THE SPIRIT OF SEXUAL HEALTH:
BEYOND THE POLITICS OF “PERFORMANCE”
Reflections on the ISIS survey on integrating sexuality and spirituality. It presents a story of sexual health far more complex than other surveys have led us to believe. The findings broaden the discourse on sexual partnership beyond dysfunction and the Mars-Venus debate. They reflect the ability of women and men of all ages to make a wide range of sexual choices based on self-esteem, partnership, and what sex means to their lives.

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SEXUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY IN WOMEN'S RELATIONSHIPS
Sex research has shortchanged women of every age and sexual orientation by asking the wrong questions. If you seek answers to that old Freudian question: “What do women want?” don't go to the experts. Listen closely to what women tell you. For the real experts are women themselves.

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SPIRITUAL PASSION AND COMPASSION
IN LATE-LIFE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS
In this age of Viagra and other hype about sexual performance, sex, as we grow older, is defined more and more as a disease. The emphasis on performance and pathology leaves out much of what is most important in sexual relationship, especially as we mature. For both women and men these issues include desire, love, commitment, intimacy, self-esteem, and the transformative properties of sexual ecstasy.

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MEDIA INTERRUPTUS
CONFRONTING BOOK-TOUR POLITICS ON AND OFF THE AIR
My book title, Women Who Love Sex , was flying in the face of a national taboo. This is my personal take on just how entrenched sexual backlash is at all levels of the publishing process. I experienced countless instances of media interruptus—an anxious withdrawal from a producer, a twisting of information by an interviewer, hosts of all ages who strutted their sexual know-how.

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BEYOND SKIN HUNGER:
MYSTICAL UNION IN WOMEN'S SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS
Sexual satisfaction is generally defined as physical orgasm that can be quantified and measured.  But in my many years of sex-therapy practice, women often describe satisfying sexual response as much more—a whole-person process that connects body, mind, heart, and soul.

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VIBRATORS 'R US : WOMEN IN SEARCH OF SEXUAL CONTROL
When did God make men?  When she realized vibrators couldn't dance. Rachel Maines, author of The Technology of Orgasm , uses this quip to underscore the major differences she sees in how women and men experience sexual pleasure, and how vibrators turn many women on, some for the first time.  

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INTEGRATING SEXUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY:
POSITIVE VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Today's performance-oriented, medical-model, morality-based definitions of sex present a public health hazard, especially for women. This paper is a call to professionals to broaden our sexual discourse beyond intercourse, and to include more than biology and performance.

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NO MORE DR. NICE-GAL
FINDING A PUBLIC VOICE AS A FEMINIST SEXOLOGIST
How I recovered from my “good-girl” upbringing and learned to challenge male locker-room attitudes, double-standard sex research, and sex negativity in the media.

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WOMEN WHO LOVE SEX
THE MEANINGS OF SEXUAL PLEASURE
Despite the risks and dangers, despite the possibility of brutalization somewhere along the line, despite the challenges, taboos, and misunderstandings, there are women who love sex—for whom sex, by their own definitions, is a source of connectedness, health, and personal power; for whom sex is a route to ecstasy. What positive lessons can we learn from these women?

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“WOMEN WHO LOVE SEX”
The title of my book seems to serve as a kind of Rorschach for the way people relate to their own sexuality. A call for allowing women to say Yes to pleasure as well as No to abuse, disease, and boredom.

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