Women Who Love Sex/Enhancing Your Sexual Pleasure and Enriching Your Life [Hardcover]

Gina Ogden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1994

In this quantum leap in sex research, women who love sex share, with complete candor, their erotic encounters, fantasies, and desires. Author and psychotherapist Gina Ogden spent 20 years conducting interviews with hundreds of women. The result is this powerful book that offers new possibilities for pleasure and ecstasy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At least "a few" of the principal interviewees in this survey are "composite women" whose testimonies meld the words of clients whom Ogden, a marriage, family and sex therapist, has treated since the mid-1970s. Despite this lame device, which weakens credibility, her profiles of women who welcome sex as a life-enlarging experience, a source of energy and connectedness, add up to an affirmative, useful guide for both women and men, enriched by smart clinical insights. Ogden ( Sexual Recovery ) reports that more than half of the women interviewed experienced orgasm from stimulation by a lover of various areas--fingers, toes, lips, neck, earlobe, etc. For many, the pleasure of stimulating a partner was an important component of their own arousal and satisfaction. Ogden's respondents talk frankly about overcoming emotional hang-ups, sexual fulfillment and its meaning in their lives. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Freely reconstructed conversations between a feminist sex researcher and women who love sex and love talking about it. Ogden (When a Family Needs Therapy, 1976) conducted hundreds of interviews over a 20-year period with ``easily orgasmic'' women. The identities of many are combined into three composite women, called Alice, Maya, and Iris. Ogden, whose own love of sex led to her career in sex therapy and research, depicts herself in deep conversation with these composites as they candidly, even proudly, discuss their experiences and share their views on lust, satisfaction, and extragenital stimulation. Other women, who are apparently not composites but whose identities have been altered, converse similarly about sexual nurturing, intimacy, and imagery- induced orgasm (called ``thinking off''), a phenomenon on which Ogden conducted laboratory research. Occasionally their statements strain credulity--``I'm orgasming in my throat chakra,'' gasps one participant in the laboratory study--and sometimes Ogden appears to be pushing her own ideas, not theirs. Essentially, her theme is that sexuality has too long been narrowly defined by men in male terms, whereas a broader, more human view sees it as central to the entire quality of life. Ogden's celebration of female sexuality places her in the tradition of Lonnie Barbach (For Yourself, 1975), Shere Hite (The Hite Report, 1976), and Betty Dodson (Sex for One, 1987), and fans of those books will probably find much to like here. An appendix includes the questionnaire used in interviews and a transcript of the guided imagery tape used in her laboratory research on imagery-induced orgasm. Male readers intrigued by the title may feel misled, for these are not sex kittens but opinionated, articulate, and uninhibited feminists sounding off to each other. (B&w drawings, not seen) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books; First Edition edition (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671865501
• ISBN-13: 978-0671865504
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #532,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The most common question I hear from my sex therapy clients is: "Isn't there supposed to be something more?" What they mean is that they deeply desire more than just "thank-you-ma'am" sex that's driven by goals and performance. They are searching for sexual experiences that connect body, mind, heart, and spirit--that can transform their lives, at any age, even if they have a history of sexual disappointment or even abuse.

Helping these women connect deeply with themselves and their partners is what motivates me to conduct retreats, workshops, and teleseminars all over the world--and to write books where women (and men, too) can feel heard and understood--and discover new ways to reach for what they really want instead of just doing what they think will please others. See more details on www.GinaOgden.com. Please write to me and tell me what you think.

NEXT TELESEMINAR: The Return of Desire -- Getting the Sex You Want: A Teleseminar for Health Professionals, Part 4 - March -April 2010 - Get more info at http://ginaogden.com/media/Teleseminar_Ogden-Nelson_Spring2010.pdf

I come to my present work though more than three decades as a sex therapist and through responses from almost 4,000 women and men who answered my nationwide survey: "Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality" (ISIS). I am a licensed marriage and family therapist, a board-certified sex-therapy diplomate, a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the International Society for the Study Women's Sexual Health, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. I am also an associate professor of sexology at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, and the continuing education editor of Contemporary Sexuality, the journal of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists. I've been a consultant for Our Bodies, Ourselves and for the U.S. Surgeon General's 2001 "Call to Action for Healthy Sexual Behavior." I've written for magazines such as Parade, Ms., Networker, Ladies Home Journal, Fitness, New Woman, and New Age and I've been on the media from talk radio to Oprah. I've also published research in numerous academic books and journals. A peer-reviewed paper on the ISIS survey, "Sexuality and Spirituality in Women's Relationships," was published by the Wellesley Centers for Research on Women (www.wcwonline.org.). I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Below, I've listed some questions to consider when you read any of my books--"WOMEN WHO LOVE SEX," THE HEART AND SOUL OF SEX," and "THE RETURN OF DESIRE" Each book is different, but they all address these questions from different perspectives.

What do you think when you hear the title "the return of desire?"

--does that mean we've all lost it?

--is it true that we all lose desire as we grow older?

--can't we just rely on pharmaceutical prescriptions to bring back desire?

--are there other ways to bring desire back?

For you, what is "the heart and soul of sex?"

Is it true that women are less interested in sex than men?

Does the title "Women Who Love Sex" mean to you that these women are:

--bad girls?

--sluts and bimbos?

--women who love sex "too much?"

--high achievers?

--women with complex histories and desires, like most women in the world?

What happens to sexual desire after childbirth?

How may affairs affect your sexual desire?

Is desire different for heterosexual couples than for gay and lesbian couples?

What do you feel about solo sex--or "menage a moi"--?

What are some of the sexual messages we grow up with in this culture--how do you think they affect your sexual desire as adults?

How have violence and abuse affected your sexual desire?

How can emotional connection help sexual relationships?

What is sacred sexual union--and how can you create it?

What are the first steps you can take toward lasting sexual satisfaction?

How are sexuality and spirituality connected for you?

What are the differences between religion and spirituality--and why is it important to understand them?