, how much you can expect to make, how to...  more

An essential manual for anybody who s ever considered a career as a phone sex operator, escort, call girl, exotic dancer, adult film performer or any other kind of sex worker. The actual details of sex work; how to get a job, how to keep yourself safe, how much you can expect to make, how to plan your exit strategy, and more... as well as dozens of juicy anecdotes about life is like between the sheets.

This is a richly detailed account of the way the sex industry works, and one of the few empirical studies that investigates the off street industry in Britain. The book seeks to advance a greater knowledge of the social organisation of the sex industry by uncovering the day to day activities of...  more

This is a richly detailed account of the way the sex industry works, and one of the few empirical studies that investigates the off street industry in Britain. The book seeks to advance a greater knowledge of the social organisation of the sex industry by uncovering the day to day activities of women involved in the indoor markets. What types of occupational risks do women experience in work of this kind? How do these hazards affect their personal lives? A key concern throughout the book is to assess whether women are passive victims of the circumstances of prostitution or whether they understand and calculate their responses to danger. Drawing upon both sociological and criminological theories, and on detailed research in the city of Birmingham, the author addresses these questions by estimating the rationality of those responses and by providing a measure of how women make sense of different risks. Sex Work: a risky business describes how women create complex psychological and emotional techniques to maintain their sanity while selling sex, and goes on to argue that the indoor sex markets in Britain have a distinct 'occupational culture' with a set of social norms, code of conduct and moral hierarchies that make it a high regulated workplace despite its illicit and sometimes illegal nature.

The cliche is that prostitution is the oldest profession. Isn't it time that the subject received a full reference treatment? This major 2-volume set is the first to treat in an inclusive reference what is usually considered a societal failing and the underside of sexuality and economic...  more

The cliche is that prostitution is the oldest profession. Isn't it time that the subject received a full reference treatment? This major 2-volume set is the first to treat in an inclusive reference what is usually considered a societal failing and the underside of sexuality and economic survival. The A-to-Z encyclopedia offers wide-ranging entries related to prostitution and the sex industry, past and present, both worldwide (mostly in the West) and in the United States. The topic of prostitution has high-interest appeal across disciplines, and the narrative entries illuminate literature, art, law, medicine, economics, politics, women's studies, religion, sociology, sexuality, film, popular culture, public health, nonfiction, American and world history, business, gender, media, education, crime, race, technology, performing arts, family, social work, social mores, pornography, the military, tourism, child labor, and more. It is targeted to the general reader, who will gain useful insight into the human race through time via its sex industry and prostitution. An introduction overviews the scope of prostitution from the earliest historical records, including the Bible. User-friendly lists that are alphabetically and topically arranged help the reader find entries of interest, as does the comprehensive index. A chronology proffers significant dates related to the topic. Each entry is signed and has suggestions for further reading. Sample entries: Abolition; Actresses; Augustine, Saint; Barr, Candy; Bible; Camp Followers; Chamberlain-Kahn Bill of 1918; Child Prostitution; Clothing, Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869; Crime; Debby Doesn't Do It for Free; Dickens, Charles; Devadasi; Entrapment; Fallen Woman Trope; Feminism; Films, Cult; Five Points; Free Love; Geisha; Globalization; Guidebooks; Hip-Hop; HIV/AIDS and the Prostitution Rights Movement; Human Rights; Incest; Internet; Jack the Ripper; Kama Sutra; League of Nations; Lulu; Male Stripping; Mann Act; Mayhew, Henry; Memoirs; Migration and Mobility; Nazi Germany; Poetry; Purity Movements; R&R; Religion; Salvation Army; Scapegoating; Slang; Storyville; Temporary Marriage; Unions; Venice; Window Prostitution.

Butterfly explores love for sale in Southeast Asia and the sensuality of the twenty-six young ladies profiled in this erotic odyssey . . . sexual technique, travel, culture, history, politics, and Pattaya's wild celebration of Songkran. In Butterfly, our intrepid photojournalist is writing...  more

Butterfly explores love for sale in Southeast Asia and the sensuality of the twenty-six young ladies profiled in this erotic odyssey . . . sexual technique, travel, culture, history, politics, and Pattaya's wild celebration of Songkran. In Butterfly, our intrepid photojournalist is writing travel guides in Pattaya and Phnom Penh, shooting illustrations, and making love with pretty Thai and Vietnamese women every night. Butterfly is hot, relentless and explicit, a virtual Kama Sutra of sexual variations. . . . told in a man-to-man fashion. Author of ten guides to Southeast Asian destinations, Yang has woven a treasure of travel information into this erotic tour de force.

Drawing on more than fifty interviews in both the US and the Netherlands, Wendy Chapkis captures the wide-ranging experiences of women performing erotic labor and offers a complex, multi-faceted depiction of sex work. Her expansive analytic perspective encompasses both a serious examination of...  more

Drawing on more than fifty interviews in both the US and the Netherlands, Wendy Chapkis captures the wide-ranging experiences of women performing erotic labor and offers a complex, multi-faceted depiction of sex work. Her expansive analytic perspective encompasses both a serious examination of international prostitution policy as well as hands-on accounts of contemporary commercial sexual practices. Scholarly, but never simply academic, this book is explicitly grounded in a concern for how competing political discourses work concretely in the world--to frame policy and define perceptions of AIDS, to mobilize women into opposing camps, to silence some agendas and to promote others.

The Fantasy Factory explores the world of women on the other end of the phone sex lines advertised in magazines like Playboy and Hustler. The author's interviews with these women, as well as her own first-hand experiences as an operator, reveal the complex ways operators and callers...  more

The Fantasy Factory explores the world of women on the other end of the phone sex lines advertised in magazines like Playboy and Hustler. The author's interviews with these women, as well as her own first-hand experiences as an operator, reveal the complex ways operators and callers negotiate the shifting borders between desire and disgust, fantasy and reality, deception and belief. The Fantasy Factory raises provocative questions about the manufacture of artificial intimacy and the technological mediation of intimacy, as well as about the social construction of sexuality and gender. Flowers discovers that operators—who assume names like Tiffany and Corvette—create a virtual reality in which callers can act out fantasies that operators may find boring, disgusting, or even frightening. She also discovers that even those women who are skilled at keeping their "true self" and their phone sex persona separate find that they have to struggle to protect that self and to maintain the ability to experience real intimacy.

Press covergae of the sex trade in Thailand routinely consists of ill-informed, moralising and sensationalist denunciations of the industry. Through the words of sex workers and their clients, acclaimed journalist Jeremy Seabrook reconsiders the popular conception of the sex industry and...  more

Press covergae of the sex trade in Thailand routinely consists of ill-informed, moralising and sensationalist denunciations of the industry. Through the words of sex workers and their clients, acclaimed journalist Jeremy Seabrook reconsiders the popular conception of the sex industry and explores the complex relationship between sex and tourism. In doing so he presents an objective, unmoralizing, and sensitive view of the industry. Travels in the Skin Trade is now reissued with a new Preface.

This book demonstrates the importance of the global sex industry to the field of international politics, exploring the development of the industry and the wider social implications.

Featuring over 120 gritty black-and-white photographs, Red Light: Inside the Sex Industry is a provocative tour of New York City's sexual underground, told in the authentic voices of those who live and work in it.

Selling Sex provides the first comprehensive history of prostitution in Australia from before European colonization to the present, and situates this history within an international context of labor migration and policy formation. It draws on extensive archival research and interviews to chart...  more

Selling Sex provides the first comprehensive history of prostitution in Australia from before European colonization to the present, and situates this history within an international context of labor migration and policy formation. It draws on extensive archival research and interviews to chart the ways in which prostitution contributed not just to women?s economic survival but also to broader processes of colonization and nation-building.

Few things are more misunderstood and cause more fear and suspicion than the combination of female sexuality and the Internet. Naked on the Internet explores how women use cyberspace, personally and professionally, to learn about themselves, connect with others, and make a living. Author Audacia...  more

Few things are more misunderstood and cause more fear and suspicion than the combination of female sexuality and the Internet. Naked on the Internet explores how women use cyberspace, personally and professionally, to learn about themselves, connect with others, and make a living. Author Audacia Ray then goes further, examining the Internet as a valuable — though often problematic — sexual space.Ray combines her insider's knowledge with the voices of a variety of women whose firsthand experiences include camming, chatting, and making websites; dating, hooking up, and forming friendships; sex and relationship blogging; and making porn and doing other forms of sex work. She also examines the power of sexual health and online support communities and the technology that enables physical sexual encounters. Naked on the Internet is a guide to the ways women use, experience, and cash in on the Internet, as well as a critical analysis of the empowering and oppressive aspects of women's online experiences.

Being a sex worker isn’t something to write home about for most women (and men) in the $12 billion-a-year sex industry.Prostitutes, strippers, and adult film stars put themselves, and what they do for a living, out on the street, stage, and TV screen every day, but they often keep their...  more

Being a sex worker isn’t something to write home about for most women (and men) in the $12 billion-a-year sex industry.Prostitutes, strippers, and adult film stars put themselves, and what they do for a living, out on the street, stage, and TV screen every day, but they often keep their working lives hidden from friends, family, and other employers. They do this because sex work is widely considered illegal, unhealthy, and immoral.Edited by Annie Oakley, Working Sex, New Voices from a Changing Industry features stories and contributions from sex workers—strippers, prostitutes, domes, film stars, phone sex operators, and internet models—who are speaking out. This provocative anthology showcases voices from a vibrant community intent on unmasking the jobs they do with dignity and pride. Contributors tackling issues of class, gender, race, labor, and sexuality with blazing insight and critical observations include Michelle Tea, Stephen Elliot, Nomy Lamm, Ana Voog, Vaginal Davis, and Mirha-Soleil Ross.

Emerging from an almost normal suburban family of British emigres, before descending into the life of a teenage prostitute in Hollywood, this is David Sterry's unforgettable chronicle of a season spent walking the razor-sharp edge between painful innocence and the allure of the abyss. Arriving...  more

Emerging from an almost normal suburban family of British emigres, before descending into the life of a teenage prostitute in Hollywood, this is David Sterry's unforgettable chronicle of a season spent walking the razor-sharp edge between painful innocence and the allure of the abyss. Arriving in town to attend college, but desperate for money, Sterry was introduced to a pimp who established him as a male prostitute serving wealthy older women (and occasionally men). Juxtaposed against bitter anecdotes from Sterry's disintegrating family life is an unflinching and fascinating account of the Neverland of post-Sixties sexual excess. The frank descriptions of his 'dates' range from wickedly funny to baroque to deeply disturbing.

Here, for the first time, a modern day escort is prepared to put her name and face to her story and reveal all about what she gets up to behind closed doors. Dispelling the myths and preconceptions that surround her job, Miss X tells all?the glamorous, the grim, and the downright hilarious. A...  more

Here, for the first time, a modern day escort is prepared to put her name and face to her story and reveal all about what she gets up to behind closed doors. Dispelling the myths and preconceptions that surround her job, Miss X tells all?the glamorous, the grim, and the downright hilarious. A frank memoir, with no detail spared, this book gives a unique insight into the intimate adventures of one of Britain's most notorious escorts.

“Delightful . . . Easy to understand and hard to resist, it’s sex education at its prime—accurate, comprehensive, and hilarious.” —NewsweekAn uproarious and authoritative natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all...  more

“Delightful . . . Easy to understand and hard to resist, it’s sex education at its prime—accurate, comprehensive, and hilarious.” —NewsweekAn uproarious and authoritative natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all creation, this bestselling guidebook to sex reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matters—such as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.At once entertaining and wise, Dr. Tatiana (a.k.a. Olivia Judson) fuses natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blends wit and rigor, and reassures her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normal—so long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwin’s theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all. By applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both.

“Do you really want to know what it’s like to be a porn star? Brace yourself, because I’m not going to pull any punches. here’s what a ?busy day at the office’ might mean for me...” So begins the no-holds-barred autobiography of Monica Mayhem?a porn star...  more

“Do you really want to know what it’s like to be a porn star? Brace yourself, because I’m not going to pull any punches. here’s what a ?busy day at the office’ might mean for me...” So begins the no-holds-barred autobiography of Monica Mayhem?a porn star and proud of it. In her funny and disarmingly candid voice, she reveals the ins and outs of making it big in Los Angeles, the pornography capital of the world. Just how did a girl who was taunted at school because her eyes were “too big,” and who carved out a respectable career for herself trading oil futures in the financial markets of Sydney and London, go on to make over four hundred hardcore adult movies (and counting), win numerous industry awards, and even land herself a role in the first Sex and the City movie? From her troubled childhood to her first show at the famous Spearmint Rhino in London to her favorite sex toys, Monica reveals how she built her empire?which now includes hundreds of films, a website, and lucrative burlesque performances. Absolute Mayhem lifts the lid on the sex, rock, and mayhem of Monica’s truly extraordinary professional life and unveils the private person behind it all. 60 color photographs

This anthology takes the ever-controversial discussion of pornography out of solely academic circles; it expands the questions about porn that academics might tackle and opens the conversation to those who know it best?the creators and users of porn. Features essays on non-traditional...  more

This anthology takes the ever-controversial discussion of pornography out of solely academic circles; it expands the questions about porn that academics might tackle and opens the conversation to those who know it best?the creators and users of porn. Features essays on non-traditional issues in porn, including celebrity sex tapes, virtual sex, S&M, homosexual porn, and technology?s impact on the porn industry Features fascinating insights from psychologists, a lawyer, and an English professor, as well as industry insiders such as Dylan Ryder A fun, entertaining, and philosophically provocative approach to pornography, written for the general reader

The secret is out: Women watch porn. A recent study by Glamour magazine found that 87 percent of women ages 25 to 39 enjoy porn as part of their self-defined healthy sexual lifestyles — even more than use sex toys.In The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn, acclaimed sex educator Violet Blue...  more

The secret is out: Women watch porn. A recent study by Glamour magazine found that 87 percent of women ages 25 to 39 enjoy porn as part of their self-defined healthy sexual lifestyles — even more than use sex toys.In The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn, acclaimed sex educator Violet Blue offers hip, friendly, and knowledgeable advice on bringing porn into your sex life: how to find porn you’ll like, from favorite turn-ons and women-friendly DVDs to Podcasts and porn groups on the web; how to reconcile fantasy with real-life desires; and how smart girls can maintain their own beauty standards when the people on screen seem impossibly buff, smooth, and surgically enhanced. Looking for authentic sex scenes? Thinking of sharing porn with a lover? Wonder which browser is safest for internet porn surfing? For answers and insight, zoom in on The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn.

