Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Part I: The Sexualities of Women

Chapter 1: Our Sexual Selves

• Sexuality Is More Than Sex

Part II: Development: The Path to Sexual Womanhood

Chapter 2: Sexual Discoveries: Childhood and Beyond

• Self-Discovery in Childhood
• First Experiences of Self-Stimulation and Orgasm
• Critical Periods for Orgasmic Responsiveness
• Self-Stimulation and Orgasm in the Teen Years
• Finding Our Way in the Teen Years
• Acquiring Language
• Changing Sexual Mores
• Women Who First Masturbated After the Age of Seventy
• Sexuality: A Lifelong Work in Progress

Chapter 3: Thinking About Sex: Attitudes and Values

• Your Sexual Heritage
• The Primary Roles of Parents
• Themes for the 21st Century
• What Would You Want Your Daughter to Know About Sex?
• What Would You Want Your Son to Know About Sex?
• Parents Really Can't Win
• Having Different Values Than Your Parents
• Finding Our Own Way
• Most Parents Really Do Care

Chapter 4: Love, Sexuality, and Sexual Boundaries

• Nurturing Fathers
• Violative Fathers
• An Unprotective Mother
• Sexual Abuse
• Brothers and Cousins: From Curiosity to Coercion
• The Edge
• Brother Abuse
• The Wounded Sexual Se

Chapter 5: The First Time

• Getting Ready
• The Preteen Years--Figuring It Out
• How Do You "Do It"?
• Decoding the Dance of Courtship
• Learning "Sexual" Skills Through Play
• Curiosity About Penises
• Who Will It Be? The Dimension of Romantic Attachment
• Crushes
• Almost Dating
• The Dance of Courtship: Intermediate Steps
• Dating
• Coming of Age
• Oral-Genital Sex
• Out at the Edge
• Alcohol and the Edge
• Danger Zone: High School Girl-Women and Older Boy-Men
• When, Where, and with Whom?
• First Times in the Early Twentieth Century
• Technical Virgins--Everything-but-Intercourse Sex
• Trust, Feeling Safe, and Fear of Pregnancy
• Marriage: the Next Step
• Bridging Two Eras
• For Women Born at Mid-Century: A New Trend
• Coming of Age During the Sexual Revolution
• It's What You Do in College
• Being in Love Replaces Marriage
• Age of First Intercourse
• It's What You Do in High School
• Women Attracted to Women
• Finding Our Way--We Learned How--and It Got Good
• Which Comes First, a Relationship or SEx?
• Rite of Passage
• Young Women in the 1990s
• Getting It Over With: Alcohol, and Doing It for Him
• The TV Generation
• First-Time Experiences Without Consent
• Another Look at a Danger Zone: High School Girls and Older Boys
• Healing First Times for Women Who Were Sexually Abused

Part III: Sexual Partners: Licit and Illicit

Chapter 6: Partners and Contexts

• Living Arrangements
• Sex Outside the Safety and Structure of Commitment
• Casual Sex: Commitment Only to the Here and Now
• Self-Acceptance
• Finding Our Way
• Once-Again-Single
• Further Thoughts on Love and Connection

Chapter 7: Consensual Non-monogamy and Affairs

• Consensual Non-monogamy
• Jealousy in Open Relationships
• Affairs
• Why Do Women Have Affairs?
• Attraction Outward Meets Dissatisfaction Within
• Trying to Get Pregnant
• Other Reasons
• Affair-Prone Women
• Decision Making: Thinking About Having Affairs
• Reasons for Not Having an Affair
• Would You Have an Affair in the Future?

Part IV: Erotic Pleasure

Chapter 8: Solo Eroticism: Masturbation and Fantasy

• How Many in the Survey Recently Masturbated?
• Vibrators
• Why Do Women Masturbate?
• Orgasms in Masturbation
• Masturbation Fantasies
• Using Erotica

Chapter 9: Sexual Satisfaction and Partnered Sex

• Satisfying Sex and Associated Feelings
• Satisfying Sex in Ongoing Relationships
• Closeness, Love, Acceptance, and Safety
• Satisfying Sex in Not-So-Satisfying Relationships
• Sexual Activity and Alcohol and Drugs
• Arguing Before Sex
• Orgasm
• Age and Sexual Satisfaction in an Ongoing Relationship
• Orientation and Sexual Satisfaction
• Satisfaction with Frequency and Quality of Various Touching Activities
• Satisfaction with Total Amount of Sexual Activity
• Sexual Affirmation and Sexual Satisfaction

