Sex!

A gorgeous deluxe edition of the world's most celebrated guide to life, love, relationships and pleasure.

Little is known about Vatsyayana, who is reputed to have composed the Kama Sutra "while observing a celibate's life in full meditation." In Sanskrit the word "kama" means desire, especially for sensual pleasure, and its proper pursuit was considered an essential part of a young, urbane gentleman's well-rounded education.

Untold numbers of readers are curious about the Kama Sutra but put off by its clichéd image as an erotic Oriental curiosity. This elegant edition offers a compelling modern translation of a classic Indian masterpiece-and a wry and entertaining account of human desire and foibles.

Some towns in Nevada have legal brothels where sex can be bought lawfully, yet in Las Vegas, prostitutes and their patrons are regularly prosecuted for exchanging sex for money, just as they are elsewhere in the United States. While sex work has long been controversial, it has become even more contested over the past decade as laws, policies, and enforcement practices have become more repressive in many nations, partly as a result of the ascendancy of interest groups committed to the total abolition of the sex industry.  

Legalizing Prostitution maps out the current terrain. Using America as a backdrop, Weitzer draws on extensive field research in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany to illustrate alternatives to American-style criminalization and marginalization of sex workers. These cases are then used to develop a roster of “best practices” that can serve as a model for other nations considering legalization. Legalizing Prostitution provides a theoretically grounded comparative analysis of political dynamics, policy outcomes, and red-light landscapes in nations where prostitution has been legalized and regulated by the government, presenting a rich and novel portrait of the multifaceted world of legal sex for sale.

I need a little sugar in my bowl,
I need a little hot dog, on my roll
I can stand a bit of lovin’, oh so bad,
I feel so funny, I feel so sad
—Bessie Smith

When it comes to sex, what do women want? In this eye-opening and courageous collection, Erica Jong reveals that every woman has her own answer. Susan Cheever talks about the “excruciating hazards of casual sex,” while Gail Collins recounts her Catholic upbringing in Cincinnati and the nuns who passionately forbade her from having “carnal relations.” In “Everything Must Go,” Jennifer Weiner explores how, in love, the body can play just as big a role as the heart. The octogenarians in Karen Abbott’s sharp-eyed piece possess a passion that could give Betty White a run for her money. Molly Jong-Fast reflects on her unconventional upbringing and why a whole generation of young women have rejected “free love” in favor of Bugaboo strollers and Mommy-and-me yoga. Sex, it turns out, can be as fleeting, heavy, mundane, and intense as the rest of life. Indeed, Jong states in her powerful introduction “the truth is—sex is life.”

Contributors

Erica Jong
Karen Abbott
Anne Roiphe
Jessica Winter
Jann Turner
Julie Klam
Susan Kinsolving
Susie Bright
Fay Weldon
Linda Gray Sexton
Elisa Albert
Barbara Victor
Daphne Merkin
Marisa Acocella Marchetto
Min Jin Lee
Honor Moore
Jennifer Weiner
Gail Collins
Liz Smith
Rebecca Walker
Jean Hanff Korelitz
Eve Ensler
Meghan O’Rourke
Rosemary Daniell
J. A. K. Andres
Molly Jong-Fast
Susan Cheever
Ariel Levy
Margot Magowan

Another mammoth compilation from Downtown New York's "drinking group with a writing problem," the previous authors of The Worst Book I Ever Read, Crimes of the Beats, and Help Yourself! among other innumerable assaults on decency and good taste. Now they finally turn themselves to their most likely subject matter ever (even if it's frequently as much a matter of fantasy and theory as deviant practice)…. Contributors include Jonatham Lethem, Samuel Delany, Penny Arcade, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Bob Holman, Chavisa Woods, Tsaurah Litzky, Gerard Malanga, Jordan Zinovich, Jennifer Blowdryer, Susan Scutti, and scores more.

In this controversial, thought-provoking, and brilliant book, renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda JethÁ debunk almost everything we “know” about sex, weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality to show how far from human nature monogamy really is. In Sex at Dawn, 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.

There are 78 million people now crossing the 50-year mark—and they’re redefining middle age and creating a new vision of what a fulfilling sex life means. Sex Over 50 speaks to this legion of gracefully aging Americans who are looking for professional, practical advice on how to make the transition to deeper, richer, more sophisticated sexual relationships. This edition includes a new chapter on the dating scene for Boomers, as well as updated information on hormone replacement therapy and erectile dysfunction.

Exhibitionism as a consensual erotic pleasure and a means to overcome shyness and body image issues. Featuring suggested exercises and discussions of erotic dress, talk, personas and roleplay, involving your partner, exhibitionism and the sex industry, and more. Interviews include Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, Candye Kane, Juliet Anderson, Vanessa del Rio, Lily Burana, Shar Rednour, and others. Updated version (in press) will include a new chapter on Internet exhibitionism and new interview material with Margaret Cho, Violet Blue, Audacia Ray, and Brian Alexander.

The efficacy and risks of different birth control options are dramatically different today from what they once were thanks to scientific advances and increased awareness of STDs and other factors. In the most comprehensive book on birth control since the 1970s, women's health activist Laura Eldridge discusses the history, scientific advances, and practical uses of everything from condoms to the male pill to Plan B.
Do diaphragms work? Should you stay on the Pill? What does fertility awareness really mean? Find these answers and more in In Our Control, the definitive guide to modern contraceptive and sexual health. Eldridge presents her meticulous research and unbiased consideration of our options in the intimate and honest tone of a close friend. Eldridge goes on to explore large-scale issues that might factor into women's birth control choices, urging her readers to consider the environmental impacts of each method and to take part in a dialogue on how international reproductive health issues affect us all.
Whether you're looking for your first birth control method or want to know more about your current contraceptive choice, In Our Control offers the cutting edge information and practical wisdom you’ll need to make empowered decisions about your sexual health.

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. And, as Gail 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. Proving that porn desensitizes and actually limits our sexual freedom, Dines argues its omnipresence is a public health concern we can no longer ignore.

While America is not alone in its ambivalence toward sex and its depictions, the preferences of the nation swing sharply between toleration and censure. This pattern has grown even more pronounced since the 1960s, with the emergence of the New Right and its attack on the "floodtide of filth" that was supposedly sweeping the nation. Antipornography campaigns became the New Right's political capital in the 1960s, laying the groundwork for the "family values" agenda that shifted the country to the right.

Perversion for Profit traces the anatomy of this trend and the crucial function of pornography in constructing the New Right agenda, which has emphasized social issues over racial and economic inequality. Conducting his own extensive research, Whitney Strub vividly recreates the debates over obscenity that consumed members of the ACLU in the 1950s and revisits the deployment of obscenity charges against purveyors of gay erotica during the cold war, revealing the differing standards applied to heterosexual and homosexual pornography. He follows the rise of the influential Citizens for Decent Literature during the 1960s and the pivotal events that followed: the sexual revolution, feminist activism, the rise of the gay rights movement, the "porno chic" moment of the early 1970s, and resurgent Christian conservatism, which now shapes public policy far beyond the issue of sexual decency.

Strub also examines the ways in which the left failed to mount a serious or sustained counterattack to the New Right's use of pornography as a political tool. As he demonstrates, this failure put the Democratic Party at the mercy of Republican rhetoric. In placing debates about pornography at the forefront of American postwar history, Strub revolutionizes our understanding of sex and American politics.