Queue up these hilarious real-life stories from the video clerking trenches. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll wash your hands. No rewinding required!

The most successful African American in gay adult film, Bobby Blake has appeared in over one hundred movies. In My Life in Porn, Blake for the first time goes behind the scenes of the sex industry to reveal intimate stories that are sexy, fascinating, and sometimes disturbing. Blake also shares...  more

The most successful African American in gay adult film, Bobby Blake has appeared in over one hundred movies. In My Life in Porn, Blake for the first time goes behind the scenes of the sex industry to reveal intimate stories that are sexy, fascinating, and sometimes disturbing. Blake also shares his private spiritual struggle and the quest for love.

Out of the Blue is a hilarious autobiographical romp that details the life of porn star turned director/producer Blue Blake and his adventures in the skin trade. Blue has worked with every major star in the industry and won many major awards and honors, including induction into the Gay Porn...  more

Out of the Blue is a hilarious autobiographical romp that details the life of porn star turned director/producer Blue Blake and his adventures in the skin trade. Blue has worked with every major star in the industry and won many major awards and honors, including induction into the Gay Porn Legend Hall of Fame.

Hardcore porn?both the straight and gay varieties?entered mainstream American culture in the 1970s as the sexual revolution swept away many of the cultural inhibitions and legal restraints on explicit sexual expression. The first porn movie ever to be reviewed by Variety, the entertainment...  more

Hardcore porn?both the straight and gay varieties?entered mainstream American culture in the 1970s as the sexual revolution swept away many of the cultural inhibitions and legal restraints on explicit sexual expression. The first porn movie ever to be reviewed by Variety, the entertainment industry?s leading trade journal, was Wakefield Poole?s Boys in the Sand (1971), a sexually-explicit gay movie shot on Fire Island with a budget of $4000. Moviegoers, celebrities and critics?both gay and straight?flocked to see Boys in the Sand when it opened in mainstream movie theaters in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Within a year, Deep Throat, a heterosexual hardcore feature opened to rave reviews and a huge box office?exceeding that of many mainstream Hollywood features.Almost all of those involved in making ?commercial? gay pornographic movies began as amateurs in a field that had virtually never existed before, either as art or commerce. Many of their ?underground? predecessors had repeatedly suffered arrest and other forms of legal harassment. There was no developed gay market and any films made commercially were shown in adult x-rated theaters. After the Stonewall riots and the emergence of the gay liberation movement in 1969, a number of entrepreneurs began to make gay adult movies for the new mail order market. The gay porn film industry grew dramatically during the next thirty years and transformed the way men?gay men in particular?conceived of masculinity and their sexuality. Bigger Than Life tells that story.

Pornography has always been central to debates about sex and emerging new media technologies. Today, debate is increasingly focused on online pornographies. This collection examines pornographys significance as a focus of definition, debate, and myth; its development as a mainstream...  more

Pornography has always been central to debates about sex and emerging new media technologies. Today, debate is increasingly focused on online pornographies. This collection examines pornographys significance as a focus of definition, debate, and myth; its development as a mainstream entertainment industry; and the emergence of the new economy of Porn 2.0, and of new types of porn labor and professionalism. It looks at porn style behind the scenes of straight hardcore, in gay, lesbian, and queer pornographies, in shock sites, and in amateur erotica, and investigates the rise of the online porn fan community, the sex blogger, the erotic rate-me site and the visual cultures of swingers. Treating these developments as part of a broader set of economic and cultural transformations, this book argues that new porn practices reveal much about contemporary and competing views of sex and the self, the real and the body, culture, and commerce.

Pornstar is a mesmerizing, definitive examination of life at the epicenter of Americas multibillion-dollar sex entertainment industry. When Ian Gittler began photographing porn stars, his intent -- however suspect -- was to glamorize and legitimize their lives and work in the same way top...  more

Pornstar is a mesmerizing, definitive examination of life at the epicenter of Americas multibillion-dollar sex entertainment industry. When Ian Gittler began photographing porn stars, his intent -- however suspect -- was to glamorize and legitimize their lives and work in the same way top photographers generally portray the porn stars' mainstream Hollywood counterparts. Girder envisioned a celebrity coffee-table book with gorgeous. enticing photography that would provoke a reevaluation of fame in our culture. But as the author journeyed into the surprisingly accessible "underground" world of porn, his glossy, conceptual approach gave way to one of grim resolve. Gittler couldn't ignore the rapidly accumulating evidence of abuse and emotional disconnect. By the time Savannah -- the most famous XXX film star of her generation -- committed suicide, he felt compelled to address the heartbreak and fragile humanity he was learning firsthand are at tile core of this subculture. Gittler forged relationships with his subjects that irrevocably changed him, and discovered that the world of porn is not only a product of mainstream society, but a parallel universe where all the challenges of emotional intimacy facing humans at tile end of the twentieth century exist. Pornstar is all extraordinary marriage of memoir, photography, and investigative journalism; its narrative -- in running text and more than one hundred stunning photographs -- spans more than five years. Pornstar is violent, funny, tragic, and uncompromising: a totally unprecedented portrait of tile men and women -- the stars -- who populate the terrain of America's porn industry.

Whether your fantasy is the UPS man in hot shorts, the cable man with the extra-long cable, or the plumber with a hard power tool, this anthology has them all.

I?ve done things that I?m not proud of, but I can?t apologise for. This is my journey. Every step I've taken has led me toward the person I was destined to become. For better or for worse, I am a lap dancer. I've done it all. I've lived the high life and partied with celebrities. I've performed...  more

I?ve done things that I?m not proud of, but I can?t apologise for. This is my journey. Every step I've taken has led me toward the person I was destined to become. For better or for worse, I am a lap dancer. I've done it all. I've lived the high life and partied with celebrities. I've performed lesbian acts for clients and had threesomes simply because I was curious. I've snorted so much cocaine that that I thought my nose would fall off. But more than that, somewhere along my journey I lost a little bit of myself. It happened so gradually that I didn't notice. It was only when I started to reflect a little, started to write this story, that I could see me for who I was; who I am. It's all here, the good times, the bad times and the downright ugly times. This is my story. These are my confessions.

Prior to her retirement, for eight years Samantha Waters was a high-end call girl who catered to some of the most affluent men in the Bay area of California. Her clients included CEOs, movie stars, professional athletes, and executives from the explosive Dot.com generation. She spent evenings...  more

Prior to her retirement, for eight years Samantha Waters was a high-end call girl who catered to some of the most affluent men in the Bay area of California. Her clients included CEOs, movie stars, professional athletes, and executives from the explosive Dot.com generation. She spent evenings and weekends with men of discriminating taste, men who wished the company of a beautiful and classy woman. In The Dot.com Call Girl you will read about some of the more memorable men she entertained, how the Internet has changed the escort business, and where Samantha believes this ancient profession is headed in the years to come. The Dot.com Call Girl was a finalist in McKenna Publishing Group's annual nonfiction contest before being published in February, 2008.

For Juliet, the "life", or the world of prostitution, started off as a game. But then the "game" took over. First she became addicted to the fast, constant, easy money, then to turning tricks into "sugar daddies". As Juliet begins to heal from her life as prostituted teen, she meets other sex...  more

For Juliet, the "life", or the world of prostitution, started off as a game. But then the "game" took over. First she became addicted to the fast, constant, easy money, then to turning tricks into "sugar daddies". As Juliet begins to heal from her life as prostituted teen, she meets other sex industry survivors. Their similarities change her perspective on the sex industry for good. For most sexe industry survivors, prostitution is a re-enactment of childhood sexual exploitation. Like Juliet, these women mistankenly believed that prostitution would help them regain the power that had been stolen from them. Ultimately, this decision often proved to be soul-destroying, self-destructive, and for far too many, lethal.

How does a girl go from being a shy, awkward bookworm to the biggest porn star in the world? In Sinner Takes All, Tera Patrick reveals all, including: her career as an international model; losing her virginity at fourteen to a thirtysomething photographer; learning oral sex techniques backstage...  more

How does a girl go from being a shy, awkward bookworm to the biggest porn star in the world? In Sinner Takes All, Tera Patrick reveals all, including: her career as an international model; losing her virginity at fourteen to a thirtysomething photographer; learning oral sex techniques backstage at a Guns N' Roses concert; having an orgy with a team of firefighters; her unglamorous job in a nursing home; her first forays into the adult movie business; and how, with her husband's help, she launched her own multimillion-dollar empire. Along the way, she dishes on the emotional side of being Tera Patrick, writing candidly about her battles with depression and anxiety. She also discusses finding true love and building a healthy marriage, achievements that many consider to be impossible in the world of porn. Featuring hundreds of photos, plus diary pages and scintillating sidebars, Sinner Takes All takes the tell-all to raunchy new heights.

The Stripper Dairies is a comedic, satirical look at the stripper business with underlying messages of living your dreams and finding your passion in life. Four wonderfully flawed females plot to take control over their men and their futures within the comedic confines of the fantasy world...  more

The Stripper Dairies is a comedic, satirical look at the stripper business with underlying messages of living your dreams and finding your passion in life. Four wonderfully flawed females plot to take control over their men and their futures within the comedic confines of the fantasy world they call work.

For more than eight years, I lived and worked in the dark underworld of Las Vegas as an exotic dancer. Some things are worth repeating—others you try to forget. Unfortunately, you never forget. I decided it was time that somebody told the truth about what really happens in Las Vegas strip...  more

For more than eight years, I lived and worked in the dark underworld of Las Vegas as an exotic dancer. Some things are worth repeating—others you try to forget. Unfortunately, you never forget. I decided it was time that somebody told the truth about what really happens in Las Vegas strip clubs and their VIP rooms. Is there “sex in the champagne room?” With the right dancer and for right price, there is anything you want in the champagne room! This book gives a lot of insight into what really happens when men are turned loose on the Las Vegas scene. I think men and women alike will be interested in reading about what really happens in Vegas. See what the dark twenty-four-hour world of Vegas is really like. See what an insider has to say about the life of an exotic dancer.

In 2005 porn reached epidemic proportions and affected almost everyone. This book is about Craig Gross, a young pastor helping those inside the world of porn, and the stories, insights, and secrets he’s learning on his journey.

"Like most pornography, I found Fast Forward to be a relentless and indecent assault on the traditional family values that Americans find most sacred. Makes a great stocking stuffer."-Amy Sedaris With dreams of becoming a highly respected screenwriter, Eric Spitznagel moves to Los Angeles. When...  more

"Like most pornography, I found Fast Forward to be a relentless and indecent assault on the traditional family values that Americans find most sacred. Makes a great stocking stuffer."-Amy Sedaris With dreams of becoming a highly respected screenwriter, Eric Spitznagel moves to Los Angeles. When Hollywood fails to notice him, he settles for the next best thing: writing scripts for adult films. Determined to make the most of his bad luck, he sets out to make a movie that will be celebrated more for its witty dialogue and gripping plot than its raw depictions of hardcore sex. As Spitznagel discovers, making the Great American Porn is far from easy, especially when you've been hired to write a sequel to Butt Crazy. Spitznagel struggles to be taken seriously as an artist, a seeming impossibility in an industry averse to "complicated words." Along the way, he meets a director with delusions of being the porn Kurosawa, an actress with a scholarly knowledge of medical maladies, and an NBA star who might just make the biggest mistake of his life. In an industry devoted to churning out disposable erotica, can one lowly writer make an adult film that compels viewers to admire the plot without hovering a thumb over the fast forward button? Eric Spitznagel is the author of four humor books, including The Junk Food Companion: A Celebration of Eating Badly (Plume, 1999). His writing appears frequently in Playboy, Esquire, Harper's Magazine, and The Believer.

The true story of a small-town girl who mixed a prestigious Ivy-League education with the down and dirty world of stripping.Heidi Mattson successfully united sex and scholarship to realize a '90s version of the American Dream by becoming a smart, sassy, self-confident stripper while attending...  more

The true story of a small-town girl who mixed a prestigious Ivy-League education with the down and dirty world of stripping.Heidi Mattson successfully united sex and scholarship to realize a '90s version of the American Dream by becoming a smart, sassy, self-confident stripper while attending Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Intelligent and ambitious, she grew up in small-town Maine, and her whole town applauded when Brown accepted her. But school and living expenses carried a high price tag-one she couldn't meet by waiting tables and cleaning houses. A chance ad brought her to The Foxy Lady, a strip club in Providence not far from campus. Swearing she would stay only as long as she didn't feel compromised, she soon became one of the club's top attractions. In this engrossing story, Mattson tells us how she did it, how it felt to strip, how it affected her life, and about her peers, colleagues, and the men who frequented the strip clubs. Her story sets the record straight about the world of stripping, a world that she describes with candor, affection, and warmth.

In America, tipping is (usually) avoidable, but not thinking about voluntary gratuities is completely impossible. Every day, we are confronted with awkward decisions about who to tip, how much to pay for different services, and even how to share our loot. There is no doubt that we succumb: Each...  more

In America, tipping is (usually) avoidable, but not thinking about voluntary gratuities is completely impossible. Every day, we are confronted with awkward decisions about who to tip, how much to pay for different services, and even how to share our loot. There is no doubt that we succumb: Each year, we Americans spend $66 billion on tips, but as Waiter Rant author and blog keeper Steve Dublanica knows from hard experience, tipping behavior ranges widely from patron to patron and from profession to profession. To test the waters, or more specifically the outstretched palms, Dublanica traveled the continent, inquiring about handout habits everywhere he went. The venues fit almost every description; from working class bars and family restaurants to barbershops, beauty salons, public bathrooms and strip clubs. A fascinating book about a much-discussed topic that touches us all.