Chapter 10: One Hundred+ Years of Women's Orgasms

• Sexual Goals--Defining Sexual Success as Orgasm
• Clitoral and Vaginal Orgasms
• Manufacturing Orgasms
• Women Who Have Vaginal and Simultaneous Orgasms
• Women Who Don't Fit the Orgasmic Fashions of Their Times
• A Liberating New Definition
• More History
• The Clitoris, Sexual Arousal, and Internal Sensations
• Penis Size
• The G Spot and Female Ejaculation
• Still More History
• Faking Orgasm
• Why Women Fake Orgasms

Chapter 11: The Infinite Variety of Women's Orgasms

• The Experience of Orgasm
• How Women Experience Orgasm
• Variety in Orgasmic Experience
• Variety in Pathways to Orgasm
• Crying and Laughing with Orgasm
• Multiple Orgasms
• Factors That Facilitate Multiple Orgasms
• Orgasms from Non-genital Stimulation
• Orgasms Without Any Physical Stimulation
• Dream Orgasms
• Waking Orgasms Without Physical Stimulation
• Simultaneous Orgasms
• Facilitating Orgasm
• How to Increase Erotic Pleasure and Enhance Your Orgasms
• Focus of Attention
• Shift Your Attention from Performance to Pleasure
• The Setting and Other Sensory Enhancements
• Communication and Interaction with Your Partner
• Women Who Are Not Experiencing Orgasm
• Imagery for Learning to Become Orgasmic

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Chapter 12: Sexual Concerns and Problems of American Women

• What Actually Happens When Real People Have Sex?
• Most Important Sexual Concerns and Problems in the Past Year
• Issues of Desire and Frequency: The American Way of Life?
• Too Tired/Too Busy
• Lower Sexual Desire Than I Wanted to Have
• Sexual Interest
• Sexual Arousability
• A Sexual Detective Considers Low Sexual Desire
• Desire Discrepancy
• Problems Related to Physical Responsiveness
• The Big Six
• A Male Partner's Difficulties with Arousal and Erections
• Her Partner Ejaculating Too Quickly
• Retarded or Absent Ejaculation
• Antidepressants and Sexual Responsiveness
• Other Aspects of Women's Physical Responsiveness
• Vaginal Pain
• Lovemaking Problems and Concerns
• Finding a Partner
• Other Relationship Issues
• Fertility and Reproduction
• The Reproductive Dimension of Sexuality
• Sex and Menstrual Cycling
• Fertility
• Becoming Pregnant
• Pregnancies of the Survey Respondents
• Having a New Baby
• STDs/Safe Sex
• Body and Health Issues
• Menopause
• Other Body/Health Problems and Concerns
• Sexual Orientation

Chapter 13: Sexual Choreography: Creating Pleasure in Partnered Sex

• The Experience of Erotic Pleasure
• Creating Erotic Pleasure
• Transitions
• Building Arousal Through Simmering and Teasing
• Knowing We Can Take as Much Time as We Need
• Sexual Arousal
• Erotic Stimulation: Creating a Composition of Sensations
• Transition, Physical Responsiveness, and Satisfaction
• Take Care of Details
• When Partners Have Different Sexual Styles
• Sensual Styles
• Fantasy During Lovemaking
• Low-Key Fantasies
• Fantasy Themes
• Sexual Role Enactment
• Intimate Trance
• The Loving Relationship
• Sex Outdoors
• Fantasy in Lieu of Involvement
• When Partners Have Different Images and Expectations
• Invitations and Sexual Initiation
• Saying "No" to Sex
• Consequences of Just Going Along
• Consenting to Be Intimate: Effective Sexual Negotiation
• A Sexual Detective Considers Nonverbal Responses
• All You Need to Start Is Interest
• Put a Structure Around Your Spontaneity
• Rituals for Relationship Maintenance and Enhancement
• Weeknight Sex

Chapter 14: Sexual Self-Acceptance

• Your Sexual Self
• Self-Acceptance
• Emotional Blocks to Self-Acceptance
• Regrets
• Forgiveness
• Understanding
• Body Image Blocks to Self-Acceptance
• Another Look at What We Want Our Daughters to Know
• Sexual Self-Acceptance
• Some Teachings of Richard Olney

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References

Resources

SEXSA Circles

• Questions for facilitating SEXSA Circle discussions
  (There are questions here for the topics in each chapter.)