Loving Animals - On Bestiality, Zoophilia and Post-Human Love by Joanna Bourke

$39.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

Sex with animals is one of the last taboos but, for a practice that is generally regarded as abhorrent, it is remarkable how many books, films, plays, paintings, and photographs depict the subject. So, what does loving animals mean? In this book the renowned historian Joanna Bourke explores the modern h istory of sex between humans and animals. Bourke looks at the changing meanings of "bestiality" and "zoophilia," assesses the psychiatric and sexual aspects, and she concludes by delineating an ethics of animal loving. ...Show more

Magnificent Sex - Lessons from Extraordinary Lovers by Peggy J. Kleinplatz; A. Dana Ménard

$19.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

Winner of the 2021 SSTAR Consumer Book Award What makes sex magnificent? What are the qualities of extraordinary erotic intimacy and what are the elements that help to bring it about? Is great sex the stuff that people remember nostalgically from the "honeymoon" phase of their relationships, or can se x improve over time? Magnificent Sex is based on the largest, in-depth interview study ever conducted with people who are having extraordinary sex. It gathers the nuggets for remarkable sex from the "experts", distilling them into an attainable blueprint for ordinary lovers who want to make erotic intimacy grow over the course of a lifetime. Looking at factors including individual and relational qualities, empathic communication and the myths and realities of magnificent sex, this book offers accessible and evidence-based guidance for lovers and therapists alike. It is replete with frank and often humorous interviews with straight and LGBTQ individuals and couples, those who are "vanilla" and "kinky", monogamous and consensually non-monogamous and healthy and chronically ill. This illuminating book explores the implications of the findings to develop a model that effectively tackles the common problems of low desire and frequency. The "cure" for low desire is to create desirable sex   ...Show more

Not Gay - Sex Between Straight White Men by Jane Ward (King's College London, UK)

$42.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

A straight white girl can kiss a girl, like it, and still call herself straight--her boyfriend may even encourage her. But can straight white guys experience the same easy sexual fluidity, or would kissing a guy just mean that they are really gay? Not Gay thrusts deep into a world where straight guy-on- guy action is not a myth but a reality: there's fraternity and military hazing rituals, where new recruits are made to grab each other's penises and stick fingers up their fellow members' anuses; online personal ads, where straight men seek other straight men to masturbate with; and, last but not least, the long and clandestine history of straight men frequenting public restrooms for sexual encounters with other men. For Jane Ward, these sexual practices reveal a unique social space where straight white men can--and do--have sex with other straight white men; in fact, she argues, to do so reaffirms rather than challenges their gender and racial identity. Ward illustrates that sex between straight white men allows them to leverage whiteness and masculinity to authenticate their heterosexuality in the context of sex with men. By understanding their same-sex sexual practice as meaningless, accidental, or even necessary, straight white men can perform homosexual contact in heterosexual ways. These sex acts are not slippages into a queer way of being or expressions of a desired but unarticulated gay identity. Instead, Ward argues, they reveal the fluidity and complexity that characterizes all human sexual desire. In the end, Ward's analysis offers a new way to think about heterosexuality--not as the opposite or absence of homosexuality, but as its own unique mode of engaging in homosexual sex, a mode characterized by pretense, dis-identification and racial and heterosexual privilege. Daring, insightful, and brimming with wit, Not Gay is a fascinating new take on the complexities of heterosexuality in the modern era. ...Show more

On Getting Off - Sex and Philosophy by Damon Young

$24.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

The curious reader's companion to sex. 'Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas.'  — Samuel Johnson Why is screwing so funny? How should we think about our most shocking fantasies? What is so captivating about nudity? Inspired by philosophy, literature, and private life, Damon Young explores the paradoxes of the bedroom. On Getting Off will f**k with your mind. ...Show more

Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love by Naomi Wolf

$32.99 AUD

Category: General | Reading Level: near fine

The bestselling author of Vagina illuminates a dramatic history - how a single English law in 1857 led to a maelstrom, with reverberations lasting down to our day. That law was the Obscene Publications Act and it was a crucial turning point. Why? Because dissent and morality; 'deviancy' and 'normalcy'; unprintable and printable were suddenly lawful concepts in the modern sense. This new law effectively invented modern obscenity. Before 1857 it wasn't 'homosexuality' - a term that didn't yet exist - that was a crime, but simply the act of sodomy. But in a single stroke, not only was love between men illegal, but anything referring to this love also became obscene, unprintable, unspeakable. And writers, editors and printers became the gatekeepers with a responsibility to uphold the morals of the society - followed by serious criminal penalties if they didn't. And as the act evolved, joined by other laws against sexual representation and speech, making their way to courts, the authors' or artists' intentions were deemed immaterial. What mattered was if the work in question had a 'tendency . . . to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall'. Wolf paints the dramatic ways this set of laws and consolidation of what we would call homophobia and censorship, played out among a bohemian group of sexual dissidents, including Walt Whitman in America and the homosexual English critic John Addington Symonds - in love with Whitman's homoerotic voice in Leaves of Grass - decades before the infamous 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde. She retrieves forgotten history of men and even young teenage boys, executed at the Old Bailey for 'sodomy' or even 'the attempt'. Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante and Christina Rossetti, Walter Pater and painter Simeon Solomon, were among the writers and artists, and countless booksellers and printers, whose lives were shadowed with jeopardy from this emerging network of laws against speech and love. She depicts both a fascinating story and, crucially, an important way of understanding how we arrived at our ideas of 'normalcy' and 'deviancy' - and the idea of the state's purported need and right to police speech - ideas which are with us to this day. Most powerfully, Wolf recounts how a dying Symonds helped write the book on 'sexual inversion' that created our modern understanding of homosexuality. She argues that his secret memoir, mined and explained here fully for the first time, together with a secretly published essay, evolved into what would become the first mainstream gay rights manifesto in the west - proving that the literature of love will ultimately triumph over censorship. ...Show more

Rewriting the Rules: An Anti Self-Help Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships by Meg-John Barker

$35.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

Sacred, Not Secret - An Integrated Approach to Sexual (R)Evolution by Christine Laplante; Lee Harrington (Foreword by); Jennifer Beaudoin (Editor); Melissa Hagerty (Cover Design by); Become Integrated (Produced by)

$29.95 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

No amount of talking about sex is going to diminish the mystery of the experience of it. In Sacred, Not Secret, Christine delves into two systems of human development: Eastern (Chakra) and Western (psychological/developmental) theories. Discussing the non-linear, and cyclical, nature of development, as well as our potential systematic traumas during those phases, this book provides exercises and stories that open a dialogue to exploring our sexual, sensual, emotional and energetic health. Written from an authentic, integrated and human perspective this book is easy to read, yet encourages you to dive deeply into your own perceptions about sexual and developmental health. ...Show more

Sex Down Under: Information, insights and sex education for grown ups by Matty Silver

$29.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

Sex is an area of life that historically has been associated with embarrassment or shame and inhibits many from having a healthy attitude to sex. Matty Silver is originally from The Netherlands, but has lived in Australia for more than thirty years, giving her an international and unique perspective on the Australian sex psyche. Her reason for writing Sex Down Under is to break down and de-mystify some of the taboos and barriers around sex and encouraging people to feel more comfortable to talk about it. Matty is open-minded, has a wicked sense of humour and brings wide-ranging experience to her profession as a sex therapist and writer. ...Show more

Sex Outside the Lines Authentic Sexuality in a Sexually Dysfunctional Culture by Chris Donaghue

$44.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

It's socially acceptable to spend a day watching sports or sitcoms, but it's shameful and embarrassing to admit to the same about erotic media. Why is it that sex is so often deemed "inappropriate" and considered something we must keep private or even ignore? Our culture is afraid of sex. We feel the ne ed to label what is normal and what isn't, and as a result, we live in a relational and sexually unhealthy culture. In reality, far more harm is caused by labeling sexual expression as "obscene" than by celebrating it. In Sex Outside the Lines: Authentic Sexuality in a Sexually Dysfunctional Culture, Chris Donaghue, PhD, explores and challenges the negative ideals that have warped society's view of sex. Sex Outside the Lines is not a dogmatic rule book, but a valuable guide to help you on your journey to sexual self-discovery and, most important, self-acceptance. Donaghue encourages you to not only explore your capacity for pleasure, but to be proud of it and to take a look at how you could be living. In his years of training in sex and couples therapy, Donaghue has developed highly successful methods for freeing clients from sexual hang-ups, enabling them to let go of shame and embarrassment. The goal isn't to be "normal"--there is no such thing. Donaghue pulls apart cultural phobias with a sex-positive therapy practice, as well as a kind of sexual deprograming that helps people see and accept that the desires they have--even if they don't align with society's expectations--are actually natural, healthy, and part of having a great sex life. Sex Outside the Lines addresses our diversity, challenges conventional psychiatric wisdom as classifying perfectly normal behavior as disorders, and disregards conventional advice from leading experts. It isn't advocating a "liberal" approach to modern concepts--it is seeking to redefine them altogether. ...Show more