You think you know what goes on in here? You don't have a clue. Sex, drugs, sleek bodied women in flimsy g-strings teetering on eight-inch platform heels, clandestine payoff's to corrupt politicians, bloody knuckles and shattered teeth––the premise for a hard boiled crime drama? No,...  more

You think you know what goes on in here? You don't have a clue. Sex, drugs, sleek bodied women in flimsy g-strings teetering on eight-inch platform heels, clandestine payoff's to corrupt politicians, bloody knuckles and shattered teeth––the premise for a hard boiled crime drama? No, just another night in the strip club. Stripped is the only first hand account, brutally honest and uncensored, of life inside the world's most infamous strip clubs; featuring Cheetahs Topless Lounge, Las Vegas: Including the FBI's two year undercover sting operation, "Operation G-Sting." Stripped exposes the bare truth by the man who was there, day in and day out, for twenty years. From the humorous to the felonious to the shocking to the absurd––Stripped holds absolutely nothing back. Sex, violence, corruption, money drugs, racism, fraud, murder...it's all here. The most striking, vivid, and compelling account of the strip club business ever told.

Her curiosity began as a teenager, with an awareness of her body and the reaction other people had to it. It continued with the realization that women's bodies often gave them a strange power over men. As an adult, it became a fascination with professional sex workers, leading to a plunge into...  more

Her curiosity began as a teenager, with an awareness of her body and the reaction other people had to it. It continued with the realization that women's bodies often gave them a strange power over men. As an adult, it became a fascination with professional sex workers, leading to a plunge into their world. Bare follows the author-a young feminist journalism major-and her fellow dancers through Seattle strip clubs and bachelor parties, exploring in riveting detail Eaves' own motivations and behavior, as well as those of her coworkers, as they make their way through the sometimes exhilarating, often disturbing world of stripping. This compelling, revealing memoir exposes the reader to that world behind the flashing lights, and offers illuminating insights into the reasons women take up this work-and how it affects their identities and lives off the job. In its unstinting honesty, Bare demands that we take a closer look at the way sexuality is viewed in our culture; what, if anything, constitutes "normal" desire; the ethics of swapping money-or anything else-for sex; and how women and men navigate the perilous contradictions and double standards that make up today's socio-sexual conversation.

It began when she was a teenager with an awareness of her body and the reaction other people had to it. It continued with the realization that women’s bodies often gave them a strange power over men. As an adult, it became a fascination with professional sex workers, leading to a plunge...  more

It began when she was a teenager with an awareness of her body and the reaction other people had to it. It continued with the realization that women’s bodies often gave them a strange power over men. As an adult, it became a fascination with professional sex workers, leading to a plunge into their world. And when Elisabeth Eaves left the world of peep shows and private dancers for the more socially acceptable career of international journalism, she found she could not put that fascination behind her. Her experiences had left her with too many questions and too few answers. So she returned to the world she had left behind. Now, in this candid and insightful book, she recounts her firsthand experience of stripping and gives us a new understanding of women’s sexuality and contemporary sexual mores.Bare follows the author and her fellow dancers through Seattle strip clubs and bachelor parties, exploring in riveting detail Eaves’s own motivations and behavior, as well as those of her coworkers, as they make their way through the sometimes exhilarating, often disturbing world of stripping. Grounded in an understanding of the intricate dynamics of exchanging sexual services for money, Eaves’s narrative examines the ways in which the work affects the women: how they negotiate the slippery boundaries between their jobs and their “real” lives; how their personal relationships are altered; how they reconcile themselves—or don’t—to the stereotypes that surround their profession; whether the work is exploitative or empowering or both.In its unstinting honesty, Bare demands that we take a closer look at the way sexuality is viewed in our culture; what, if anything, constitutes “normal” desire; the ethics of swapping money—or anything else—for sex; and how women and men navigate the perilous contradictions and double standards that make up today’s socio-sexual conventions. The stories Eaves tells—outrageous, funny, sad, and deeply affecting—provide an engrossing and unforgettable look at a group of women who have a lot to reveal, not only about one of America’s largest and most taboo industries, but about the restrictions, joys, and hypocrisies of the world in which we all live.

Glass vases filled with marbles crashed all around us as he began tossing linens from the bed. As the marbles scattered, we laughed in unison ... I remember the exact moment that I first laid on my back for him ... My legs were wrapped around his waist and just before his body was to merge with...  more

Glass vases filled with marbles crashed all around us as he began tossing linens from the bed. As the marbles scattered, we laughed in unison ... I remember the exact moment that I first laid on my back for him ... My legs were wrapped around his waist and just before his body was to merge with mine, I noticed his upper right chest. On it was a tattoo with the words "Pain is Love." Confessions of a Video Vixen is the widely anticipated memoir of Karrine Steffans, the once sought-after sexy siren who appeared in the music videos of multiplatinum hip-hop artists such as Jay-Z, R. Kelly, and LL Cool J. A top-paid video dancer, Karrine transitioned to film when acclaimed director F. Gary Gray picked her to costar in his film A Man Apart, starring Vin Diesel. But the movie and music video sets, swanky Miami and New York restaurants, and trysts with the celebrities featured in the pages of People and In Touch magazines only skims the surface of Karrine's life. This memoir -- part tell all, part cautionary tale -- shows how Karrinne came to be the confidante of so many, why she kept their secrets, and how she found herself in Hollywood after a life marked by physical abuse, rape, and drugs -- all before she was twenty-six. By sharing her emotionally charged story, she hopes to shed light on an otherwise romanticized industry.

Welcome to the America we don?t usually talk about, a place where that nice couple down the street could be saddling up for ?pony play,? making and selling their own porn DVDs, or hosting other couples for a little flogging. As award-winning journalist Brian Alexander uncovers, fringe...  more

Welcome to the America we don?t usually talk about, a place where that nice couple down the street could be saddling up for ?pony play,? making and selling their own porn DVDs, or hosting other couples for a little flogging. As award-winning journalist Brian Alexander uncovers, fringe experimentation has gone suburban. Soccer moms, your accountant, even your own parents could be turning kinky. Stunned by the uninhibited questions from ordinary people on his msnbc.com column, ?Sexploration? (?My wife and I have heard that a lot of couples in their thirties are playing strip poker . . . as well as skinny-dipping with other couples/friends. Any idea if this is a fashionable trend or has it been going on for some time and we never knew it?? or ?I am interested in bondage and hear that there are secret bondage clubs someplace. Can you help me find them??), Brian Alexander was driven to understand Americans? desire to get down and dirty?especially in an era where conservative family values dominate. To find out what people are really doing?and why a country that suffered a national freak- out over Janet Jackson?s breast was enthusiastically getting in touch with its inner perv?Alexander set out on a sexual safari in modern America. Whether mixing it up at a convention of fetishists, struggling into his own pair of PVC pants for a wild night at a sex club, being tutored on dildos by a nineteen-year-old supervisor while working in an adult store, or learning the surprising ways of Biblical sex from an evangelical preacher, Alexander uses humor and insight to reveal a sexual world that is quickly redefining the phrase ?polite society.?Gonzo journalism at its funniest and kinkiest, America Unzipped is a fascinating cultural study and an eye-popping peek into the lives of people you?d least expect to find tied up and wearing latex.One Dozen Things to Avoid When Exploring American Sex 1. Asking an enthusiastic devotee to explain cock-and-ball torture while standing within arm?s length.2. Assuming an evangelical Christian will not be familiar with the term ?69.?3. Incredibly tight PVC pants.4. Trying to become the first male sex toy home party salesman in Missouri. 5. Standing too close to bondage models without wearing overalls and safety goggles.6. Insisting that Dan Quayle would never invest in porn. 7. Displaying a look of surprise when a grandmother discusses the risk of removing a dildo from a microwave oven.8. Admitting your sex vocabulary is smaller than an eighth grader?s.9. Explaining the difference between ?cream pie? and ?gonzo? to a suburban mom shopping for her son?s birthday sex DVDs.10. Trying to interview a naked submissive locked on a cage. 11. Expecting answers about sex from a six-foot-tall pink rabbit.12. Thinking that porn kings could not possibly have Ivy League degrees and run charitable foundations.From the Hardcover edition.

For many years, kisses were the only sexual acts to be seen in mainstream American movies. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, American cinema "grew up" in response to the sexual revolution, and movie audiences came to expect more knowledge about what happened between the sheets. In...  more

For many years, kisses were the only sexual acts to be seen in mainstream American movies. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, American cinema "grew up" in response to the sexual revolution, and movie audiences came to expect more knowledge about what happened between the sheets. In Screening Sex, the renowned film scholar Linda Williams investigates how sex acts have been represented on screen for more than a century and, just as important, how we have watched and experienced those representations. Whether examining the arch artistry of Last Tango in Paris, the on-screen orgasms of Jane Fonda, or the anal sex of two cowboys in Brokeback Mountain, Williams illuminates the forms of pleasure and vicarious knowledge derived from screening sex. Combining stories of her own coming of age as a moviegoer with film history, cultural history, and readings of significant films, Williams presents a fascinating history of the on-screen kiss, a look at the shift from adolescent kisses to more grown-up displays of sex, and a comparison of the "tasteful" Hollywood sexual interlude with sexuality as represented in sexploitation, Blaxploitation, and avant-garde films. She considers Last Tango in Paris and Deep Throat, two 1972 films unapologetically all about sex; In the Realm of the Senses, the only work of 1970s international cinema that combined hard-core sex with erotic art; and the sexual provocations of the mainstream movies Blue Velvet and Brokeback Mountain. She describes art films since the 1990s, in which the sex is aggressive, loveless, or alienated. Finally, Williams reflects on the experience of screening sex on small screens at home rather than on large screens in public. By understanding screening sex as both revelation and concealment, Williams has written the definitive study of sex at the movies.  

A twenty-two-year-old perennial virgin, Englishman Grant Stoddard didn't know what to do with his life in America -- until he won an X-rated online contest, the prize being intercourse with an infamous married sex columnist. He consequently wound up delivering mail at Nerve.com but accidentally...  more

A twenty-two-year-old perennial virgin, Englishman Grant Stoddard didn't know what to do with his life in America -- until he won an X-rated online contest, the prize being intercourse with an infamous married sex columnist. He consequently wound up delivering mail at Nerve.com but accidentally found his calling as a gonzo sex reporter who would try any and every lurid activity his crafty coworkers devised -- from offering himself up as man-bait at a hard-core gay bar to attending an elite orgy, to being a hapless participant in a sexual home invasion -- all the while wishing he could be safely tucked in bed. Working Stiff is the humble, hilarious, and delightfully salacious fish-into-water story of a young man who followed his hear -- and other organs -- into places where few would dare to venture.

A kiss is just a kiss...or is it? Since the initial publication of his comprehensive kisser's manual. The Art of Kissing, author William Cane has received thousands of phone calls and letters from readers with questions, concerns, and comments about their kissing techniques. In this revised...  more

A kiss is just a kiss...or is it? Since the initial publication of his comprehensive kisser's manual. The Art of Kissing, author William Cane has received thousands of phone calls and letters from readers with questions, concerns, and comments about their kissing techniques. In this revised edition of an international classic (now published in eighteen countries and sixteen languages), he shares their insights, responds to their questions, and calms their kissing qualms with more of the lip-smacking wisdom his fans have been waiting for. New topics include: -The kinds of kisses men and women like most (and least!), according to the results of the world's first Internet kissing survey -How to overcome your kissing shyness and kissing anxieties -More lips-on instruction and wisdom from real kissers on how to perfect the first kiss, the eye kiss, the nose kiss, the neck kiss, the public kiss, and the wet kiss, as well as complete instructions for all new kisses, including the butterfly kiss, the friendly kiss, and the lip-o-suction kiss. Lovers everywhere will want to take a buss-man's holiday with his playful, passionate paean to puckering up.

Orgasms, sexual inventions, spirituality, high-tech porn, gender-blending, hustling, masturbation, politics, airplane sex, disabilities, sex magick, biblical erotica, advertising, first times, sex in space, asexuality, group sex . . . are you ready for Disinformation's look at the world of sex?...  more

Orgasms, sexual inventions, spirituality, high-tech porn, gender-blending, hustling, masturbation, politics, airplane sex, disabilities, sex magick, biblical erotica, advertising, first times, sex in space, asexuality, group sex . . . are you ready for Disinformation's look at the world of sex? Master anthologizer Russ Kick has immersed himself in the many and varied worlds of sex writing, producing a definitive collection exposing reality that's way, way stranger than XXX fiction. Profiled in The New York Times as an "information archaeologist," Russ digs where others would not think to look for delicious details on the present, past, and future of sex, including: • The first-ever look at the FBI's porn collection (the Obscene Reference File), complete with reproduced documents • FAA reports about people having sex on commercial flights-the so-called "mile-high club" • A look at brilliant, kinky, and scarce sex-zines, such as Frighten the Horses, Taste of Latex, Future Sex, and Pucker Up, as well as Sexology, published by Hugo Gernsback, the father of science fiction • The forgotten sex books of Charles Atlas ("Hey, quit kicking sand in our faces, you bully!") This massive, oversized anthology features a panoply of sexperts, everyone from prostitutes to professors, legends to newcomers, sexual revolutionaries to sexologists and beyond, providing a varied and unexpected look at sex, challenging our notions of what is possible and in turn exciting, enervating, frightening, and freaking us out. Russ Kick is the editor of You Are Being Lied To, Everything You Know Is Wrong, and Abuse Your Illusions. He is the author of 50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know Volumes 1 & 2 and The Disinformation Book of Lists. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Welcome to the America we don’t usually talk about, a place where that nice couple down the street could be saddling up for “pony play,” making and selling their own porn DVDs, or hosting other couples for a little flogging. As award-winning journalist Brian Alexander uncovers,...  more

Welcome to the America we don’t usually talk about, a place where that nice couple down the street could be saddling up for “pony play,” making and selling their own porn DVDs, or hosting other couples for a little flogging. As award-winning journalist Brian Alexander uncovers, fringe experimentation has gone suburban. Soccer moms, your accountant, even your own parents could be turning kinky. Stunned by the uninhibited questions from ordinary people on his msnbc.com column, “Sexploration” (“My wife and I have heard that a lot of couples in their thirties are playing strip poker . . . as well as skinny-dipping with other couples/friends. Any idea if this is a fashionable trend or has it been going on for some time and we never knew it?” or “I am interested in bondage and hear that there are secret bondage clubs someplace. Can you help me find them?”), Brian Alexander was driven to understand Americans’ desire to get down and dirty—especially in an era where conservative family values dominate. To find out what people are really doing—and why a country that suffered a national freak- out over Janet Jackson’s breast was enthusiastically getting in touch with its inner perv—Alexander set out on a sexual safari in modern America. Whether mixing it up at a convention of fetishists, struggling into his own pair of PVC pants for a wild night at a sex club, being tutored on dildos by a nineteen-year-old supervisor while working in an adult store, or learning the surprising ways of Biblical sex from an evangelical preacher, Alexander uses humor and insight to reveal a sexual world that is quickly redefining the phrase “polite society.”Gonzo journalism at its funniest and kinkiest, America Unzipped is a fascinating cultural study and an eye-popping peek into the lives of people you’d least expect to find tied up and wearing latex.One Dozen Things to Avoid When Exploring American Sex 1. Asking an enthusiastic devotee to explain cock-and-ball torture while standing within arm’s length.2. Assuming an evangelical Christian will not be familiar with the term “69.”3. Incredibly tight PVC pants.4. Trying to become the first male sex toy home party salesman in Missouri. 5. Standing too close to bondage models without wearing overalls and safety goggles.6. Insisting that Dan Quayle would never invest in porn. 7. Displaying a look of surprise when a grandmother discusses the risk of removing a dildo from a microwave oven.8. Admitting your sex vocabulary is smaller than an eighth grader’s.9. Explaining the difference between “cream pie” and “gonzo” to a suburban mom shopping for her son’s birthday sex DVDs.10. Trying to interview a naked submissive locked on a cage. 11. Expecting answers about sex from a six-foot-tall pink rabbit.12. Thinking that porn kings could not possibly have Ivy League degrees and run charitable foundations.

