What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl's Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety [Paperback]

Jaclyn Friedman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2011

In this empowering, accessible guide, Jaclyn Friedman—co-editor of Yes Means Yes—gives young women the tools to decipher the modern world’s confusing, hypersexualized, sometimes dangerous landscape so they can define their own sexual identity. Friedman decries the hypocrisy and mixed messages of our culture (we’re failures if we don’t act sexy, but we’re sluts if we actually pursue sex; we need to be protected from rapists lurking in bushes, but deserve “whatever we get” if we have a drink at a party and wear a skirt), and encourages readers to separate fear from fact, decode the damaging messages all around them, and discover a healthy personal sexuality.

Educational and interactive, What You Really Really Want includes revealing quizzes, creative exercises, and reality-based advice about sex and sexuality today. With Friedman’s informed advice to guide them, readers will build new skills for safely expressing their sexuality with lovers and explore effective ways to talk about tricky issues with family and friends—and learn how to make the world a little safer for everyone else’s sexuality along the way.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Don't have sex before you read this book! With her usual wit and candor, Friedman writes a manual for sex that teaches, engages, surprises and-most important-puts the reader in charge. What You Really Really Want will change the way a generation thinks (and acts!) about sex." —Jessica Valenti, author of The Purity Myth

"Too many books in this genre promise certain drive-your-man-wild tricks, or they take a side in the politicized debate over hookup culture. Friedman instead has one thing on her agenda: Getting girls to explore and embrace their own authentic sexual identities without shame, fear or guilt. Instead of arguing for empowerment through one-night stands or, conversely, abstinence, she leaves it up to young women to decide what it is that’s best for them. But she also offers guidance along the way, urging them to critically examine the social pressures and media messages that have shaped their understandings of sexiness, sexual fulfillment and love." —Salon.com

"It is a book that many readers may wish they had read earlier in their lives, and as a prospective parent, I'm looking forward to making my children read every last word of it." —Rabble.CA

"While basically permissive, this valuable guide can also help readers with differing views to organize a personal groundwork according their own perspective. Recommended for women and older teens who seek self-insight." —Library Journal

In a world of Pussycat Dolls and virginity pledges, What You Really Really Want carves out a path for real women to have real sex on their own terms. The information and exercises in this book have the power to change your sex life for good." —Susie Bright, activist, author of Big Sex Little Death

"There is more significant, sex-positive, shame-free, life-changing knowledge in a few pages of this book than you'll find in the entire public school sex education curriculum." —Tristan Taormino, sex educator, author of The Secrets of Great G-Spot Orgasms and Female Ejaculation

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press; 1 edition (October 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580053440
• ISBN-13: 978-1580053440
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, performer, and activist, and the editor of the hit book Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (one of Publishers' Weekly's Top 100 Books of 2009).

Friedman is a popular speaker on campuses and at conferences across the U.S. and beyond. She has been a guest on BBC World Have Your Say, Democracy Now, To The Contrary, and numerous other radio and television shows, and her commentary has appeared in outlets including CNN, The Washington Post, The Nation, Jezebel, Feministing.com, The American Prospect, Bitch, AlterNet, and The Huffington Post. She is a SheSource expert, and was named one of 2009's Top 40 Progressive Leaders Under 40 by the New Leaders Council.

Friedman is a founder and the Executive Director of Women, Action & the Media, a national organization working for gender justice in media. She is also a charter member of CounterQuo, a coalition dedicated to challenging the ways we respond to sexual violence.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, creative toolbox October 24, 2011

By Heather Corinna

Format:Paperback

Caveat: Jaclyn is a good friend and colleague of mine. However, if this book had sucked, I wouldn't have left a review. I'd have sent the author some condolence cupcakes instead.

I was able to review the galley in advance, and I am so tremendously excited it's about to debut. As someone who works counseling women of all ages about sex, sexual health and sexuality, I often hear about how hard some find it to even figure out what they really want, let alone know how to start seeking it out. I feel like I finally have an utterly excellent book I can point them to to help them do just that, and am so grateful for that.

This is a highly inclusive book, which is always refreshing, and it completely avoids prescribing one given sexual or relationship model, sexuality or approach. It does a magnificent job of providing creative tools for the reader to find their own way based on who they are and what they want, uniquely.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars No other book like this one December 13, 2011

By dernhelm

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm almost halfway through, and in my humble teenage opinion, this should be required reading in every high school classroom.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, good conversation starter September 12, 2012

By BigTasty

Format:Paperback

I got this book at the book launch tour with the author, and it was awesome. I'm a guy, but I still found a lot of the ideas in the book helpful and informative. I didn't get a chance to do EVERY exercise in it, and a lot of the long-term ones I couldn't keep up over more than a week or so, but it did spark a really great conversation between me and my then partner about desire and influences on desire. If you are interested in the closest thing you'll find to a practical guide to understanding your own sexual interests, this is the book for you.

What this book ISN'T is a psycho-analytic walk through various fetishes or kinks; if that's what you want, this probably isn't the book for you. It's also not a book about the mystical power of sex - although it's certainly sex positive, a big message of the book is that we should each come to our own desire as we want to, and for some of us, that might mean recognizing that we don't have a ton of it. What it will provide is a series of challenges - workable, approachable challenges - for readers to confront as they delve into their own interests and how to share those interests with potential partners down the line.