Reclaiming Erotic Pleasure

Go beyond surviving to reclaim your sexual self. If you have experienced sexual abuse, assault, harassment, or rape, you may feel disconnected from your sexual self—even if you’ve overcome the initial trauma of your experience. You are a survivor; but surviving is just the beginning. This book explores what comes next. Written by a psychotherapist and grounded in cutting-edge research, Reclaiming Pleasure picks up where other sexual trauma recovery books leave off. It offers practical tools to help you cultivate a sense of safety, security and trust in order to reclaim the vitality, pleasure and great sex you deserve. The book will also serve as your compass on a journey toward the rediscovery of desire, letting you explore what you want from others and for yourself. This groundbreaking book will help you: Understand the lasting mental, physical, sexual, and relational impacts of sexual trauma Move beyond feelings of shame Reclaim pleasure and reignite passion in your life Surviving is merely the first step in the process of recovery from sexual trauma. With this sex-positive and empowering guide, you are invited to take your recovery to the next level. You’ll feel emboldened by the desire for better sex, healthier relationships, and a more connected, pleasurable life.

I'm so busy and tired, how can I find time for sex? How can I go from mommy one minute to passionate lover the next? What medicines or natural herbs can I take to improve my libido? At some point in their lives, most women experience a decline in their sexual desire. Yet despite the vast number of books devoted to sex, surprisingly few focus on the problem of low libido. Fewer still offer any practical advice to the woman who has lost her sex drive and longs to find it again. Reclaiming Desire presents the holistic approach that gynecologist Andrew Goldstein and clinical psychologist Marianne Brandon—co-founders of the Sexual Wellness Center in Annapolis, Maryland—use to successfully treat women with low libido. Capitalizing on their combined medical and psychological expertise, they reveal how a complex set of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual factors—as well as specific life-changing events such as marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, divorce, and menopause—can affect female sex drive. Reading this book, women will come to understand that low libido isn't "all in their heads"—or all in their bodies, for that matter. The problem is real and it's diverse—but it's curable.

“Peters takes readers on her own personal journey from trauma to reconnecting with her body, emotions, and eventually her own desire and sexuality.” —Xanet Pailet, bestselling author of Living an Orgasmic Life We know, increasingly, how common and devastating sexual violence is for women, but we don’t always talk about how survivors can recover from the trauma and return to desire, sexuality, trust, and pleasure. Want is the story of how Julie Peters did just that—and how you can, too. In the years after the assault, Julie was in what she calls the fog of trauma: the colorless, tasteless experience of barely getting through the day. No one—not counsellors, support groups, or other survivors—could give her any advice about how to find the desire that could bring her back to joy, intimacy, and connection. She had to make it up on her own. In Want, Julie tells the story of getting from the devastation of trauma to living a full life in eight sometimes challenging, often bumbling, and occasionally delightful steps. Your loved ones may not know how to support you, but they can learn more about your experiences and how to walk alongside you through this book, just as you can learn how to recover from the trauma you’ve experienced. Want offers a window into one person’s experience of recovery—plus the happy ending we all need to know is possible after trauma. “With unwavering honesty, penetrating insight, warmth, humor, and aplomb, she lays out strategies for a tangible, nourishing, and vitally ferocious self-love.” —Jeremy Radin, poet, author of Dear Sal

"Kathryn Hall takes a fresh and refreshing new look at why so many women are not really interested in sex. A uniquely helpful book." -Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., author of The Dance of Anger "Women don't need medicine or magic to feel desire but rather reasons and motivation. This book provides sound strategies and sensible suggestions for overcoming sexual inertia and finding genuine satisfaction." -Sandra Leiblum, Ph.D., Director, Center for Sexual & Relationship Health, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey "The many who are searching for sexual desire in an easy-to-swallow pill form may be pleasantly surprised to find it in this easy-to-read book form." -Gerianne M. Alexander, Ph.D., Texas A&M University At last, a drug-free, holistic program to restore sexual passion and desire Despite what many so-called experts believe, lack of sexual desire in women does not necessarily indicate a hormonal problem. More often, asserts sex therapist Dr. Kathryn Hall, it means that something is out of balance in our lives. In Reclaiming Your Sexual Self, Dr. Hall reveals how to discover the source of your lack of sexual interest and take charge of your health. Drawing on successful methods she has used in her clinical practice, she helps you identify the imbalances that are affecting your overall well-being and get in touch with lost or neglected sexual feelings. Through a series of illuminating exercises and with Dr. Hall's wise, warm advice, you'll discover: * Why it's okay to want sex-and enjoy it * Ways to improve communication with your partner * The right conditions and circumstances to spark your sexual interest * How to maintain a vital sexual connection for the long term * When to consult a professional Hormone replacement therapy doesn't have to be the answer. You can reclaim your sexual self and keep desire and passion alive and well by following the proven, reassuring advice in this authoritative guide.

What would happen if pleasure were made the organizing principle for social relations and sexual pleasure ruled over all? Radical French libertines experimented clandestinely with this idea during the Enlightenment. In explicit novels, dialogues, poems, and engravings, they wrenched pleasure free from religion and morality, from politics, aesthetics, anatomy, and finally reason itself, and imagined how such a world would be desirable, legitimate, rapturous—and potentially horrific. Laying out the logic and willful illogic of radical libertinage, this book ties the Enlightenment engagement with sexual license to the expansion of print, empiricism, the revival of skepticism, the fashionable arts and lifestyles of the Ancien Régime, and the rise and decline of absolutism. It examines the consequences of imagining sexual pleasure as sovereign power and a law unto itself across a range of topics, including sodomy, the science of sexual difference, political philosophy, aesthetics, and race. It also analyzes the roots of radical claims for pleasure in earlier licentious satire and their echoes in appeals for sexual liberation in the 1960s and beyond.

The creator of the internationally popular, multiple award-winning blog MsAfropolitan applies an Africa-centered feminist sensibility to issues of racism and sexism, challenging our illusions about oppression and liberation and daring women to embrace their power. Sensuous Knowledge is a collection of thought provoking essays that explore questions central to how we see ourselves, our history, and our world. What does it mean to be oppressed? What does it mean to be liberated? Why do women choose to follow authority even when they can be autonomous? What is the cost of compromising one’s true self? What narratives particularly subjugate women and people of African heritage? What kind of narrative can heal and empower? As she considers these questions, Salami offers fresh insights on key cultural issues that impact women’s lives, including power, beauty, and knowledge. She also examines larger subjects, such as Afrofuturism, radical Black feminism, and gender politics, all with a historical outlook that is also future oriented. Combining a storyteller’s narrative playfulness and a social critic’s intellectual rigor, Salami draws upon a range of traditions and ideologies, feminist theory, popular culture—including insights from Ms. Lauryn Hill, Beyoncé, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and others—science, philosophy, African myths and origin stories, and her own bold personal narrative to establish a language for change and self-liberation. Sensuous Knowledge inspires reflection and challenge us to formulate or own views. Using ancestral knowledge to steer us toward freedom, Salami reveals the ways that women have protested over the years in large and small ways—models that inspire and empower us to define our own sense of womanhood today. In this riveting meditation, Salami ask women to break free of the prison made by ingrained male centric biases, and build a house themselves—a home that can nurture us all.