Striptease recreates the combustible mixture of license, independence, and sexual curiosity that allowed strippers to thrive for nearly a century. Rachel Shteir brings to life striptease's Golden Age, the years between the Jazz Age and the Sexual Revolution, when strippers performed around the...  more

Striptease recreates the combustible mixture of license, independence, and sexual curiosity that allowed strippers to thrive for nearly a century. Rachel Shteir brings to life striptease's Golden Age, the years between the Jazz Age and the Sexual Revolution, when strippers performed around the country, in burlesque theatres, nightclubs, vaudeville houses, carnivals, fairs, and even in glorious palaces on the Great White Way. Taking us behind the scenes, Shteir introduces us to a diverse cast of characters that collided on the burlesque stage, from tight-laced political reformers and flamboyant impresarios, to drag queens, shimmy girls, cootch dancers, tit serenaders, and even girls next door, lured into the profession by big-city aspirations. Throughout the book, readers will find essential profiles of famed performers, including Gypsy Rose Lee, "the Literary Stripper"; Lili St. Cyr, the 1950s mistress of exotic striptease; and Blaze Starr, the "human heat wave," who literally set the stage on fire. striptease is an insightful and entertaining portrait of an art form at once reviled and embraced by the American public. Blending careful research and vivid narration, Rachel Shteir captures striptease's combination of sham and seduction while illuminating its surprisingly persistent hold on the American imagination.

Determined to supplement her meager income as a novice photographer, Juliana Beasley embarked on an eight-year odyssey as a professional nude dancer, specializing in "lap dances," where a woman dances above a seated customer, erotically brushing against his body. From New York to Reno, Beasley...  more

Determined to supplement her meager income as a novice photographer, Juliana Beasley embarked on an eight-year odyssey as a professional nude dancer, specializing in "lap dances," where a woman dances above a seated customer, erotically brushing against his body. From New York to Reno, Beasley worked in over two dozen strip clubs, dancing for twenty dollars a song, experiencing the rewards and pitfalls of the profession: variable income, flexible schedules, emotional and physical exhaustion, sex industry camaraderie - and an arrest for prostitution. Though she was a professional dancer, Beasley never forgot the purpose of her studies in documentary work. Along with negligees and stilettos, she regularly brought a camera to the clubs, and began recording testimonies from the managers, dancers, and patrons. The result is Lapdancer, an inside look at the world of professional nude dancing. Culled from thousands of photographs and hours of interviews, Beasley documents an oft-derided but rarely understood culture - one tightly codified by rules and behavior, and peopled with characters from a David Lynch film. Through these pictures and interviews Beasley, a sex industry Virgil, guides us through the erotic dancer circuit, detailing its ruthlessly economic underpinnings and the intimate, anoymous currency between dancer and customer. Here, at what was once society's fringe, Beasley depicts mainstream culture's new evolving definitions of sexuality, gender politics, capitalism, therapy - even love.

A young British woman?broke and out of luck?does battle with Manhattan?s underworld of dancers, drugs, and the sex industry Ruth Fowler is a twenty-five-year-old Brit with a Cambridge degree and a middle-class background who arrives in New York City with dreams of becoming a journalist. But...  more

A young British woman?broke and out of luck?does battle with Manhattan?s underworld of dancers, drugs, and the sex industry Ruth Fowler is a twenty-five-year-old Brit with a Cambridge degree and a middle-class background who arrives in New York City with dreams of becoming a journalist. But getting a work visa in post?9/11 America proves to be tricky. It doesn?t take long for funds and incentive to run out?sending Fowler to the heart of Manhattan?s dark underbelly of strip clubs and the sex trade, where as her alter ego ?Mimi? she works as a dancer for more than two years. Both raw and shocking, Girl, Undressed tells the harrowing story of her descent into darkness, the young and wealthy Eton-educated Englishman with whom she perilously falls in love, and her revelatory journey back to herself.

Based on the memoirs, of a beautiful woman’s 23 year journey through the doors of Chicagoland’s most infamous strip clubs that operated from the mid 1970’s through the 1990’s. A native of Illinois, seventeen year old, Rebeckka Black segued into a life of rootless wandering....  more

Based on the memoirs, of a beautiful woman’s 23 year journey through the doors of Chicagoland’s most infamous strip clubs that operated from the mid 1970’s through the 1990’s. A native of Illinois, seventeen year old, Rebeckka Black segued into a life of rootless wandering. Besieged by emotional problems, the distraught, young woman is propelled into a relationship with a dangerous ex-convict. Restless and impulsive, she decides to accompany her companion to San Francisco. Realizing that she had made a serious mistake, Rebeckka hooks up with an unsavory couple who offer to drive her back to Chicago. Shortly after returning to her hometown of Glencoe, Illinois, she searches for another port in the storm. Rebeckka makes a snap decision to join the Armed Forces, but that too was short lived. Two years later she was discharged from the military only to resume her nomadic lifestyle. Determined to change her situation, Rebeckka inadvertently makes a life altering decision that seals her fate…….

The exchange of sex for money is often cited as the first profession, and it is certainly the most controversial - from Eve and Lilith to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, the prostitute has been a lightning rod for changing notions of love, sexual identity, morality, and gender. Now eminent...  more

The exchange of sex for money is often cited as the first profession, and it is certainly the most controversial - from Eve and Lilith to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, the prostitute has been a lightning rod for changing notions of love, sexual identity, morality, and gender. Now eminent historian Nils Johan Ringdal delivers a magisterial, extremely readable world history of this most maligned, and most persistent, form of human commerce. Beginning with the epic of Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, and ancient cultures from Greece to India and beyond, Love for Sale takes the reader on a tour through the entire recorded history of prostitution around the globe up to the modern red-light district. It shows how different societies have viewed and dealt with prostitutes and uncovers the first manuals of sex and seduction. It closes with the rise of the sex-workers' rights movement and "sex-positive" feminism, and a realistic look at the true risks and rewards of prostitution in the present day. Love for Sale spans a wide historical swath armed with illustrations, a lively wit and no-nonsense grasp of sex that recalls Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae.

Ever since Westerners arrived in Japan, they have been intrigued by Japanese womanhood and, above all, by geisha. This fascination has spawned a wealth of extraordinary fictional creations, from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly to Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. But as denizens of a...  more

Ever since Westerners arrived in Japan, they have been intrigued by Japanese womanhood and, above all, by geisha. This fascination has spawned a wealth of extraordinary fictional creations, from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly to Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. But as denizens of a world defined by silence and mystery, real geisha are notoriously difficult to meet and even to find. As a result, their history has long been cloaked in secrecy. Lesley Downer, an award-winning writer, Japanese scholar, and consummate storyteller, gained more access to this world than almost any other Westerner, and spent several months living in it. In Women of the Pleasure Quarters, she weaves together intimate portraits of modern geisha with the romantic legends and colorful historical tales that shape their fascinating past. Contrary to popular opinion, geisha are not prostitutes but, literally, "arts people." Accomplished singers, dancers, and musicians, they are, above all, masters of the art of conversation, soothing the worries and stroking the egos of wealthy businessmen who can afford their attentions. Looking into such traditions as mizuage, the ritual deflowering that was once a rite of passage for all geisha, and providing colorful descriptions of their dress, training, and homes, Downer transforms their reality into a captivating narrative, and reveals an enthralling world unlike any other.

Why do Japanese mothers put their babies into coin lockers? And why is Japan the world's biggest brothel of teenybopper hookers. Read The Japanese Disease: Sex and Sleaze in Modern Japan to find out. The Japanese Disease unlocks modern Japan's sleaziest secrets -- from Japan's gang rapists,...  more

Why do Japanese mothers put their babies into coin lockers? And why is Japan the world's biggest brothel of teenybopper hookers. Read The Japanese Disease: Sex and Sleaze in Modern Japan to find out. The Japanese Disease unlocks modern Japan's sleaziest secrets -- from Japan's gang rapists, child prostitutes and serial killers to the computer nerds, who meet online to commit collective suicide. Sex, sleaze, crime and corruption thread their way through every chapter of this path breaking book which details cannibalistic serial killers who have sex with the dead bodies of their victims, schoolboys who ritually dismember their victims, 80-year-old hit men, patriotic gangsters burying their victims alive and porno animals who fear the sexually transmitted diseases of their human co-stars. Dr. Declan Hayes has looked into modern Japan's moral heart of darkness and he recounts what he sees. From the child sex hookers of Shibuya and Ikebukuro, to the gang rapists of Japan's top universities, from the killer cults to the classy women whose top of the range mobile phones double as sexual vibrators, this is a book on Japan like no other. If you buy only one book this year, this is the book to buy.

Japan's love hotels are kinky, high-tech sexual spaces where couples live out sexual fantasies in pirate ship rooms, playboy grottos, princesses' bed chambers, or S&M dungeons. Love hotels takes you behind the scenes of Japan's wildest sexual spaces, with detailed descriptions of the best...  more

Japan's love hotels are kinky, high-tech sexual spaces where couples live out sexual fantasies in pirate ship rooms, playboy grottos, princesses' bed chambers, or S&M dungeons. Love hotels takes you behind the scenes of Japan's wildest sexual spaces, with detailed descriptions of the best hotels, interviews with owners and designers, and bizarre stories of love, sex, and crime, along with the incredible history of how this fascinating institution evolved. Contains dozens of photos of the best love hotels in Japan.

An inside view of American hustler culture from the 1600s to today. Male and transgendered hustlers have been a mostly -invisible part of American life for more than 400 years. Their invisibility leaves these men unprotected, victimized and at risk for sexually transmitted diseases, assault and...  more

An inside view of American hustler culture from the 1600s to today. Male and transgendered hustlers have been a mostly -invisible part of American life for more than 400 years. Their invisibility leaves these men unprotected, victimized and at risk for sexually transmitted diseases, assault and murder. Strapped for Cash is a critical examination of sex work that serves as both a cultural analysis and a guide for those who conduct HIV/AIDS and other interventions among male and transgendered sex workers. Mack Friedman brings to this work an unusual perspective informed by both his former life as a hustler and his current work as a case manager targeting prostituted youth. Drawn from many sources, including 50 oral histories from current and former male and transgendered sex workers, details of the work of anti-vice committees, academic research and uncovered materials from archives around the country, Strapped for Cash presents the first complete picture of the evolution of hustler culture. Friedman reaches back to European hustler history to find the influences that informed male-male sex trade in the New World and carries this research forward to examine media representations, the development of male pornography and the larger social implications of male sex work. Frank and unapologetic, Strapped for Cash is a powerfully provocative study of this marginalized world. Features more than 70 black-and-white photographs.Mack Friedman is an HIV testing and prevention supervisor for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force. Formerly a youth advocate for Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution -Engaged in Revolt (WHISPER), and the former vice president of Youth Services of Pittsburgh, he currently serves on the boards of both the Southwestern Pennsylvania AIDS Planning Coalition and Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE). A native of Chicago and a 2001 graduate of the University of Minnesota, he currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

.cs95E872D0{text-align:left;text-indent:0pt;margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0pt} .cs5EFED22F{color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; } .csA62DFD6A{color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-family:Times New...  more

.cs95E872D0{text-align:left;text-indent:0pt;margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0pt} .cs5EFED22F{color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; } .csA62DFD6A{color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt; font-weight:normal; font-style:italic; } The media today is filled with powerful men in trouble for their sexual behaviors, and invariably, they are diagnosed as sexual addicts. Since Adam first hid his nakedness from God and pointed the finger at Eve, men have struggled to take responsibility for their sexuality. But over the past three decades, these behaviors are no longer considered to reflect a moral failing, but instead, evidence of an ill-defined disease, that of ?sexual addiction.? The concept of sexual addiction is a controversial one because it is based on questionable research and subjective moral judgments. Labeling these behaviors as sex addiction asserts a false, dangerous myth that undermines personal responsibility. Not only does this epidemic of sex addiction excuses mislabel male sexuality as dangerous and unhealthy, but it destroys our ability to hold people accountable for their behaviors. By labeling males as weak and powerless before the onslaught and churning tide of lust, we take away those things that men should live up to: personal responsibility; integrity; self-control; independence; accountability; self-motivation; honor; respect for self and others. In The Myth of Sex Addiction, Ley presents the history and questionable science underlying this alleged disorder, exposing the moral and cultural judgments that are embedded in the concept, as well as the significant economic factors that drive the label of sex addiction in clinical practice and the popular media. Ley outlines how this label represents a social attack on many forms of sexuality?male sexuality in particular?as well as presenting the difficulty this label creates in holding people responsible for their sexual behaviors. Going against current assumptions and trends, Ley debunks the idea that sex addiction is real, or at least that it is as widespread as it appears to be. Instead, he suggests that the high-sex behaviors of some men is something that has been tacitly condoned for countless years and is only now labeled as a disorder as men are being held accountable to the same rules that have been applied to women. He suggests we should expect men to take responsibility for sexual choices, rather than supporting an approach that labels male sexual desire as a "demonic force" that must be resisted, feared, treated, and exorcised.

