Women's Sexualities: Generations of Women Share Intimate Secrets of Sexual Self-Acceptance [Paperback]

Carol Rinkleib Ellison (Author), Beverly Whipple (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 20, 2006

Using the results from a breakthrough sexual survey, this guide helps readers understand and refine their own sexuality. For the survey, in-depth interviews with 100 women aged 23-90 were used to develop a questionnaire that was completed by 2632 women. Such a large sample helped Dr Ellison to find patterns and isolate conditions that lead women to positive sexual growth. Key factors include body awareness, attitudes and values about sex, and early learning about love, sexuality and sexual boundaries.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Carol Rinkleib Ellison, Ph.D., is a psychologist in private practice, an assistant clinical professor with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco, and an adjunct faculty member at the Institute of Imaginal Studies in Petaluma, California. A fellow with the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Dr. Ellison is also an esteemed researcher and regular instructor of human sexuality courses for mental health professionals. She is the co-author of Understanding Sexual Interaction and Understanding Human Sexuality.

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Read File; 0972711724 edition (December 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572241969
• ISBN-13: 978-1572241961
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,280,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for women and men, June 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Women's Sexualities: Generations of Women Share Intimate Secrets of Sexual Self-Acceptance (Paperback)

I am an 18 year-old senior in High School, and I have read Carol Ellison's Women's Sexualities for my Psychology AP class. Reading about other, more experienced women's sexual experiences has helped me define my own views of sexuality, and has given me a chance that not every girl has, to learn from my elders the mistakes not to make. Ellison's book is detailed, informative, and interesting. It is well-written, and she gives many view-points for each topic, showing what happens rather than what should happen to women sexually. I recommend this book to any women who wants to know what other women experience. I especially recommend this book to teenage girls on the brink of adulthood, around the time that they start to experiment sexually, and young-adult males who want to understand the experiences of their girlfriends. With new information in every paragraph, there is much to be learned from Dr. Carol Ellison's Women's Sexualities.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reclaiming our whole selves, April 13, 2000

By 

Jeanne M. Shaw "Jeanne Shaw, Ph.D." (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Women's Sexualities: Generations of Women Share Intimate Secrets of Sexual Self-Acceptance (Paperback)

For over two millenia, powerful Feminine Mysteries handed down from generation to generation of women have mostly been enervated, forgotten, and buried. With and without conscious intent, women still shelter our sexuality from religious persecution, social control, relationship obligations, and our own parents' (and sometimes our children's)sexual inhibitions. Although they may be dormant, the Mysteries are by no means dead to us. The time is ripe to reclaim our right to sexual wholeness. This doesn't mean being sexually active, it means being all of who you are, including celibate.

Dr. Ellison has written a book to help those of us who want to discover, uncover, or recover our natural, healthy sexuality. She has done this through voices of American women of all ages, from all over the U.S., who speak candidly about their sexual energies. The book is divided into four sections: The sexualities of women Development: The path to sexual womanhood Sexual partners: Licit and illicit Erotic pleasure

In each chapter, Dr. Ellison gently, and with deep understanding, redirects our conditioned thinking about sexuality and give us facts, she lets women, themselves, tell us the many ways of claiming and reclaiming sexual energies, and gives the reader an opportunity to consider and act on issues in her own life. Topics include childhood sexual discoveries; sexual attitudes and values; love, sexuality, and sexual boundaries; first intercourse; partners and contexts; consensual nonmonogamy and affairs; masturbation and fantasy; sexual satisfaction and partnered sex; varieties of orgasms; sexual concerns and problems; creating pleasure with a partner; and my own personal favorite: sexual self-acceptance. Although written for women, men will get a good idea of what we are about sexually, it's that spelled out.

This is not another techniques, fantasies, and gimmicks book to turn you on when your integrity has turned you off. It is about sexualities, your energy for life, who you are as a woman and how you can be more fully you, whether or not you are in a relationship.

This book is an effective tool for women's groups to reawaken, rekindle, and support our increasing self-knowledge. I am recommending it not only to clients but to friends and to my adult children. And, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, myself.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reclaiming our whole selves, April 13, 2000

By 

Jeanne M. Shaw "Jeanne Shaw, Ph.D." (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Women's Sexualities: Generations of Women Share Intimate Secrets of Sexual Self-Acceptance (Paperback)

For over two millenia, powerful Feminine Mysteries handed down from generation to generation of women have mostly been enervated, forgotten, and buried. With and without conscious intent, women still shelter our sexuality from religious persecution, social control, relationship obligations, and our own parents' (and sometimes our children's)sexual inhibitions. Although they may be dormant, the Mysteries are by no means dead to us. The time is ripe to reclaim our right to sexual wholeness. This doesn't mean being sexually active, it means being all of who you are, including celibate.

Dr. Ellison has written a book to help those of us who want to discover, uncover, or recover our natural, healthy sexuality. She has done this through voices of American women of all ages, from all over the U.S., who speak candidly about their sexual energies. The book is divided into four sections: The sexualities of women Development: The path to sexual womanhood Sexual partners: Licit and illicit Erotic pleasure

In each chapter, Dr. Ellison gently, and with deep understanding, redirects our conditioned thinking about sexuality and give us facts, she lets women, themselves, tell us the many ways of claiming and reclaiming sexual energies, and gives the reader an opportunity to consider and act on issues in her own life. Topics include childhood sexual discoveries; sexual attitudes and values; love, sexuality, and sexual boundaries; first intercourse; partners and contexts; consensual nonmonogamy and affairs; masturbation and fantasy; sexual satisfaction and partnered sex; varieties of orgasms; sexual concerns and problems; creating pleasure with a partner; and my own personal favorite: sexual self-acceptance. Although written for women, men will get a good idea of what we are about sexually, it's that spelled out.

This is not another techniques, fantasies, and gimmicks book to turn you on when your integrity has turned you off. It is about sexualities, your energy for life, who you are as a woman and how you can be more fully you, whether or not you are in a relationship.

This book is an effective tool for women's groups to reawaken, rekindle, and support our increasing self-knowledge. I am recommending it not only to clients but to friends and to my adult children. And, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, myself.