240301: did not like this quite as much as She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman, but again something I wish had been around240301: did not like this quite as much as She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman, but again something I wish had been around when I was twenty. I had read The New Male Sexuality so knew bit of unrealistic portrayals of sex, but this focuses great deal on this error in our sex lives. so give it five. it is written. for women, some of whom I knew would have benefited from it, others yet who would now benefit from it, but there is unsubtle ideological correction to male-centric narratives that persist even now. for women, too many of whom do not know their own bodies, pleasures, capacities, for women who want to escape demanding performance anxiety to please men, to please themselves, to value themselves only as sexual object for other and self rather than sexual subject entitled to pleasure of all sorts....
this is written for american women. so how does it appeal cross-culturally? sometimes celebration recognised as equal, essential, necessary. sometimes, as perhaps in certain american areas, viewed as perverse, corrupting and/or immoral, if not evil. my belief is that the more sum total of possibility of pleasure we humans can create between or by ourselves, will inexorably lead to the less possibility behaviours contrary to human flourishing....
written for women, I found it perhaps muted cosmopolitan in instructional passages, but there is no doubt value in combatting sexual prejudices, sexual scripts, sexual misconceptions, and she certainly employs her research and case studies well. it is perhaps nothing new, but nice to have all in one easy to read book not bristling with stats or claims and with comforting sex anecdotes the should make it easier to initiate conversations with your partners, which in many cases are men...
men. sometimes I do not recognise myself in popular culture myths or equally deconstructive myths. women are women. men are men. neither are myths. men, read She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman. there are of course other genders too, but the key in navigating all sexuality is communication. this book rightly emphasises the importance of constructive, timely, honest, gentle communication. learn the words in this book. better, learn the attitude. lovers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but chains of miscommunication, poor sex, frustrated relationships. you have worlds of pleasure to gain...
240225: maybe not five, but certainly the book I wish I had when much younger, like 20, when I was first active. for being thinking man was/is major a240225: maybe not five, but certainly the book I wish I had when much younger, like 20, when I was first active. for being thinking man was/is major aspect of my identity. for pleasuring woman was/is definite ideal. and where else are you going to derive such learning: your friends are likely as clueless, popular culture is built on deceptive exaggerations, your parents and teachers and other mentors will expect you just to muddle through...
in retrospect of course there are years (decades...) learning experience, but there is buried ideological claim in this book- that I agree with- which is sex-positive, that is, sex can and should be mutually affirming whatever range of emotions desired, that it should be non-abusive, non-coercive, equally pleasurable, not naturally perfect but perfectly natural... and so also I face philosophical dispute in this favoured conception of sex: what about those people who disagree with any or all those assertions? what about this somewhat skewed or obsessive concern with sex? what about gay or bi or trans or asexual people or simply people who do not share sex, are they less than human?...
I am on the spectrum much more towards sex, and this text would have been very useful, possibly still is, but there is pragmatic orientation and particularly male perspective, despite its avowed interest in women's pleasure. it is about how men can give this pleasure. it is about the value for men as well as women in giving this pleasure. in later pages and in appendices this tends toward an instructional model. he does qualify that every woman is different and that the key is deep listening...
240308: only reason this is not favourite is I read it in French, which was surprisif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
240308: only reason this is not favourite is I read it in French, which was surprisingly fluid, exact, strong images. someone can complain it is visual/cinematic and not prose: not me, I loved it, made me think of Alain Robbe-Grillet. way time flexes, incorporates narratives, events, moments, especially in the long passages of several chapters with immediacy and histoire,is great. organised around the narrator's imaginings of other outcomes than inevitable, tragic, comic, both...
if Stephen King had died just few days before, when he was hit by truck, would Claude have survived......more
240122: fresh, fantastic, fun. celebration of Hollywood set hedonism, circa 1974. completely non-judgemental, completely amoral (in the best way), is 240122: fresh, fantastic, fun. celebration of Hollywood set hedonism, circa 1974. completely non-judgemental, completely amoral (in the best way), is this an evolution from proust's fetes to our current social-media frenzy of beautifool people with too much money... short, poetic references, literary......more
231220: historical interest. bestseller of time. horror, magic, melodrama, romance, thriller, tragedy. can see why it was made into movies and musical231220: historical interest. bestseller of time. horror, magic, melodrama, romance, thriller, tragedy. can see why it was made into movies and musical but hard to read. serial nature apparent. characters extreme, emotions extreme, actions extreme......more
231203: read in one day. powerful, prescient, poignant. this is exactly what is needed to unravel the madness of anthropogenic climate/habitat disaste231203: read in one day. powerful, prescient, poignant. this is exactly what is needed to unravel the madness of anthropogenic climate/habitat disaster. this is gently different world presented, which allows the reader to concentrate on what is of most metaphorical importance (Atlantis as precursor to collapse of proud human culture, 'ghost ore' that generates disturbances in time as we studiously ignore real world)...
this is also written in gently Pomo way. with letters, diaries, stream of conscious, poetry... this is work which engages the reader in putting it together, not linear, not simple, with characters truly rounded and complex and seen from various perspectives in time and space, with ineradicable contingency, with frustrated 'coherence' in all plot lines. I am of the opinion the openness, the gaps, the unsaid, is what always makes work...
poetry is music: infinitely analysable but finally only 'understood' as heard. this is poetry......more
231105: fantastic, feminist, fabulous. this narrative concerns identical twin sisters, different in deliberate ways, together smashing together as per231105: fantastic, feminist, fabulous. this narrative concerns identical twin sisters, different in deliberate ways, together smashing together as perfect woman. changed identities may be melodrama. changed position to abusive father too simple. changed perceptions by the clothes she wears- at some point the twins become one. somebody make film of this. lots of complicated perverse sex. but so life is complicated. have to read more of her to understand more......more
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