Customer Reviews

Behind the Bedroom Door: Getting It, Giving It, Loving It, Missing It

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved reading this book.As a 71 year old grandmother, I did not expect to relate to the authors of these essays. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did. This is a book women and men all ages will enjoy.

Joyce G.

OK. So I didn't know what to expect when I started to read this book. I was expecting something more erotic, but instead found it incredibly insightful. Each essay is written by a different author, in a different situation, and at a different point in her life (emotionally, maritally, age-wise, etc.). What brings them together is great writing, and remarkable honesty.

Sex and love and making love are slightly "risque" topics, not generally written about so openly in contemporary literature. Through the essays of 26 very talented female writers/thinkers, we are given front seats to their intimate sexual experiences.

There is something here for everyone. Shared stories, challenges, passions and troubles. We hear stories of love affairs, one night stands, entertaining afternoons, and daydreams that really occurred! There is sex and passion, but, equally as important, compassion and love. Some love fleeting and some passion everlasting, but all sweet and all beautifully shared.

This book may not be for prudes, but such opinions are best left to other readers to discuss and comment on.

This is a wonderful book to read and reread. After a few reads, one can keep on their bed stand and select chapters for rereading based on one's own needs, moods, and current experiences.

Highly recommended to enjoy and share with girlfriends!!!

This book may be positioned for women - and I'm sure they'll love it - but what a goldmine for the guy who wants to know what this sampling of 26 women really do and want when it comes to sex. This is not the "perfect moment sex" that you see on TV and in movies. This is not porn. This is not gratuitous celeb sex reporting. This is about real women in the real world. The collection offers a wide array of sexual perspectives and experiences, but it maintains the coherent theme that sex is better when truth is involved - truth about ourselves, our partners, our fantasies, and our hangups. It's enlightening and inspirational, and just might jazz up any sex life.

I am an over-the-hill, 61-year-old male, and even I was entranced, entertained, and educated by Paula Derrow's brilliant anthology "Behind the Bedroom Door." The stories of real women seeking sex and love are alternately hilarious, sad, uplifting, and heart-rending. The stories are graphic (I admit to a degree of prurient interest), as you would expect given the subject matter.

I had no idea of the agony and ecstasy that women experience in the never-ending search for lasting love and dynamite sex. The 26 women contributors write brilliantly and Ms. Derrow's editing is top-notch. "Behind the Bedroom Door" is a must-read for both women and men. I wish it would have been available 40 years ago during my prime. Don't miss this one!

...sorry, could not help myself.

What strikes me about this book is the honesty,,, sometimes painful honesty that all the writers use in telling their stories. WOW... this book is full of straight from the heart stories that are EXTREAMLY personnel.

They all go full open kimono on their history. Some are funny, some are sad, some are madding, ( what were they thinking???? ) but they were all well worth reading.

I do think this is a topic that benefits from having honest, open discussion. We all wonder what is going on in others peoples lives and how we compare. While I'm not sure that any of these stories falls into what I would have called main stream, having now read the book, I begin to wonder, is there a main stream when it comes to sex/love/lust/romance? Or maybe the better question is, should there be.

4 stars for making me ask those questions.

This book was wonderful, however, I believe you will need an open mind for it! It made me laugh, cry & everything inbetween! I was very entertained by it & would read it again if I hadn't already passed it along to my best friend!

Behind the Bedroom Door: Getting It, Giving It, Loving It, Missing It, ed. Paula Derrow, present 26 candid, often funny essays about sexual urges, preferences, experiences, longings, and embarrassments from women writers. Many are our age, reflecting on past experiences or celebrating current ones.

Some of these essays are sweet, like Hope Edelman's memory of 15-year-old sex ("Two people touching each other in all the right places, because there were no wrong places then, doing it for no reason other than it felt good and to keep doing it felt even better."). Some are full of erotic discovery, energy, self-assertion. Some may disturb you, like Abby Sher's essay about anorexia, cutting and a lover helpless to stop either, and Julie Powell's essay about her need for rough sex ("D was a perceptive lover, perceptive enough to know before I did that I wanted him to hit me, control me, hurt me.") All are powerfully written.

Joan Price
Author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty

I'm looking forward to dissecting this with the ladies in my book club (I've already shared a few of the essays with my husband, who was scandalized/enlightened/fascinated/horrified to learn what women really think). I loved a bunch of the essays, a few got under my skin and I'm not sure why...I'm supercurious to find out what my friends think.

I came across "Behind the Bedroom Door" by Paula Derrow while searching for Susan Cheever's book on sex addiction. This book was probably flagged because she contributed an essay to it. In this book Ms. Derrow assembles essays on subjects like one-night stands, lack of sex, difficulty with sex, sex with a younger man, sex that adversely affects subsequent relationships and et al by known female writers. For me the following essays were particularly illuminating. "In Praise of One-night Stands," by Susan Cheever outlines the differences between sex with a steady partner and one-night stands. "Turning the Other Cheek," reminds one of the old caveat: be careful what you wish for because it might come true. "The Sweetest Sex I Never Had," describes a nascent romance and its end. "Fantasy Man," illustrates a dominant woman's efforts to convert her gentle husband from a mensch to a bully who would degrade her and take her against her will. "Kiss Poker," details an early sexual experience of the narrator and its effects on her adult life. "The Great Pretender," illustrates years of dry patches in the sex life of Jane Juska, author of "A Round-Heeled Woman." Lastly, "Sex with a (Much) Younger Man," offers a glimpse of a beautiful relationship between two people separated by 16 years. It underscores the unpredictability of life and how some accidents demand reevaluation of our goals. All in all, an interesting books on relationships from female point of view.