Sex can be an oppressive force, a tool to shame, divide, and control a population. But it can also be a force for change, for the legal and physical challenge of inequity and injustice. In West of Sex, Pablo Mitchell uses court transcripts and criminal cases to provide the first coherent picture of Mexican-American sexuality at the turn of the twentieth century, and a truly revelatory look at sexual identity in the borderlands. As Mexicans faced a rising tide of racial intolerance in the American West, some found cracks in the legal system that enabled them to assert their rights as full citizens, despite institutional hostility. In these chapters, Mitchell offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of ethnicity and power in the United States, placing ordinary Mexican women and men at the center of the story of American sex, colonialism, and belonging. Other chapters discuss topics like prostitution, same-sex intimacy, sexual violence, interracial romance, and marriage with an impressive level of detail and complexity. Written in vivid and accessible prose, West of Sex offers readers a new vision of sex and race in American history.

In this wide-ranging history, Richard Bernstein explores the connection between sex and power as it has played out between Eastern cultures and the Western explorers, merchants, and conquerors who have visited them. This illuminating book describes the historical and ongoing encounter between these travelers and the morally ambiguous opportunities they found in foreign lands. Bernstein’s narrative teems with real figures, from Marco Polo and his investigation into the harem of Kublai Khan; the nineteenth-century American missionary Isabella Thoburn and her efforts to stamp out the “sinfulness” of the Mughal culture of India; Gustave Flaubert and his dalliances with Egyptian prostitutes; to modern-day sex tourists in Southeast Asia, as well as the women that they both exploit and enrich. Provocative and insightful, The East, The West, and Sex is a lucid look at a pervasive and yet mostly ignored subject.

'West of Sex' uses court transcripts and criminal cases to provide a coherent picture of Mexican-American sexuality and a look at sexual identity in the borderlands.

Why did the West become so rich? Why is inequality rising? How ‘free’ should markets be? And what does sex have to do with it? In this passionate and skilfully argued book, leading feminist Victoria Bateman shows how we can only understand the burning economic issues of our time if we put sex and gender – ‘the sex factor’ – at the heart of the picture. Spanning the globe and drawing on thousands of years of history, Bateman tells a bold story about how the status and freedom of women are central to our prosperity. Genuine female empowerment requires us not only to recognize the liberating potential of markets and smart government policies but also to challenge the double-standard of many modern feminists when they celebrate the brain while denigrating the body. This iconoclastic book is a devastating exposé of what we have lost from ignoring ‘the sex factor’ and of how reversing this neglect can drive the smart economic policies we need today.

Mae West was the archetypal film star and the epitome of glamor. A short, plump girl from Brooklyn who aspired to stardom, she shot to international fame as an outlandish sex goddess, yet her road to stardom was rocky. Now top TV producer and distinguished biographer Maurice Leonard brings to life the real Mae West--her audacity, her courage, her genius. Photographs.

In this wide-ranging history, Richard Bernstein explores the connection between sex and power as it has played out between Eastern cultures and the Western explorers, merchants, and conquerors who have visited them. This illuminating book describes the historical and ongoing encounter between these travelers and the morally ambiguous opportunities they found in foreign lands. Bernstein’s narrative teems with real figures, from Marco Polo and his investigation into the harem of Kublai Khan; the nineteenth-century American missionary Isabella Thoburn and her efforts to stamp out the “sinfulness” of the Mughal culture of India; Gustave Flaubert and his dalliances with Egyptian prostitutes; to modern-day sex tourists in Southeast Asia, as well as the women that they both exploit and enrich. Provocative and insightful, The East, The West, and Sex is a lucid look at a pervasive and yet mostly ignored subject.

HARNESS THE MOST POWERFUL ENERGIES YOU HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED Unlock the powerful energies raised during the sex act and use them to manifest your deepest desires. During the sex act, your attention becomes focused into a "laser beam" of concentration. This power of concentrated thought is the foundation of all magical systems. Sex Magic's "secret" is that it's a tremendously powerful and easily learned way to consciously direct sexual energy and accomplish material and personal goals. Male and female energies are often entirely different and it would be folly to deny this; but experience shows that female magicians can be particularly successful in using and developing Sex Magic. Consequently, this book is aimed at both male and female readers unlike more traditional teachings written for men. Of all secret lore, Sex Magic has been reputed through the centuries to be the most dangerous. Today we know that this attitude was largely a reflection of the hostility held towards the flesh held by repressive religions. If we learn one thing from the shamanic cultures, it is the strong emphasis upon the role of the body in magic. Mind and Body are two facets of the One Thing in which Will, Imagination and Gnostic Trance are the three pillars of success. Contrary to the principles of Eastern Tantra, Western Sex Magic emphasizes the importance of actual orgasm, both male and female. Orgasm is the moment when the walls between consciousness and subconsciousness are sundered and direct access to the deeper levels of the psyche become possible, freeing up possible paranormal powers. Orgasm itself is sufficient to achieve gnostic trance provided that control is maintained and one does not simply lose consciousness, as most people do at the moment of ecstasy. Secrets Western Sex Magic teaches one of the oldest disciplines of this secret lore. It is a complete system of Sex Magic, in theory and practice - with exercises to develop related abilities for visualization, concentration, breath control, psychic energy arousal and flow along with full instructions on the projection of sexual energies for healing and manifestation, their use in Sigil Magic and the charging of Amulets & Talismans, Group Ritual, and the assumption of god-forms when working as a priestly couple, and the divine “Chymical Marriage” of ultimate union. This book is also an introduction to the entire field of practical magic, using our natural interest and involvement in sexual pleasure to illustrate and develop magical abilities and techniques.

In 1968, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) implemented sex testing for female athletes at that year's Games. When it became clear that testing regimes failed to delineate a sex divide, the IOC began to test for gender--a shift that allowed the organization to control the very idea of womanhood. Ranging from Cold War tensions to gender anxiety to controversies around doping, Lindsay Parks Pieper explores sex testing in sport from the 1930s to the early 2000s. Pieper examines how the IOC in particular insisted on a misguided binary notion of gender that privileged Western norms. Testing evolved into a tool to identify--and eliminate--athletes the IOC deemed too strong, too fast, or too successful. Pieper shows how this system punished gifted women while hindering the development of women's athletics for decades. She also reveals how the flawed notions behind testing--ideas often sexist, racist, or ridiculous--degraded the very idea of female athleticism.

Over the past twenty years debates about pornography have raged within feminism and beyond. Throughout the 1970s feminists increasingly addressed the problem of men's sexual violence against women, and many women reduced the politics of men's power to questions about sexuality. By the 1980s these questions had become more and more focused on the issue of pornography--now a metaphor for the menace of male power. Collapsing feminist politics into sexuality and sexuality into pornography has not only caused some of the deepest splits between feminists, but made it harder to think clearly about either sexuality or pornography--indeed, about feminist politics more generally. This provocative collection, by well-known feminists, surveys these arguments, and in particular asks why recent feminist debates about sexuality keep reducing to questions of pornography.