Faced with the seemingly enormous difficulty of representing `others', many theorists working in Cultural Studies have been turning to themselves as a way of speaking about the personal. In Sexing the Self Elspeth Probyn tackles this question of the sex of the self, an issue of vital importance to feminists and yet neglected by feminist theory until now, to suggest that there are ways of using our gendered selves in order to speak and theorize non-essential but embodied selves. Arguing for `feminisms with attitude', Sexing the Self ranges across a wide range of theoretical strands, drawing upon a body of literature from early Cultural Studies to Anglo-American feminist literary criticism, from `identity debates' to Foucault's `care of the self'.

This is a resource for women seeking practical techniques to discover, explore, express and embrace their sexual self. This book teaches you specific skills to improve your relationship with yourself (the key to better sex and relationships with others) by assisting you to connect with your core sexual self through intensive reflective questions and strategies. This book will allow you to access and celebrate your unique and beautiful sexuality.

Finding and Revealing Your Sexual Self integrates case studies and 'Sexercises' designed to enhance the information in each chapter. The tone of the book is one of compassion with a common sense approach that takes into account various sexual orientations. Special 'Sexual Healing' sections are dispersed throughout, containing relevant questions and answers relating to the difficulties that arise in different areas of sexuality and communication. The methods used in the book are tried and true exercises successfully used by the authors in couple and individual therapy. Finding and Revealing Your Sexual Self helps readers to become sexually self-aware and able to share this awareness with their partner, while providing the tools to discuss sex with professionals, if necessary.

Microcosm Publishing bestseller Dr. Faith takes on the fabulous topic of... masturbation! In her usual style of combining hilariousness with science, she breaks down the history of societal shame around self-pleasure, and offers practical and straightforward whys and hows of exploring your sexuality on your own time. From the benefits of learning all the ins and outs of your own sexual response to a candid guide to shopping for and using sex toys, she addresses the needs of cis and trans folks, busts some myths, and gives some guidelines for talking to your kids about masturbation. She even includes book recommendations! There's a lot to this little zine, whether you're an experienced masturbator or a recent escapee from a fundamentalist cult.

Not just another book about sexual abuse, this book explores the possibility of the hard but real journey to self-respect. It is an in-depth approach to understanding the individual's experience in sexual love, and an exploration of the nature of the self and sexuality. Describing a wide range of violations of sexuality and the resulting injuries to self-respect, it has the theoretical and clinical depth to be useful to professionals, while written in language accessible to the lay reader. The necessity of bringing in the body is examined and the text offers an experientially relevant way of conceptualizing bodily processes (bioenergetics) in sexuality and the self. This work affords new avenues for understanding the possibilities of the evolution of the self in adult life, and of child development toward the rebirth of self-respect and the development of a sexual ethic.

Journaling is one of the most effective pathways to enhanced creativity, personal discovery and healing. Each of these guided journals is an invitation to explore dreams, memories, ideas, goals and emotions in surprisingly new and constructive ways. Writing prompts, inspirational quotes and thought-provoking questions are interspersed among attractive journal pages that offer plenty of space for writing. Chapter openers provide additional insight on how to make the most of the journaling experience.

This book explores the relationship between sex and belonging in law and popular culture, arguing that contemporary citizenship is sexed, privatized, and self-disciplined. Former sexual outlaws have challenged their exclusion and are being incorporated into citizenship. But as citizenship becomes more sexed, it also becomes privatized and self-disciplined. The author explores these contesting representations of sex and belonging in films, television, and legal decisions. She examines a broad range of subjects, from gay men and lesbians, pornographers and hip hop artists, to women selling vibrators, adulterers, and single mothers on welfare. She observes cultural representations ranging from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to Dr. Phil, Sex in the City to Desperate Housewives. She reviews appellate court cases on sodomy and same-sex marriage, national welfare reform, and obscenity regulation. Finally, the author argues that these representations shape the terms of belonging and governance, producing good (and bad) sexual citizens, based on the degree to which they abide by the codes of privatized and self-disciplined sex.

With intellectual reference points that include Foucault and Freud, Wittig, Kristeva and Irigaray, this is one of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years and is perhaps the essential work of contemporary feminist thought.

Psychiatrist and sex therapist Edward L. Rowan, M.D., has written this unique book to encourage us all to come out of the closet. Masturbation is surely one of the most common human activities, and yet most of us react to the subject with embarrassment. Americans are generally so uncomfortable with the topic that former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was fired for indiscreetly suggesting in public that high school kids masturbate as a way of avoiding HIV infection.Dr. Rowan points to the Elders incident as evidence that we are still victims of a negative cultural attitude spawned by the sin and sickness models of early Church fathers and medical practitioners who did not know any better. Unfortunately, they established a pattern of shame and guilt that is difficult to overcome in spite of our current knowledge.Although masturbation is now recognized as a therapeutic tool in addressing sexual dysfunction and problematic arousal patterns, Rowan argues that it can be much more. Good orgasms, whether alone or with a partner, provide a sense of well-being and personal autonomy. Relationships are better when one does not have to depend solely on a partner to make them whole. Masturbation is also the safest form of safe sex.While masturbation is a universal behavior, there are differences in motivation, frequency, technique, and fantasy patterns between men and women. Rowan discusses these differences while emphasizing that masturbation can be good sex and should be experienced for pleasure not just as a tension release.Our attitudes are due for a change, says Dr. Rowan, and The Joy of Self-Pleasuring is designed to promote that change while offering the reader information, insight, and humor as well.

A Los Angeles Times columnist recounts her eighteen-month undercover stint as a man, a time during which she underwent considerable personal risks as she worked a sales job, joined a bowling league, frequented sex clubs, dated, and encountered firsthand the rigid codes and rituals of masculinity. 80,000 first printing.