Newly discharged from the Marines after World War II, Scotty Bowers arrived in Hollywood in 1946. Young, charismatic, and strikingly handsome, he quickly caught the eye of many of the town’s stars and starlets. He began sleeping with some himself, and connecting others with his coterie of...  more

Newly discharged from the Marines after World War II, Scotty Bowers arrived in Hollywood in 1946. Young, charismatic, and strikingly handsome, he quickly caught the eye of many of the town’s stars and starlets. He began sleeping with some himself, and connecting others with his coterie of young, attractive, and sexually free-spirited friends. His own lovers included Edith Piaf, Spencer Tracy, Vivien Leigh, Cary Grant, and the abdicated King of England Edward VIII, and he arranged tricks or otherwise crossed paths with Tennessee Williams, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price, Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Errol Flynn, Gloria Swanson, Noël Coward, Mae West, James Dean, Rock Hudson and J. Edgar Hoover, to name but a few. Full Service is not only a fascinating chronicle of Hollywood’s sexual underground, but also exposes the hypocrisy of the major studios, who used actors to propagate a myth of a conformist, sexually innocent America knowing full well that their stars’ personal lives differed dramatically from this family-friendly mold. As revelation-filled as Hollywood Babylon, Full Service provides a lost chapter in the history of the sexual revolution and is a testament to a man who provided sex, support, and affection to countless people.

A FRANK, FUNNY, EXPLICIT, AND INSPIRING MEMOIR ABOUT HOW DANCING NAKED IN GAY CLUBS IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL HELPED A COLLEGE PROFESSOR DISCOVER HIS TRUE SELF.I felt that I'd made a transformation as surely as Superman slipping out of a phone booth or Wonder Woman doing a sunburst spin. I was...  more

A FRANK, FUNNY, EXPLICIT, AND INSPIRING MEMOIR ABOUT HOW DANCING NAKED IN GAY CLUBS IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL HELPED A COLLEGE PROFESSOR DISCOVER HIS TRUE SELF.I felt that I'd made a transformation as surely as Superman slipping out of a phone booth or Wonder Woman doing a sunburst spin. I was bare-ass in a room of paying strangers, a stripper. After years of wondering what it would be like, I had done it -- faced a fear, defied expectation, embraced a taboo self. It was only the beginning....All I Could Bare is the story of a mild-mannered graduate student who "took the road less clothed" -- a decision that was life changing. Seymour embarked on his journey in the 1990s, when Washington, D.C.'s gay club scene was notoriously no-holds-barred, all the while trying to keep his newfound vocation a secret from his parents and maintain a relation-ship with his boyfriend, Seth. Along the way he met some unforgettable characters -- the fifty-year-old divorcé who's obsessed with a twenty-one-year-old dancer, the celebrated drag diva who hailed from a small town in rural Virginia, and the many straight guys who were "gay for pay." Seymour gives us both the highs (money, adoration, camaraderie) and the lows (an ill-fated attempt at prostitution, a humiliating porn audition). Ultimately coming clean about his secret identity, Seymour breaks through taboos and makes his way from booty-baring stripper to Ph.D.-bearing academic, taking a detour into celebrity journalism and memorably crossing paths with Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Mary J. Blige along the way. Hilarious, insight-ful, and touching, All I Could Bare proves that sometimes the "wrong decision" can lead to the right place.

An affordable primer to sexuality from a sociological perspective. In The Social Construction of Sexuality, Steven Seidman investigates the political and social consequences of privileging certain sexual practices and identities while stigmatizing others. Addressing a range of topics from gay...  more

An affordable primer to sexuality from a sociological perspective. In The Social Construction of Sexuality, Steven Seidman investigates the political and social consequences of privileging certain sexual practices and identities while stigmatizing others. Addressing a range of topics from gay and lesbian identities to sex work, he delves into issues of social control that inform popular beliefs and moral standards. The Second Edition of The Social Construction of Sexuality features a new part that focuses on sexuality and social institutions. .

“Hooking Up uses interviews with both women and men to understand why dating has declined in favor of a new script for sexual relationships on college campuses. . . . Bogle presents a balanced analysis that explores the full range of hooking-up experiences.” —Joel Best, author of Flavor of...  more

“Hooking Up uses interviews with both women and men to understand why dating has declined in favor of a new script for sexual relationships on college campuses. . . . Bogle presents a balanced analysis that explores the full range of hooking-up experiences.” —Joel Best, author of Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for FadsIt happens every weekend: In a haze of hormones and alcohol, groups of male and female college students meet at a frat party, a bar, or hanging out in a dorm room, and then hook up for an evening of sex first, questions later. As casually as the sexual encounter begins, so it often ends with no strings attached; after all, it was “just a hook up.” While a hook up might mean anything from kissing to oral sex to going all the way, the lack of commitment is paramount.Hooking Up is an intimate look at how and why college students get together, what hooking up means to them, and why it has replaced dating on college campuses. In surprisingly frank interviews, students reveal the circumstances that have led to the rise of the booty call and the death of dinner-and-a-movie. Whether it is an expression of postfeminist independence or a form of youthful rebellion, hooking up has become the only game in town on many campuses.In Hooking Up, Kathleen A. Bogle argues that college life itself promotes casual relationships among students on campus. The book sheds light on everything from the differences in what young men and women want from a hook up to why freshmen girls are more likely to hook up than their upper-class sisters and the effects this period has on the sexual and romantic relationships of both men and women after college. Importantly, she shows us that the standards for young men and women are not as different as they used to be, as women talk about “friends with benefits” and “one and done” hook ups.Breaking through many misconceptions about casual sex on college campuses, Hooking Up is the first book to understand the new sexual culture on its own terms, with vivid real-life stories of young men and women as they navigate the newest sexual revolution.

From pick-up secrets to mind-blowing sex, the king of the climax nails the finer points of giving and receiving perfect pleasure. One of the most recognizable names in porn, Adam Glasser has slept with more than six hundred women, on and off camera. In his first book, this professional Casanova...  more

From pick-up secrets to mind-blowing sex, the king of the climax nails the finer points of giving and receiving perfect pleasure. One of the most recognizable names in porn, Adam Glasser has slept with more than six hundred women, on and off camera. In his first book, this professional Casanova reveals the naked truth about getting laid, addressing the nittygritty questions that amateur sexperts never even thought to ask. Rock Her World features three sections (About You, About Her, About Sex) that cover everything a man needs to know, including how to keep the male equipment in top shape, "sexercises" for improved performance, the truth about erectile dysfunction, and other fundamental topics. Next, Glasser tours every crevice of the female anatomy, with eye-opening explanations of a woman's orgasm- including female ejaculation-and surprising findings about what women really want in bed. From foreplay and oral sex to intercourse, all aspects of sex are demystified. The details of contraception, sex toys, anal sex, spanking, and the art of seduction are hammered home alongside hilarious anecdotes from Glasser's career (including one peculiar costar's climax-control technique). Fleshed out with illustrations (both instructional and comic), Rock Her World gives every man a chance to learn the art of world-class lovemaking from a legendary insider.

Already published in India to great acclaim and named a Time Out Subcontinental Book of the Year and an Observer Book of the Year, Beautiful Thing is a stunning piece of reportage that offers a rare firsthand glimpse into Bombay?s notorious sex industry. Sonia Faleiro was a reporter in search...  more

Already published in India to great acclaim and named a Time Out Subcontinental Book of the Year and an Observer Book of the Year, Beautiful Thing is a stunning piece of reportage that offers a rare firsthand glimpse into Bombay?s notorious sex industry. Sonia Faleiro was a reporter in search of a story when she met nineteen-year-old Leela, a charismatic exotic dancer with a story to tell. Leela introduced Sonia to the underworld of Bombay?s dance bars: a world of glamorous women; of fierce love, sex, and violence; of gangsters, police, prostitutes, and pimps. When an ambitious politician cashed in on a tide of false morality and had Bombay?s dance bars wiped out, Leela?s proud independence faced its greatest test. In a city where almost everyone is certain that someone, somewhere, is worse off than them, she fights to survive—and to win. Sonia Faleiro has crafted one of the most original works of nonfiction about India in years. Unforgettable for its artistry and intimacy, Beautiful Thing is a vivid portrait of one reporter?s journey into the dark, damaged soul of Bombay.

Astonishing sexual answers to unspoken questions revealed! Grab this book, a good flashlight, and head for the nearest closet, because this is gonna be a fantastic read!Eureka VonMims explores the hidden side of sexual phobias, unspoken sexual trivia from the ages, and proper...  more

Astonishing sexual answers to unspoken questions revealed! Grab this book, a good flashlight, and head for the nearest closet, because this is gonna be a fantastic read!Eureka VonMims explores the hidden side of sexual phobias, unspoken sexual trivia from the ages, and proper 'approaches' to partners for that 'something special' in bed that you can't quite figure out how to ask for....The largest known collection of sexual words, sexual slang, 'how to', molesting prevention tactics (graphically detailed), and creating that ever elusive SUPER CLIMAX!!!There are 15 ways for a female Homo sapien to orgasm, and 8 ways for a male Homo sapien to climax, and Mr. Eureka VonMims explains them all!!NEVER BEFORE put into print are the names for each male ejaculation, plus each male & female climax per 24-hour period are listed!

An introspective journey into the glamorous world?and temptations?of Japanese nightlife, by former model Chelsea Haywood. The hard-drinking, drug-taking, all-night culture that dominates Tokyo?s Roppongi district can be a surreal place. Overworked Japanese business men will pay handsomely for...  more

An introspective journey into the glamorous world?and temptations?of Japanese nightlife, by former model Chelsea Haywood. The hard-drinking, drug-taking, all-night culture that dominates Tokyo?s Roppongi district can be a surreal place. Overworked Japanese business men will pay handsomely for the services of a hostess?someone to talk to, someone to provide hot towels and drinks, and sometimes just a companion with whom to sing karaoke with all night. Intrigued by rumors of this strange subculture and armed with her 90-day work visa and new husband, Matt, Chelsea throws herself into the lion?s den. Yet what she discovers about herself and about the inhabitants of this nocturnal life far exceeds her expectations. Hostessing, she comes to find, has ?very little to do with sex, quite a lot to do with psychology, and nothing to do with prostitution.? Her personality and conversation skills are her top commodity, and Chelsea quickly finds herself charmed by these billionaire men, many of whom are funny, intelligent, even kind, and often, very lonely. But as she becomes more and more attached to her clients, Chelsea soon finds herself getting burned at her own game, as the endless presents, compliments, and destructive atmosphere of alcohol and drugs threaten to take both her marriage, and her sanity, to the edge. .

 In Manhood, experienced urologist and sexologist Mels van Driel offers an unprecedented history of the penis?with answers to everything you wanted to know, and even some questions you?d never thought to ask. Investigating the penis and its functions, van Driel?s work ranges from impotence...  more

 In Manhood, experienced urologist and sexologist Mels van Driel offers an unprecedented history of the penis?with answers to everything you wanted to know, and even some questions you?d never thought to ask. Investigating the penis and its functions, van Driel?s work ranges from impotence to the speed of ejaculation, and from inguinal hernia to infertility. Psychological factors that have an impact on sexual experience, as well as contemporary phenomena, such as cyber sex, are examined along the way with good humor and much insight. 

People call it everything from ?walking your dog? to ?scratching your bean.? Women usually do it at home. Men, it sometimes seems, do it everywhere. Some people think it?s healthy; others think it is a sin that will send you straight to hell. But while many people declare that everyone?s doing...  more

People call it everything from ?walking your dog? to ?scratching your bean.? Women usually do it at home. Men, it sometimes seems, do it everywhere. Some people think it?s healthy; others think it is a sin that will send you straight to hell. But while many people declare that everyone?s doing it, no one actually talks about it?outside the pages of Cosmo, masturbation is among the most taboo of topics, not suitable for polite society or public conversation.Mels van Driel boldly breaks this silence in order to help the world overcome its diffidence toward solo sex in With the Hand. Consulting everyone from doctors and sexologists to feminists and chauvinists, van Driel explains what masturbation actually is and describes the latest discoveries and developments on the subject. He also looks to theologians, historians, and philosophers to understand perceptions of masturbation across cultures and religions throughout history. Covering a great number of topics, including age, location, and frequency, as well as the effects of circumcision and the ability to have multiple orgasms, With the Hand also explores masturbation in art, literature, poetry, and music. Addressing the physical, mythical, and mythological, this often humorous and always informative book clears up the confusion surrounding this universal, and universally unmentionable, topic.

An unparalleled exploration of the mysteries underlying women’s sexuality that rivals the culture-shifting Kinsey Report, from two of America’s leading research psychologists Do women have sex simply to reproduce or display their affection? When University of Texas at Austin clinical...  more

An unparalleled exploration of the mysteries underlying women’s sexuality that rivals the culture-shifting Kinsey Report, from two of America’s leading research psychologists Do women have sex simply to reproduce or display their affection? When University of Texas at Austin clinical psychologist Cindy M. Meston and evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss joined forces to investigate the underlying sexual motivations of women, what they found astonished them.Through the voices of real women, Meston and Buss reveal the motivations that guide women’s sexual decisions and explain the deep-seated psychology and biology that often unwittingly drive women’s desires—sometimes in pursuit of health or pleasure, or sometimes for darker, disturbing reasons that a woman may not fully recognize. Drawing on more than a thousand intensive interviews conducted solely for the book, as well as their pioneering research on physiological response and evolutionary emotions, Why Women Have Sex uncovers an amazingly complex and nuanced portrait of female sexuality. They delve into the use of sex as a defensive tactic against a mate’s infidelity (protection), as a ploy to boost self-confidence (status), as a barter for gifts or household chores (resource acquisition), or as a cure for a migraine headache (medication). Why Women Have Sex stands as the richest and deepest psychological understanding of female sexuality yet achieved and promises to inform every woman’s (and her partner’s) awareness of her relationship to sex and her sexuality.

