#bookblr

[galina]

I always dreamed I would have a home open to happening: weekend coffee with everyone gathering in the kitchen, dinner parties which leave laughter ringing in empty rooms for days afterwards, our bed a shore and us a wave crashing down in the early hours. In the morning, I get up and see our sofa made up with an array of pilows, knowing our home is full of our friends makes my heart hurt with the bursting joy of it all

[jccatstudios]

Six of Crows: A Comic Adaptation

Part 1, Chapter 3

Pages 25–26

Previous Pages

Download the Chapter 2 Digital Copy

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Do you have a list of good sex ed books to read?

BOY DO I

please bear in mind that some of these books are a little old (10+ years) by research standards now, and that even the newer ones are all flawed in some way. the thing about research on human beings, and especially research on something as nebulous and huge as sex, is that people are Always going to miss something or fail to account for every possible experience, and that's just something that we have to accept in good faith. I think all of these books have something interesting to say, but that doesn't mean any of them are the only book you'll ever need.

related to that: it's been A While since I've read some of these so sorry if anything in them has aged poorly (I don't THINK SO but like, I was not as discerning a reader when I was 19) but I am still including them as books that have been important to my personal journey as a sex educator.

additionally, a caveat that very few of these books are, like, instructional sex ed books in the sense of like "here's how the penis works, here's where the clit is, etc." those books exist and they're great but they're also not very interesting to me; my studies on sex are much more in the social aspect (shout out to my sociology degree) and the way people learn to think about sex and societal factors that shape those trends. these books reflect that. I would genuinely love to have the time to check out some 101 books to see how they fare, but alas - sex ed is not my day job and I don't have the time to dedicate to that, so it happens slowly when it happens at all. I've been meaning to read Dr. Gunter's Vagina Bible since it came out in 2019, for fucks sake.

and finally an acknowledgement that this is a fairly white list, which has as much to do with biases with academia and publishing as my own unchecked biases especially early in my academic career and the limitations of my university library.

ANYWAY here's some books about sex that have been influential/informative to me in one way or another:

The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (Michael Warner, 1999)

Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences (Laura M. Carpenter, 2005)

Sex Goes to School: Girls and Sex Education Before the 1960s (Susan K. Freeman, 2008)

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (Mary Roach, 2008)

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (Revised Edition) (Susan Stryker, 2008)

The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women (Jessica Valenti, 2009)

Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex (Amy T. Schalet, 2011)

Rewriting the Rules: An Integrative Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships (Meg-John Barker, 2013)

The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Realities (Rachel Hills, 2015)

Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Tranform Your Sex Life (Emily Nagoski, 2015)

Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (Jane Ward, 2015)

Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education (Jonathan Zimmerman, 2015)

American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus (Lisa Wade, 2017)

Histories of the Transgender Child (Jules Gill-Peterson, 2018)

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights (Juno Mac and Molly Smith, 2018)

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Angela Chen, 2020)

Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press (Kim Gallon, 2020)

A Curious History of Sex (Kate Lister, 2020)

Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity (Peggy Orenstein, 2020)

Black Women, Black Love: America's War on Africa American Marriage (Dianne M. Stewart, 2020)

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (Jane Ward, 2020)

Hurts So Good: The Science and Pleasure of Pain on Purpose (Leigh Cowart, 2021)

The Right to Sex: Feminist in the Twenty-First Century (Amia Srinivasan, 2021)

Love Your Asian Body: AIDS Activism in Los Angeles (Eric C. Wat, 2021)

Superfreaks: Kink, Pleasure, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Arielle Greenberg, 2023)

[byoldervine]

Writers, tell me about your story in the dumbest way possible

I’ll go first:

Superhero princesses save the world with the help of that one straight white guy who’s just happy to be here, couldn’t have done it without the fortune of a white woman defying all the odds by deciding against a gender reveal party

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: laurasreadingtime

[starrynightsxo]

DRESSES FOR JUDE DUARTE: GREEN EDITION

@cromulentreader

[litosopher]

yes fantasizing about your crush is fun, yes scrolling through your phone is fun. But do you know what actual fun is ? It is getting the grades you want, it is getting the university you can't stop dreaming about, it is getting the course you put hours working on. And the only way to get them is by studying hard. No you don't have to be extreme and lost sleep, all you need is dedication and discipline. So get the fuck up and start working for it.

[mxjackparker]

1 day left to support "Working Guys: A Transmasculine Sex Worker Anthology"!

You can get yourself a physical copy or a digital one, where you'll read stories and essays from over a dozen trans men and transmasculine non-binary people who do sex work or have done it in the past!

Copies will be received by all backers by September at the latest, then the book launch for this anthology to be made available publicly will be in October. Backing the Kickstarter gets you a copy earlier than everyone else, allows me to add more contributors before the book is completed, and gets you free access to the online book launch with talks from various transmasculine sex workers.

A lot of the time when I ask for resources about transmasculine people in sex work, I find that we're a footnote in a book or paper about another topic or I'm directed towards the same singular zine or post online. Often people will send me my own articles, not realizing I'm the one who wrote them! This anthology seeks to resolve the void of information about transmasc sex workers and also make sure that the talented sex workers who provide their writing are compensated for that work.

All my love to those of you who've already donated to the project, you have no idea how much this means to me!

[lexreadsdiversely]

Fuck daddy issues, what are some mommy issues book recommendations?

[galina]

Anyone's Ghost, August Thompson – enjoyed this advance review copy way more than I expected, it broke through my cynical shell and turned me into a soft wobbly mess. An angsty cheesy beautiful queer love story that will be a perfect crying-on-holiday read, comes out in July.

[curiositysavesthecat]

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[bemyvillain]

[fidgetspringer]

Can't think of a better way to read a Tolkien book 🌲

[the-bi-library]

Here are some upcoming bi Asian books! Make sure to pre-order the ones that interest you! 🩷💜💙 Books listed: Saints of Storm and Sorrow by Gabriella Buba The Dark We Know by Wen-yi Lee The Dark Becomes Her by Judy I. Lin These Deathless Shores by P. H. Low Rani Choudhury Must Die by Adiba Jaigirdar Better Catch Up, Krishna Kumar by Anahita Karthik Mistress of Lies by K. M. Enright Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao Please do let me know if I missed any books 💖