The Clitoral Truth: The Secret World at Your Fingertips [Hardcover]

Rebecca Chalker (Author), Fish (Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: August 1, 2000

The clitoris has been dismissed, undervalued, unexplored, and misunderstood for hundreds of years, but the truth is out there, and internationally celebrated sex educator Rebecca Chalker has found it. In The Clitoral Truth, Chalker offers the only mainstream, in-depth exploration devoted solely to women's genital anatomy and sexual response. Women readers everywhere--be they straight, gay, or bisexual--will learn about the countless sexual sensations and discover how to enhance their sexual responses in a more concrete way than ever before. Enhanced with personal accounts, comprehensive illustrations, and a thorough appendix of female sexuality resources, this book helps women and their partners understand and expand their sexual potential and work toward becoming independent sexual beings.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

REBECCA CHALKER is the author of The Clitoral Truth: The Secret World At Your Fingertips and A Woman's Book of Choices. She teaches Women's and Gender Studies at Pace University in New York City where she teaches a course on the cultural history of sexuality.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583220380
• ISBN-13: 978-1583220382
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,059,968 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed review June 12, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I purchased this book because I was searching for information on orgasm. My opinion of this book is mixed. The first chapter is an excellent source of info on female anatomy. This chapter, in my opinion, is the only part with outstanding in-depth information of relevance. Chapter two is about the history of sex. The author goes back to Freud and elaborates on views of sex over the years. As another reviewer commented, this chapter contains quips about how women's sexauality has been repressed. Chapter three deals with female ejaculation (was not impressed with this part). Chapters four & five are about self exploration. The book is a quick read. The valable information in this book is contained in chapter one and also in the extensive list of resources in the back.

45 of 53 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite adequite, although possibly excessive. April 11, 2003

By Deceit

Format:Hardcover

This is quite an interesting book. Its central basis surrounds the clit but also describes it as the central pleasure point to pretty much everything else. It provides all the information necessary along with many anatomical and entertaining hand-sketched pictures, describing all the various muscles and functions and spots of the entire female genetalia. On this, I could not complain or ask for anything more.

Indeed, the author has done her homework in writing this book, but I say excessive in the title because of how the material is presented along with the many accompanying details. Many a page are filled with backround information on the "Adventure of the Clitoris!"(no, they don't actually word it like that in the book). Strongly written in the female perspective, although it doesn't demean usefulness for the male readers, it gives the history of the clitorus all the way back to greek times as well as various stories and such. Although it does give the book some color, ideas throughout this 200-page book are often revealed slowly. I believe the same effect could have been established with half the space.

The chapters, from female ejaculation to beyond intercourse, do cover quite a bit. I stand firmly by my 5-stars. Choose as you wish: Fulfilling/excessive, colorful/cumbersome, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book myself, though.

49 of 59 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book. And a mirror. October 17, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Yes, this is indeed a feminist book (although since a "feminist", by definition, is simply someone who believes that women are equal human beings too, I'm not quite sure why some people have a problem with that).

But to be honest, it's pretty hard to discover how ignorant most women are about this fairly crucial part of our bodies and NOT come to the conclusion that something's wrong with the way our society deals with women's sexuality. I thought I was well-informed, but I learnt important stuff about my body from this book that I'd never known before.

If substantial numbers of men grew up not knowing they had a penis ... or not knowing where it was ... or how it worked ... or thinking that it was "dirty" to touch it ... or feeling ashamed of needing their lover to touch it in order for them to come ... I think you'd agree that something was wrong. Well, despite all the progress we've made, that's where far too many women are still at right now. Most sex ed classes still use diagrams that don't feature the clitoris at all, or at best show a tiny squiggle floating somewhere in space, and certainly don't give any information on what it actually *does*.

And you don't have to be "man-hating" or believe in some vast conspiracy to feel that this situation doesn't do women any favours - or men either. Personally, I've never heard a straight man say "God, I just wish I could meet a women who is totally ignorant about her body and never has an orgasm! Then I'd have to nag her into sex and she'd just lie there feeling depressed! That'd be so HOT!".

Buy this fun and fascinating book (I particularly love the cartoon illustrations - meticulously detailed and informative, but the opposite of the sterile diagrams so many books feature). And learn all the stuff you should have been taught in sex ed.