The wryly amusing and revealing story of one man?s journey into the swinger lifestyle that pulls back the curtain on one of the most fascinating?and least understood?subcultures in the nation.An estimated fifteen million strong worldwide, swingers are everywhere?a huge community, hiding in plain...  more

The wryly amusing and revealing story of one man?s journey into the swinger lifestyle that pulls back the curtain on one of the most fascinating?and least understood?subcultures in the nation.An estimated fifteen million strong worldwide, swingers are everywhere?a huge community, hiding in plain sight, whose erotic pastime remains a complete mystery to the rest of us. In Swingland, Daniel Stern outs himself and the secretive society he loves, recounting his ten-year transformation from a lonely guy who couldn?t get a date into a veteran sexual adventurer. With wit and infectious enthusiasm, Stern shares all the hard-earned wisdom he?s acquired in America?s swinging underground. Everyone is welcome, but bring flip-flops (it can get messy). There are plenty of bumps and bruises along the way, including countless rejections, missed opportunities, and one particular AARP orgy. But slowly and surely, through an impressive series of threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes, this ?Vanilla? newbie becomes a much sought-after partner for couples looking to spice up their relationships. As readers travel with Stern on his exploits, they are treated to a whole new lexicon (there aren?t many single women swingers, or ?Unicorns,? but plenty of MFMs, FMFs, MMFMs, and MMMFMs) as well as free, invaluable advice should they take the plunge themselves (be honest, sensitive, and hygienic!). But, Swingland is much more than a titillating exposé. Lovingly written, with a keen sensibility regarding the sensitive and often misunderstood subject, Stern?s narrative is as improbably safe as it is fun?and impossible to put down.

Patpong, in the heart of Bangkok, teems with bars and sex shows, catering mainly to farangs -- foreigners. Cleo Odzer, a young anthropologist, spent three years studying the area. Gaining the confidence of the bar girls and bar boys, she interviewed them at length, lived among them, accompanied...  more

Patpong, in the heart of Bangkok, teems with bars and sex shows, catering mainly to farangs -- foreigners. Cleo Odzer, a young anthropologist, spent three years studying the area. Gaining the confidence of the bar girls and bar boys, she interviewed them at length, lived among them, accompanied several back to their families in remote villages. She also got to know their customers, those in for a night or in forever (many fell in love and stayed on in Patpong). From Odzer's account emerges a far different picture from the cliched image of the prostitute. Many of the Patpong girls, smart and enterprising, use their profession for self-liberation and to support their impoverished families back home. Warm and personal, Patpong Sisters reveals the truth about the $4 billion Bangkok economy of sex.

'I love drugs. I love getting drunk. Better still both at the same time. It helps me to forget, faster. I am an addict and I always will be. But when I drink, I sniff cocaine, and when I do that, well, I swap my snatch for cash'. In "Hooked", reformed addict Clare Gee draws on her own...  more

'I love drugs. I love getting drunk. Better still both at the same time. It helps me to forget, faster. I am an addict and I always will be. But when I drink, I sniff cocaine, and when I do that, well, I swap my snatch for cash'. In "Hooked", reformed addict Clare Gee draws on her own experiences of cocaine addiction, alcoholism and prostitution in telling the sensational story of a woman living on the edge. Emotionally scarred by having never known her mother, Katie escapes to London and immerses herself in a seedy world of drugs, drink, and sex, chasing happiness in the pubs and clubs, and snorting cocaine in private members' bars with her rich punters. Finding herself in a cycle of prostitution and unable to break free, she turns to drug smuggling and becomes embroiled in a bigamous marriage in an attempt to secure some emotional stability. From this dark emotional pit, Katie starts her painful journey back to 'wellness' and attempts to rid herself of her addictions for good. Hooked is a graphic tale of how life as a prostitute really is and what can happen when we search for happiness outside of ourselves. It is a poignant reminder that things can always get better, as long as we remember that when it's time to leave the party, it's time.

When adult entertainment first appeared on the pop culture radar as an underground film phenomenon, women were little more than starlets, who—for the most part—answered to men. But as pornography evolved in step with technology and consumer demand over the past twenty years, it also...  more

When adult entertainment first appeared on the pop culture radar as an underground film phenomenon, women were little more than starlets, who—for the most part—answered to men. But as pornography evolved in step with technology and consumer demand over the past twenty years, it also reflected the shifting political climate. Greater sexual equality started to appear both in front of and behind the cameras. Not only did female performers take charge for the first time of their careers, but women began running the companies people purchase movies from, opening woman-friendly sex shops and writing thoughtful, analytical commentary on pornography-often from a feminist perspective. In Naked Ambition, adult entertainment industry insider Carly Milne takes readers behind the scenes and on to the frontlines of today's woman-owned and supported adult entertainment industry that has revolutionized both pornography and the traditional feminist movement that has for years often stood in opposition to it. Personal essays by Jenna Jameson, Theresa Flynt, Violet Blue, Holly Randall, Tristan Taormino, Tera Patrick, Danni Ashe, Nina Hartley, Jane Duvall and Rachel Kramer Bussel, among other top women pornographers and pornography supporters showcase this relatively recent but fast-growing segment of adult entertainment producers and consumers.

A collection of twenty-four short stories tracing how (and why) young escort Aaron Lawrence works his way towards the top of the American sex industry. The book is designed to give people an honest look into the life of a gay male escort.

autobiography. A legendary porn star that rose to fame during the 1990's starring in a host of productions , most notably the infamous Houston 500 which exposed her to a great deal of mainstream media attention.She has been a frequent guest on The Howard Stern radio Show, partied with...  more

autobiography. A legendary porn star that rose to fame during the 1990's starring in a host of productions , most notably the infamous Houston 500 which exposed her to a great deal of mainstream media attention.She has been a frequent guest on The Howard Stern radio Show, partied with celebrities, and featured in many music videos.she is a cancer survivor and holds several professional licenses.

Take a raw, revealing look into the steamy world of sex in bathhouses, gyms, parks, peep shows, swinger's clubs, men's rooms, and cruising on the Internet PEEK: Inside the Private World of Public Sex is an up close and personal look at impersonal sex, exploring where-to, how-to, and...  more

Take a raw, revealing look into the steamy world of sex in bathhouses, gyms, parks, peep shows, swinger's clubs, men's rooms, and cruising on the Internet PEEK: Inside the Private World of Public Sex is an up close and personal look at impersonal sex, exploring where-to, how-to, and when-to have sex in public. This educational and instructive guide reveals the steamy world of sex in bathhouses, gyms, parks, peep shows, swinger's clubs, men's rooms, and cruising on the Internet. The book provides interviews of a broad range of men discussing their diverse sexual escapades, from traditional to the definitely nontraditional. PEEK: Inside the Private World of Public Sex offers a responsible overview of the entire public sex spectrum, discussing bisexuality, aging and sex, male prostitution, and HIV and safer sex practices. The book may be an essential guide for anyone fascinated with--and wanting to find--gay sex in the 21st century. Other topics discussed in PEEK: Inside the Private World of Public Sex include: etiquette for a bathhouse swinger's clubs park sex tearooms and men's rooms peep shows hustlers gay nudists finding sex online PEEK: Inside the Private World of Public Sex is for educators, students, or anyone studying deviance, sexuality, public sex, gender studies, law and sexuality, and queer theory.

Filled with the shocking and private details known only to massage parlor workers, this confessional tale offers a voyeuristic look inside a quickly growing industry. Humor is provided by personal recountings of every type of customer and request imaginable, from CEOs to the local janitor, while...  more

Filled with the shocking and private details known only to massage parlor workers, this confessional tale offers a voyeuristic look inside a quickly growing industry. Humor is provided by personal recountings of every type of customer and request imaginable, from CEOs to the local janitor, while stories of the dysfunctional family created by the women who work there together give depth and a bit of reality to life in this shadowy, subversive, surreal world.

Suki Falconberg was raped and then became a prostitute. This book, which combines the personal with a great deal of research on prostitution and sex trafficking, is her story. "Suki has been assigned a tough task-take a very personal horror and make it public in order to educate and heal....  more

Suki Falconberg was raped and then became a prostitute. This book, which combines the personal with a great deal of research on prostitution and sex trafficking, is her story. "Suki has been assigned a tough task-take a very personal horror and make it public in order to educate and heal. While there is no certainty that anyone will listen, one thing is for certain-a world without Suki's voice will never change....She is a rare voice and those are the ones the masses generally try to hush..." -Sammy Jackson, Emmy Nominated Documentary Filmmaker (Eyewitness in Iraq, 2005; The Last Day of WWI, 2004); Cine Golden Eagle Award (Japanese War Crimes: Murder Under the Sun, 1998) "A brave book, emotionally raw. Suki deals with extremes of human suffering and torture, rare amongst writers....A must read for anyone who truly wants to understand what prostitutes and other trafficked people go through." -Professor Jennifer Bryson Clark, Chair, Women's Studies, South Texas College "After reading this book, you will never look at prostitution in the same way again. Since I myself have entered this struggle against human trafficking, I realize the horrible harm that prostitution represents. The word needs to be spread...this is what Dr. Falconberg is trying to do." -Jeffrey J. Barrows, D.O., M.A. (Bioethics) Health Consultant, Human Trafficking Christian Medical Association President, Gracehaven, Inc. "Suki Falconberg's terrific article, '"Freedom" to Rape Prostitutes in Iraq: Fun and Porn for the Boys,' touched and moved me deeply." -Myra Adel, Miss Iraq 2008

A flame-throwing epidemiologist talks about sex, drugs, and the mistakes (dismal), ideologies (vicious), and hopes (realistic) of international AIDS prevention.When people ask Elizabeth Pisani what she does for a living, she says, "sex and drugs." As an epidemiologist researching AIDS, she's...  more

A flame-throwing epidemiologist talks about sex, drugs, and the mistakes (dismal), ideologies (vicious), and hopes (realistic) of international AIDS prevention.When people ask Elizabeth Pisani what she does for a living, she says, "sex and drugs." As an epidemiologist researching AIDS, she's been involved with international efforts to halt the disease for fourteen years. With swashbuckling wit and fierce honesty, she dishes on herself and her colleagues as they try to prod reluctant governments to fund HIV prevention for the people who need it most?drug injectors, gay men, sex workers, and johns.Pisani chats with flamboyant Indonesian transsexuals about their boob jobs and watches Chinese streetwalkers turn away clients because their SUVs aren't nice enough. With verve and clarity, she shows the general reader how her profession really works; how easy it is to draw wrong conclusions from "objective" data; and, shockingly, how much money is spent so very badly. "Exhibit A": the 45 billion taxpayer dollars the Bush administration is committing to international AIDS programs. 12 illustrations.

In Nightwork, Anne Allison opens a window onto Japanese corporate culture and gender identities. Allison performed the ritualized tasks of a hostess in one of Tokyo's many "hostess clubs": pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, and making flattering or titillating conversation with the businessmen...  more

In Nightwork, Anne Allison opens a window onto Japanese corporate culture and gender identities. Allison performed the ritualized tasks of a hostess in one of Tokyo's many "hostess clubs": pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, and making flattering or titillating conversation with the businessmen who came there on company expense accounts. Her book critically examines how such establishments create bonds among white-collar men and forge a masculine identity that suits the needs of their corporations.Allison describes in detail a typical company outing to such a club--what the men do, how they interact with the hostesses, the role the hostess is expected to play, and the extent to which all of this involves "play" rather than "work." Unlike previous books on Japanese nightlife, Allison's ethnography of one specific hostess club (here referred to as Bijo) views the general phenomenon from the eyes of a woman, hostess, and feminist anthropologist. Observing that clubs like Bijo further a kind of masculinity dependent on the gestures and labors of women, Allison seeks to uncover connections between such behavior and other social, economic, sexual, and gendered relations. She argues that Japanese corporate nightlife enables and institutionalizes a particular form of ritualized male dominance: in paying for this entertainment, Japanese corporations not only give their male workers a self-image as phallic man, but also develop relationships to work that are unconditional and unbreakable. This is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in gender roles or in contemporary Japanese society.

Dennis Hof, proprietor of the world-famous Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel and the P.T. Barnum of prostitution, charts his path to fame and infamy, while dispensing homespun wisdom about sex, sales, money, and how to live as the country?s most recognizable pimp. In The Art of the Pimp, Dennis Hof...  more

Dennis Hof, proprietor of the world-famous Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel and the P.T. Barnum of prostitution, charts his path to fame and infamy, while dispensing homespun wisdom about sex, sales, money, and how to live as the country?s most recognizable pimp. In The Art of the Pimp, Dennis Hof offers a hilarious, insightful, behind-the-scenes look at life as the proprietor of The Moonlight BunnyRanch, the world?s most famous legal brothel, and recounts his chaotic life as the king of America?s sex industry. Hof, the star of HBO?s critically lauded series Cathouse, reveals the tricks of turning tricks, the secrets of his outrageous marketing stunts, and scandalous details of his friendships with porn stars, prostitutes, and politicians. Readers will learn how Hof?s ?girls? negotiate the highest prices for sex, the dirty little secrets of getting men to fall in love with them, and the inside tales of ?The Girlfriend Experience,? the #1 requested menu item. The Art of the Pimp will take readers on a wild ride through his countless sexual conquests, romantic failures, and business successes.

This captivating ethnography explores Vietnam's diverse sex industry as the country ascends the global and regional stage. Over the course of five years, author Kimberly Kay Hoang worked at four exclusive Saigon hostess bars catering to high-end clientele: wealthy local Vietnamese and Asian...  more

This captivating ethnography explores Vietnam's diverse sex industry as the country ascends the global and regional stage. Over the course of five years, author Kimberly Kay Hoang worked at four exclusive Saigon hostess bars catering to high-end clientele: wealthy local Vietnamese and Asian businessmen, Viet Kieus (ethnic Vietnamese living abroad), Western businessmen, and Western budget-tourists. Dealing in Desire takes an in-depth and often personal look at both the sex workers and their clients to show how Vietnamese high finance and benevolent giving are connected to the intimate spheres of the informal economy. For the domestic super-elite who use the levers of political power to channel foreign capital into real estate and manufacturing projects, conspicuous consumption is a means of projecting an image of Asian ascendancy to potential investors. For Viet Kieus and Westerners who bring remittances into the local economy, personal relationships with local sex workers reinforce their ideas of Asia?s rise and Western decline, while simultaneously bolstering their diminished masculinity. Dealing in Desire illuminates Ho Chi Minh City?s sex industry as not just a microcosm of the global economy, but a critical space where dreams and deals are traded.

