Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood - Hardcover

Wolf, Naomi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679308539 ISBN 13: 9780679308539

Publisher: Random House Canada, 1997

Synopsis

In this provocative and highly personal book, bestselling author Naomi Wolf explores a subject that has long been taboo in our society: women's sexual coming-of-age. Promiscuities brazenly exposes the truths behind the conflicting messages directed at young women during and after the sexual revolution. Drawing on surprising examples from the ancient and recent past, along with vivid recollections of her own youth, Wolf shows how our "liberated" culture still fears and distorts female passion. She also shares fascinating true stories that illustrate the fantasies and sometimes crippling realities women pass through on their way toward erotic and emotional discovery. A landmark book, Promiscuities is a call to women of all ages to reclaim and celebrate their sexuality.

About this title

Review:

Part memoir, part exposé, Promiscuities is Naomi Wolf's (author of The Beauty Myth and Fire with Fire) perspective on the confusion surrounding female sexuality. According to Wolf, promiscuous is "a word that holds within it the mixed message girls today are given about sex: 'You're promiscuous if you do anything, but you are a prude if you do nothing.'" Thus, still polarized on the spectrum between virgin and whore, adolescent girls are allowed little information and even fewer healthy outlets for their normal sexual desires. Wolf shatters the illusion that good girls and professional women are not sexual, and boldly embarks on redefining female sexuality outside of men's experience and assumptions. Wolf's own coming of age in the post-sexual revolution of Haight-Ashbury, serves as an evocative tool for revealing the naked and admirable truth of female sexuality.

From the Back Cover:

"A searing and thoroughly fascinating exploration of the complex wildlife of female sexuality and desire."
--The New York Times Book Review

A "PIONEERING WORK . . . A GOLD MINE OF OBSERVATIONS, FACTS, ANECDOTES, AND IDEAS ABOUT THE MAKING OF FEMALE SEXUALITY."
--San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle

"WOLF'S MOST SUCCESSFUL BOOK, more original than The Beauty Myth . . . She melds together the personal and the political so gently we're barely aware of the difference."
--Newsweek

"CAPTIVATING AND UNIQUE."
--The Washington Post Book World

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Canada
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679308539
• ISBN 13: 9780679308539
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 286