Sex Positive Now by Jeremy Shub (Editor); Allena Gabosch (Editor)

$30.00 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

Sex Shamans - True Stories of Sacred Sexuality and Awakening by KamalaDevi McClure (Editor)

$32.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

20 transformative stories and sexual healing practices from international pioneers in the sexual shamanism movement   - Reveals intimate details about how each sex shaman overcame personal struggles with heartache, jealousy, mental illness, or social shame to realize their calling as a sacred sex ual healer   - Includes 20 in-depth embodiment exercises such as soul gazing, contacting your spirit guides, sexual divination, energetic sex, self-pleasuring, moon blood rituals, and sacred sexual storytelling   - Includes contributions from 20 diverse voices in the sexual shamanism community, all part of the mystery school ISTA: International School of Temple Arts   Drawing on traditional and modern practices, a sex shaman uses the power of erotic energy as a healing medicine. They channel divine love and embrace sexuality freely, practicing polyamory, sexual healing, and even sex magic. They teach tantra, trance dance, kundalini yoga, and other techniques for healing shame, guilt, fear, and sexual trauma.   Designed to guide the reader on a journey into their own sacred sexual awakening, this book shares true stories from 20 visionary pioneers in the sexual shamanism movement, all of them associated with the International School of Temple Arts (ISTA), a mystery school that works to illuminate the path of sexual shamanism and heal the split between sex and spirit, release the shame surrounding sexual awakening, and inspire more sexual liberation around the world. The teachers reveal intimate details of their life stories and sexual awakening journeys, showing how, by surrendering to the wisdom of the erotic current of the universe, transformation occurs.   Each story is accompanied by an in-depth embodiment exercise with step-by-step instructions, including soul gazing, contacting your spirit guides, sexual divination, energetic sex, self-pleasuring, moon blood rituals, and sacred sexual storytelling. Underlying these exercises is the belief that the body is a temple that opens with pleasurable worship so spirit may dwell more fully within.   The 20 contributors include Baba Dez Nichols, Bruce Lyon, Crystal Dawn Morris, Dawn Cherie, Deborah Taj Anapol, Ellie Wilde, Janine Ma-Ree, KamalaDevi McClure, Komala Lyra, Laurie Handlers, Lin Holmquist, Matooka Moonbear, Mia Mor, Ohad Pele Ezrahi, Patrik Olterman, Raffaello Manacorda, Ria Bloom, Sean O'Faolain, Stephanie Phillips, and Stephen SouLove. ...Show more

Sex at Dawn - How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan; Cacilda Jetha

$29.99 AUD

Category: Sex & Sexuality

The 10th-anniversary edition of the book that radical re-evaluated the origins and nature of human sexuality. Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science - as well as religious and cultural institutions - has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. In this groundbreaking book, however, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha argue that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. With intelligence and humour, Ryan and Jetha explain how our promiscuous past haunts our contemporary struggles. They explore why many people find long-term fidelity so difficult; why sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens; why homosexuality persists in the face of standard evolutionary logic; and what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality. Shocking, enlightening, and ultimately inspiring, Sex at Dawn offers a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do. 'Controversial and fascinating.' -Vogue Australia 'Sex At Dawn is the single most important book about human sexuality since Alfred Kinsey unleashed Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male on the American public in 1948.' -Dan Savage, author of the internationally syndicated sex-advice column 'Savage Love' and The Commitment- Love, sex, marriage, and my family 'Sex At Dawn has helped me understand myself and the world so much more clearly.' -Ilana Glazer, co-creator of Broad City ...Show more