An astonishingly brave memoir of life in prostitution and its lingering influence on a woman?s psyche and life.?The best work by anyone on prostitution ever, Rachel Moran?s Paid For fuses the memoirist?s lived poignancy with the philosopher?s conceptual sophistication. The result is riveting,...  more

An astonishingly brave memoir of life in prostitution and its lingering influence on a woman?s psyche and life.?The best work by anyone on prostitution ever, Rachel Moran?s Paid For fuses the memoirist?s lived poignancy with the philosopher?s conceptual sophistication. The result is riveting, compelling, incontestable. Impossible to put down. This book provides all anyone needs to know about the reality of prostitution in moving, insightful prose that engages and disposes of every argument ever raised in its favor.? ?Catharine A. MacKinnon, law professor, University of Michigan and Harvard UniversityBorn to mentally unstable parents, Rachel Moran left home at the age of fourteen. Being homeless, she became prostituted to survive. With intelligence and empathy, she describes the fears she and others had working on the streets and in the brothels. Moran also speaks to the psychological damage that accompanies prostitution and the estrangement from one?s body. At the age of twenty-two, Moran escaped prostitution. She has since become a writer and an abolitionist activist.

Asa Akira (28) has already had an extremely unusual life. Educated at the United Nations International School in Manhattan, she soon was earning a good living by stripping and working as a dominatrix at a sex dungeon. Akira has now built up a reputation for being of the most popular,...  more

Asa Akira (28) has already had an extremely unusual life. Educated at the United Nations International School in Manhattan, she soon was earning a good living by stripping and working as a dominatrix at a sex dungeon. Akira has now built up a reputation for being of the most popular, hardworking, and extreme actors in the business, winning dozens of awards for her 330+ movies, including her #1 bestselling series “Asa Akira Is Insatiable?. In Insatiable, Akira recounts her extraordinary life in chapters that are hilarious, shocking, and touching. In a wry, conversational tone, she talks about her experiences shoplifting and doing drugs while in school, her relationship with other porn stars (she is married to one) and with the industry at large, and her beliefs about women and sexuality. Insatiable is filled with Akira?s unusual and often highly amusing anecdotes, including her visit to a New Hampshire sex shop run by a mother and son. In a world where porn is increasingly becoming part of the mainstream, Akira is one of very few articulate voices writing from the inside. She something important, controversial, and astonishingly interesting to say about sex and its central role in our lives and culture.

You?ve probably heard of Anna Gristina, the notori­ous ?Soccer Mom Madam,? who allegedly operated a multimillion-dollar escort service with clients from the Forbes billionaires list to Capitol Hill. But you haven?t heard of the woman who helped bring the Soccer Mom Madam down?until now. Call...  more

You?ve probably heard of Anna Gristina, the notori­ous ?Soccer Mom Madam,? who allegedly operated a multimillion-dollar escort service with clients from the Forbes billionaires list to Capitol Hill. But you haven?t heard of the woman who helped bring the Soccer Mom Madam down?until now. Call Girl Confidential is Rebecca Kade?s compelling, intimate account of her career as an escort . . . and her work as an undercover agent for the Manhattan District Attorney?s Office. Strictly raised as a Southern Baptist, Rebecca Kade never dreamed she would compromise her values by someday becoming a high-priced escort. But when her rock star former lover took her to court in a drawn-out custody battle for their daughter, Rebecca?s legit day job barely covered her exorbitant legal fees. She needed to make money and lots of it?fast. Rebecca first became an escort for Kristin Davis, aka ?The Manhattan Madam,? and her classic beauty made her an instant favorite with the host of wealthy, powerful men who were willing to pay thousands to sleep with her. When she went to work for Anna Gristina, the stakes were even higher and the clientele more prominent. From Wall Street bankers and CEOs to famous U.S. politicians and Middle Eastern princes as well as Grammy winners, Rebecca met the world?s most influential movers and shakers. Then her deepest fears came true. Kristin Davis was arrested, and Anna Gristina also landed on authori­ties? radar after going undetected for fifteen years. Rebecca had two choices: refuse to cooperate and go to jail?risking never seeing her daughter again?or com­ply fully, even if it meant giving up Gristina, who trusted Rebecca implicitly. She agreed to go undercover for the DA?s office. Though authorities were trying to nab Gris­tina for illegal prostitution, they still expected Rebecca to continue working as a call girl. And the more incriminat­ing evidence she collected, the more she placed herself in danger. Candid and fascinating, this revealing memoir gives readers a glimpse into the little-known life of a high-priced escort turned confidential informant.

Learn about the real lives of sex workers by exploring the sex industry from the inside! Explore the insightful-and oftentimes intense-accounts of sex workers who look squarely into the eyes of their clients, the sex industry, and society as a whole. Tricks and Treats delivers private stories...  more

Learn about the real lives of sex workers by exploring the sex industry from the inside! Explore the insightful-and oftentimes intense-accounts of sex workers who look squarely into the eyes of their clients, the sex industry, and society as a whole. Tricks and Treats delivers private stories about homo- and heterosexual encounters that sex workers usually confide only in each other. Not another "why I became a prostitute" book, it provocatively turns the tables on the buyers of sex, giving you a window into sex workers' lives. Tricks and Treats gives you straightforward accounts by sex workers to help you understand the pleasures, attractions, and truths of this profession. Tricks and Treats tantalizes with its powerful collection of tales from a diverse group of male, female, and transgendered sex workers. Their commercial, cultural, emotional, sexual, (il)legal, and even spiritual relationships with their clients are discussed in intimate detail. You will explore accounts from streetworkers, escorts, strippers, porn actors, masseurs, dominatrixes, phone sex operators, an adult-video store clerk, an outreach worker, a sex educator, and even a sperm donor. Tricks and Treats will ignite your imagination and answer questions few people dare to ask. You'll learn firsthand, of: how male, female, and transgendered hustlers turn tricks-in their own words-from sado-masochism and watersports to stripping, scat, foreplay, and fisting how sex workers face their own mortality when confronted with the AIDS virus a porn star's compassion and understanding for her fans a sex worker's coming-to-terms with his/her transgendered identity a male escort's attempts at dating a young man's experience of finding a family and home when living at a brothel a woman's story of spending thirty years as a prostitute the experiences of hooking on the streets and in clubs, cafes, and homes These engaging and shocking testimonials will entertain you and offer a unique understanding of the sex industry. Revealing and intriguing, these poignant talks will certainly not disappoint your imagination. Tricks and Treats is a testament to the lives of sex workers, a manifestation of their spirit, and gives them a chance to turn the tables on their clients, exposing their erotic tastes, turn-ons, and fantasies.

An insider's view of life in Soho, the sex-and-entertainment center of London What is the correct etiquette for visiting a brothel? How should one react when a transsexual wants to show off her latest surgery? Is it appropriate to speak to television personalities when they're buying...  more

An insider's view of life in Soho, the sex-and-entertainment center of London What is the correct etiquette for visiting a brothel? How should one react when a transsexual wants to show off her latest surgery? Is it appropriate to speak to television personalities when they're buying underwear? These are the questions that matter in London's Soho neighborhood, where Clayton Littlewood runs the cult clothing store Dirty White Boy. From his window on one of the busiest street corners in the world, Littlewood watches the daily parade of fashion queens, prostitutes, gangsters, and celebrities that make up the population of this strangest of villages. Dirty White Boy is a vivid mosaic of modern London, caught between the ghosts of the past and the uncertainties of the future. With an unforgettable cast of characters ranging from Chico the camp queen to Pam the Fag Lady (with guest spots by stars like Kathy Griffin and Graham Norton), these compulsively readable true tales offer a wry panorama of Soho's rich and often raucous subcultures.

Smutty Little Movies traces the adult film industry?s transition from celluloid to home video beginning in the late 1970s and examines the cultural and legal efforts to regulate, contain, limit, or eradicate pornography. Drawing on a wide variety of materials, Smutty Little Movies de-centers the...  more

Smutty Little Movies traces the adult film industry?s transition from celluloid to home video beginning in the late 1970s and examines the cultural and legal efforts to regulate, contain, limit, or eradicate pornography. Drawing on a wide variety of materials, Smutty Little Movies de-centers the film text in favor of industry histories and contexts. In so doing, the book argues that the struggles to contain and regulate pleasure represent a primary starting point for situating adult video?s place in a larger history, not just of pornography, but of media history as a whole.

We may know pornography when we see it, but the business of pornography is a surprisingly elusive subject. Reliable figures about the industry are difficult to come by and widely disputed, but one matter that is hardly debatable is that pornography is a major and ubiquitous enterprise. Porn...  more

We may know pornography when we see it, but the business of pornography is a surprisingly elusive subject. Reliable figures about the industry are difficult to come by and widely disputed, but one matter that is hardly debatable is that pornography is a major and ubiquitous enterprise. Porn allegedly accounts for one-third of all internet traffic currently, though the data about actual consumption is unclear. Reports in recent years have suggested that 70 million individuals visit porn sites every week; that among viewers aged 18-24, women watch more porn than men; and that among middle-aged, white-collar workers, three-quarters of men and half of women have admitted to looking at pornography websites while at work. While debates and emotions around porn can run high, there is a crucial need for reliable information and rational conversation. In this book, Shira Tarrant parses the wide range of statistics that we have on the pornography industry, sorting myth from reality in an objective, fascinating and knowledgeable fashion. She looks at ongoing political controversies around the industry, the feminist porn wars, the views of the religious right, the history of pornography, landmark legal cases, and the latest in medical research. The Pornography Industry also explains the industry basics -who works in porn, why people become performers, how much they earn, and what happens on a porn set. It further delves into important questions such as: how many teenagers watch porn and should we worry about it? What is porn piracy and can it be stopped? What can the industry do about sexist and racist pornography? Does porn cause violence against women? Can people become addicted to porn? Is watching porn the same as infidelity? By presenting competing perspectives in an even-handed way, The Pornography Industry will enable readers to explore these provocative issues and make their own best decisions about the debates.

A funny, fresh, and moving antidote to conventional attitudes about sex and the single woman Emily Witt is single and in her thirties. She has slept with most of her male friends. Most of her male friends have slept with most of her female friends. Sexual promiscuity is the norm. But up until a...  more

A funny, fresh, and moving antidote to conventional attitudes about sex and the single woman Emily Witt is single and in her thirties. She has slept with most of her male friends. Most of her male friends have slept with most of her female friends. Sexual promiscuity is the norm. But up until a few years ago, she still envisioned her sexual experience "eventually reaching a terminus, like a monorail gliding to a stop at Epcot Center." Like many people, she imagined herself disembarking, finding herself face-to-face with another human being, "and there we would remain in our permanent station in life: the future."But, as we all know, things are more complicated than that. Love is rare and frequently unreciprocated. Sexual acquisitiveness is risky and can be hurtful. And generalizing about what women want or don't want or should want or should do seems to lead nowhere. Don't our temperaments, our hang-ups, and our histories define our lives as much as our gender?In Future Sex, Witt captures the experiences of going to bars alone, dating online, and hooking up with strangers. From her home in San Francisco, she decides to say yes to everything and to find her own path. She observes the subcultures she encounters with a wry sense of humor, capturing them in all of their strangeness, ridiculousness, and beauty. The result is an open-minded, honest account of the contemporary pursuit of connection and pleasure, and an inspiring new model of female sexuality--open, forgiving, and unafraid.

In the vein of Mary Roach's Bonk, a brilliant microhistory of the sex toy that ultimately tells the story of our changing sexual mores and evolving cultural values.  Once only whispered about in clandestine corners, vibrators have become just another accessory for the suburban soccer mom. But...  more

In the vein of Mary Roach's Bonk, a brilliant microhistory of the sex toy that ultimately tells the story of our changing sexual mores and evolving cultural values.  Once only whispered about in clandestine corners, vibrators have become just another accessory for the suburban soccer mom. But how did these once-taboo toys become so socially acceptable? The journey of the devices to the cultural mainstream is a surprisingly stimulating one. In Buzz, Hallie Lieberman provides a riveting history that tells the story of sex toys from ancient phalluses to 21st century vibrating rabbits. She focuses on the period from the 1950s through the present, when sex toys evolved from symbols of female emancipation to tools in the fight against HIV/AIDS to consumerist marital aids and finally to mainstays of today's pop culture. Lieberman's history is populated by vivid and fascinating characters, including Ted Marche, an entrepreneurial ventriloquist and dildo maker; Duane Coleglazier, the gay ice cream truck driver who founded the first boutique sex-toy store; Dell Williams, ex-communist advertising maven who created the feminist sex toy store; Betty Dodson, whose workshops helped 1960s women discover vibrators; and Gosnell Duncan, a paraplegic engineer who invented the silicone dildo. And these personal dramas are all set against a backdrop of changing American attitudes toward sexuality, feminism, LGBTQ issues, and more. Both educational and titillating, Buzz will make readers think quite differently about those secret items hiding in bedside drawers across the nation.   16 pages of color images

Like Freakonomics, Dollars and Sex takes economics and converts it into a sexy science by applying the principles of supply and demand, and other market forces, to matters of love, courtship, sex, and marriage. As she does in her hugely popular blog, author Marina Adshade explores the...  more

Like Freakonomics, Dollars and Sex takes economics and converts it into a sexy science by applying the principles of supply and demand, and other market forces, to matters of love, courtship, sex, and marriage. As she does in her hugely popular blog, author Marina Adshade explores the marketplace for sex and love using research, economic analysis, and humor to reveal just how central the interplay of libido, gender, love, power, and economic forces is to the most important choices we make in our lives. Call it "Sexonomics."

