Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture [Paperback]

Carol Queen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997

Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture by Carol Queenis Queen's long-awaited and delightfully candid collected writings on sex. Whether writing about the joys of being turned over her lover's knee and spanked into erotic bliss, performing in a red-light district peep show, educating physicians on the finer points of the gynecological exam, or attending a California Men's Movement gathering to lobby for the pro-pornography platform, Queen is compassionate and intel ligent - and deliciously provocative.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When she was a kid, Carol Queen was called "Queen the Queer." "Queer" was still very much an insult at the time, not the term of power and pride it has recently become. Similarly, sex was called a bad thing, a nasty thing, even for, perhaps especially for, good girl feminists. Like other sex-positive folks of her generation, Carol Queen is re-evaluating the range and possibilities of sexual experience and identity. This book gathers previously published essays on topics ranging from pelvic exams, pornography law, the men's movement, sex as art, Madonna, and sacred whoredom. Queen is an intelligent, funny writer.

From Library Journal

A columnist for East Bay Express who also writes for a variety of other mainstream and alternative publications, Queen has collected many of her essays on sex in this volume. In fact, sex and the various ways it can be experienced appears to be primary focus in Queen's life, but the quality and interest level of the essays is very uneven. The best include a letter to her mother about her sex choices, one arguing why gynecologists and other physicians need better training on how to talk to patients about and during pelvic exams, and another that gives new insights into spanking as sexual pleasure. Though the essays tell in graphic detail the many ways an individual can be sexual, this book is not meant to be erotic. Its sexual content is primarily explicit, descriptive narrative. Thus, unless the reader is specifically interested in the details of Queen's sex life, the book can be quite boring. Recommended only for Bay Area or large sexual studies collections.?Pauline Klein, DeKalb Cty. P.L., Decatur, Ga.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Cleis Pr; 1st edition (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573440736
• ISBN-13: 978-1573440738
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,149,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shy people like it too!, July 30, 1998

By 

Abi Davis ([e-mail]) (Santa Barbara, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture (Paperback)

Real Live Nude Girl was recommended to me several times before I picked it up. Knowing something about Carol Queen, her politics and the areas in which she works, I expected to be frightened more than engaged by the book. Boy, was I wrong! I'm glad I finally read it after all. Carol Queen's intelligence, humor, and insight make subjects that can be overwhelming come across instead as engaging and challenging. I was left knowing more, wondering more, and fearing less. So don't hesitate to give it a spin even if it sounds at first like a bit much.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Essays about Sexuality, June 30, 2000

By 

George V. Reilly (Seattle, Wash, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture (Paperback)

[I wrote this review three years ago. It used to have my name on it, but that somehow got lost a couple of years ago. I'd like to reclaim my review.-gvr]

Carol Queen is (or has been) a sexologist, a bisexual, a peep show stripper, a whore, and a damn good writer. I had read some of her erotica and eagerly snapped up this collection of essays.

She covers prostitution, pornography, censorship, sex work, sex education, bisexuality, exhibitionism, Madonna's _Sex_, safe sex, S/M, and much, more more. She's clear, she's incisive, she's sage, and she's almost frighteningly dead-on. You may not agree with everything she says, but she'll make you think. Especially recommended to fans of Susie Bright.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A challenge to social-feminist constructs of sexuality., December 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture (Paperback)

Queen's book is a very bold discussion of our culturally defined notions of the place of sex and sexuality, for both women and men. Her writing challenges many long-held feminist notions of "deviant" sexual practices as supporitng the suppression and devaluation of women. Instead, Queen shows through her own personal trials and errors with sex, that women can control, guide and determine their own sexuality through myriad experiences, even those deemed "deviant" by more repressed social factions. While Queen mentions the existence of violence in the sex industry, I feel she too easily dismisses the prevelance of such. True, many women such as herself choose their own path as sex workers, but many do not. More could be said as to how to make "politically correct" choices in the use of sex products/services to support those who choose to participate, as opposed to supporting those who force participation. Queen's experience as an author of erotica is evident in this writing. Interestingly enough, this may begin to cause the reader to question just how much they are in tune with their own sexuality, when after completing a narrative passage, the reader suddenly wonders, "Wow, did that just turn me on?" Of course, you have to not be afraid to read it first. Enjoy.