One feminist?s candid account of her unexpected adventure in the world of porn journalism, and her discovery of an industry that is more nuanced than she ever imaginedLynsey G. never imagined that she would ever work in porn, but at 24 years old, with a degree in English literature and an empty...  more

One feminist?s candid account of her unexpected adventure in the world of porn journalism, and her discovery of an industry that is more nuanced than she ever imaginedLynsey G. never imagined that she would ever work in porn, but at 24 years old, with a degree in English literature and an empty bank account, she found herself reviewing the film East Coast ASSault for an adult magazine in New York City. One interview later and it was official: she was a porn journalist. The job was supposed to be temporary?just a paycheck until she could spark her legitimate writing career?but she loved it and spent nearly a decade describing the nuances of money shots and the effectiveness of sex toys. As both a porn consumer and a porn critic, she was not quite an insider, not quite an outsider, but came to know the industry intimately. She found it so fascinating that she co-founded WHACK! Magazine. Finally, she had a platform to voice her thoughts and observations of the adult film world, as well as educate the rest of us about what really goes on behind the scenes. Eventually, Lynsey was thrust back into the ?real? world, but not before realizing that one of the most diverse and nebulous?and profitable?industries on the planet isn?t so quite as different from the rest of the world as she thought.Tantalizing, eye-opening, and witty, Watching Porn is a provocative book about an average girl?s foray into the porn industry and the people who make it what it is, both in front of and behind the camera. 18 b&w photographs

In "Whatever She Wants", Andrew Rosetta lifts the lid on the mysterious, sexy and little-known world of the male escort. As one of the most sought-after escorts in London, Andrew's clients are many and varied: from a gangster's wife in search of a little fun to a world-famous pop star requiring...  more

In "Whatever She Wants", Andrew Rosetta lifts the lid on the mysterious, sexy and little-known world of the male escort. As one of the most sought-after escorts in London, Andrew's clients are many and varied: from a gangster's wife in search of a little fun to a world-famous pop star requiring the utmost discretion, all of them are looking for different things. His personal life, meanwhile, is just as turbulent - from a girlfriend who discovers his secret to a client who turns against him and threatens to reveal all. Smart, erotic and eye-opening, "Whatever She Wants" reveals exactly what type of woman is willing to part with her money in search of sex, and what type of man is willing to provide it.

"A provocative, enlightening, humorous, and impressively executed guide to Amsterdam's twilight world." -- Kirkus ReviewsAmsterdam Exposed tells the true one-of-a-kind story of an innocent exchange student who moves to Amsterdam hoping to write a book about the red light district and everything...  more

"A provocative, enlightening, humorous, and impressively executed guide to Amsterdam's twilight world." -- Kirkus ReviewsAmsterdam Exposed tells the true one-of-a-kind story of an innocent exchange student who moves to Amsterdam hoping to write a book about the red light district and everything that follows. It's an American abroad story, and also a love story; it's an uplifting tragedy, full of humor from beginning to end; it's an Amsterdam survival guide; a sympathetic look at a societal problem; a little piece of policy; a sweet farewell to a world just about gone; and, ultimately, as close as you can come to a free trip to Amsterdam without leaving your couch. In sum, Amsterdam Exposed takes readers deep into the district on a journey never before possible, forever reshaping their understanding of one of the most famous tourist attractions in the world, and the women who work there. If you've ever spent time in Amsterdam, or dreamed of doing so, this book's for you.

In PORN AGAIN: A MEMOIR, Josh Sabarra throws open the proverbial closet ? and bedroom ? doors, taking readers on a Hollywood thrill-ride through growing up, coming out, coming of age and finally finding himself at 40. Despite being a high-level entertainment executive, Josh was still a ...  more

In PORN AGAIN: A MEMOIR, Josh Sabarra throws open the proverbial closet ? and bedroom ? doors, taking readers on a Hollywood thrill-ride through growing up, coming out, coming of age and finally finding himself at 40. Despite being a high-level entertainment executive, Josh was still a virgin at 31. Uncomfortable in his own skin, haunted by painful childhood memories, he kept laser-focused on building an unparalleled career trajectory at the expense of his personal life. Tormented by schoolmates for being ?different,? Josh clung to his aberrantly close relationships with a small circle of adult females. But, even with that support, the shame and contempt that grew from his sexuality locked him in a prison of self-hate that robbed him of an emotional and sexual identity for more than three decades. Movie studio jobs, through which he met celebrity idols, led to friendships and relationships with some of the industry?s most notable characters. Those intimacies created a false sense of acceptance and approval, requiring that he continue to up the stakes ? celebrity lovers, the crazy world of online dating, sexual fetishists and porn stars-for-hire. The gay best friend you always wanted, Josh Sabarra delivers a whip-smart, poignant memoir set against a glittering backdrop that is at once heartbreaking, glamorous, sexy and hilariously honest.

When one thinks of transformation, it usually signifies change on a multiplicity of levels, which is what this book represents to me on a personal level. It is not meant to be an autobiography, but rather the view of life from the perspective of a male stripper reflecting on the events that...  more

When one thinks of transformation, it usually signifies change on a multiplicity of levels, which is what this book represents to me on a personal level. It is not meant to be an autobiography, but rather the view of life from the perspective of a male stripper reflecting on the events that played a significant role in the development of me as a person. I have learned over time that everything happens for a reason. We are not always privileged to know the "why" or even "see" that reason, but somehow it is always there. I have worked very hard to get to where I am now, and let me tell you that nothing came easy. I faced many challenges and made many mistakes along the way. Through much drive and determination, as well as a host of fortuitous occurrences, I wish to pass along to you, my reader, how I overcame adversity, became a successful member of society, and basically "beat the odds". What a "transformation" of life I never thought possible and I thank GOD every day for what I have!

Lynsey G. never imagined that she would ever work in porn, but with a degree in English literature and an empty bank account, the twenty-four-year-old was desperate to launch her writing career in New York City. So when her friend put her up for a unique opportunity?screening and reviewing...  more

Lynsey G. never imagined that she would ever work in porn, but with a degree in English literature and an empty bank account, the twenty-four-year-old was desperate to launch her writing career in New York City. So when her friend put her up for a unique opportunity?screening and reviewing pornos for an adult entertainment magazine?she jumped at the prospect. One review later and it was official: She was a porn journalist.Over time, what was supposed to be a temporary gig transformed into nearly a decade of reportage on the various aspects of the adult entertainment industry. As she delved deeper into the prolific and controversial world of porn, even co-founding WHACK! Magazine to further examine the many subtleties of the industry, Lynsey learned that one of the most diverse and nebulous?and profitable?industries on the planet isn?t quite as different from the rest of the world as she thought.Tantalizing, eye-opening, and witty, Watching Porn is a pro­vocative book about an average girl?s foray into the porn in­dustry and the people who make it what it is, both in front of and behind the camera. Watching Porn is a wildly entertaining and surprisingly relatable memoir that will spark conversation about the intersectionality of pornography, sex, relationships, consumerism, and what it means to be a feminist today.

From the "former sex worker taking Hollywood by storm" (The Daily Beast), comes a candid and hilarious memoir of sex work, shame, and self-discovery set in the colorful world of live-streaming camgirls. At twenty-three, Isa Mazzei was just like any other college graduate: broke,...  more

From the "former sex worker taking Hollywood by storm" (The Daily Beast), comes a candid and hilarious memoir of sex work, shame, and self-discovery set in the colorful world of live-streaming camgirls. At twenty-three, Isa Mazzei was just like any other college graduate: broke, lacking purpose, and searching for an identity. She was also a compulsive seductress with a reputation as a slut and heartbreaker. One day, while working a low-paying retail job, she had a revelation: why not embrace her salacious image and  make some money off of it?  She began stripping, dancing, masturbating, playing games, making art -- and broadcasting it all online for money as a camgirl. In her first month, she racked up hundreds of nightly viewers, and within a year she ranked in the top fifty girls on a site featuring tens of thousands of performers. Over the course of her career, Isa built her own business, explored BDSM, attended a porn convention, slept with a fan, and pushed herself further than she thought possible. And yet, despite her success, she struggled to fit into the community she so desperately wanted to belong to.  Camgirl is a relatable look at confronting our past traumas and accepting ourselves for who we are. It masterfully explores the complexities of digital life, sexuality, and the tensions between our private and public selves. Mazzei's biting humor and raw vulnerability ensure you'll never think about sex work -- or sex -- the same way again. 

Tracy Clark-Flory grew up wedged between fizzy declarations of "girl power" and the sexualized mandates of pop culture. It was "broken glass ceilings" and Girls Gone Wild infomercials. With a vague aim toward sexual empowerment, she set out to become what men wanted -- or, at...  more

Tracy Clark-Flory grew up wedged between fizzy declarations of "girl power" and the sexualized mandates of pop culture. It was "broken glass ceilings" and Girls Gone Wild infomercials. With a vague aim toward sexual empowerment, she set out to become what men wanted -- or, at least, understand it. In her moving, fresh, and darkly humorous memoir, she shares the thrilling and heartbreaking events that led to discovering conflicting truths about her own desire, first as a woman coming of age and then as a veteran journalist covering the sex beat. Tracing her experiences on adult film sets, at fetish conventions, and during an orgasmic meditation retreat (to name just a few), Clark-Flory weaves in statistics and expert voices to reckon with our views on sexual freedom. Want Me is about looking for love, sex, and power as a woman in a culture that is "freer" than ever, yet defined by unprecedented pressures and enduring constraints. This is a first-hand example of one woman who navigated the mixed messages of sexual expectation, only to discover the complexity of her own wants and our collective need to change the limitations of that journey.

Sexually transmitted diseases have been hidden players in our lives for the whole of human history, with roles in everything from World War II to the growth of the Internet to The Bachelor. But despite their prominence, STDs have been shrouded in mystery and taboo for centuries, which...  more

Sexually transmitted diseases have been hidden players in our lives for the whole of human history, with roles in everything from World War II to the growth of the Internet to The Bachelor. But despite their prominence, STDs have been shrouded in mystery and taboo for centuries, which begs the question: why do we know so little about them? Enter Ina Park, MD, who has been pushing boundaries to empower and inform others about sexual health for decades. With Strange Bedfellows, she ventures far beyond the bedroom to examine the hidden role and influence of these widely misunderstood infections and share their untold stories. Covering everything from AIDS to Zika, Park explores STDs on the cellular, individual, and population-level. She blends science and storytelling with historical tales, real life sexual escapades, and interviews with leading scientists -- ۥweaving in a healthy dose of hilarity along the way. The truth is, most of us are sexually active, yet we’re often unaware of the universe of microscopic bedfellows inside our pants. Park aims to change this by bringing knowledge to the masses in an accessible, no-nonsense, humorous wayâۥhelping readers understand the broad impact STDs have on our lives, while at the same time erasing the unfair stigmas attached to them. A departure from the cone of awkward silence and shame that so often surrounds sexual health, Strange Bedfellows is the straight-shooting book about the consequences of sex that all curious readers have been looking for.

From the moment there was an “online,” there was sex online. The famous test image used by software engineers to develop formats like the jpeg was “Lena,” taken from Playboy’s November 1972 centerfold. Early bulletin boards and multi-user domains quickly...  more

From the moment there was an “online,” there was sex online. The famous test image used by software engineers to develop formats like the jpeg was “Lena,” taken from Playboy’s November 1972 centerfold. Early bulletin boards and multi-user domains quickly came to serve their members sexual musings. Facebook started as a way to rate “hot or not” Harvard co-eds. In fact, virtually every significant development that defines the Internet we know and love (and hate) today -- privacy issues, online payments and online banking, dating, social media, streaming technology, mass data collection -- came out the meeting of sexuality and technology. Not only did sexuality vastly influence the internet, but the internet arguably changed modern sexuality by giving every imaginable non-hetereonormative community a safe place to explore, fantasize, thrive, and be accepted. Which of course only led to more exploring, more fantasizing, more thriving. A lively, highly visual history, filled with broad themes and backstories, pioneering personalities and eureka-moments, How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex covers everything from Jennicam (remember her?) to deep fakes. And most of what came in between, including “A Brief History of Online Dating” and the promise that VR spaces like the metaverse hold for the future of human sexual interactions. Porn is just one part of the story. Rather, this is a story about human nature during the digital gold rush of the last fifty years.

For readers of Peggy Orenstein and Rebecca Traister, an authoritative, big think look at pornography in all its facets -- historical, religious, and cultural. In the 1960s, sex researchers Masters and Johnson declared the end of the fake orgasm. Nearly two decades later, in 1982,...  more

For readers of Peggy Orenstein and Rebecca Traister, an authoritative, big think look at pornography in all its facets -- historical, religious, and cultural. In the 1960s, sex researchers Masters and Johnson declared the end of the fake orgasm. Nearly two decades later, in 1982, evangelical activist Tim LaHaye foretold that the entire pornography industry would soon be driven out of business. Neither prediction proved true. Instead, with the rise of the internet, pornography saturates the American conscience more than ever and has reshaped our understanding of sexuality, relationships, media, and even the nature of addiction. Dr. Kelsy Burke has spent the last five years researching and interviewing internet pornography's opponents and its sympathizers. In The Pornography Wars, Burke does a deep dive into the long history of pornography in America and then turns her gaze on our present society to examine the ways this industry touches on the most intimate parts of American lives. She offers a complete understanding of the major players in the debates around porn's place in society: everyone from sex workers, activists, therapists, religious leaders, and consumers. In doing so, she addresses and debunks the myths that surround porn and porn usage while showing how everything from the way we teach children about sex to the legal protections for what can be published is tied up in the deeply complicated battles over pornography. Sweeping, savvy, and deeply researched, The Pornography Wars is a necessary and comprehensive new look at pornography and American life.

From Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today. At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz’s life, and in America, was in...  more

From Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today. At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz’s life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what “sexual liberation” meant were suddenly up for debate.   In the thick of personal and political turmoil, Nona turned to the words of history’s sexual revolutionaries—including her late mother, early radical pro-sex feminist Ellen Willis. At a time when sex has never been more accepted and feminism has never been more mainstream, Nona asked herself: What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy? Nona’s attempt to find the answer places her search for authentic intimacy alongside her family history and other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years. Stories of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, free lovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex—who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. The result is a brave, bold, and vulnerable exploration of what sexual freedom can mean. Bad Sex is Nona’s own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.