The Whole Lesbian Sex Book - book discontinued by Cleis Press Inc. - review by Natural Woman

I love this book! Written by Felice Newman - a somatic coach, sex educator, and one of the founders of Cleis Press, publisher of over 200 books by various well-known sex authors/experts on the contemporary American sexual landscape. Trust me, this woman knows what she is talking about, drawing on years of research and personal experience. As a bonus, the book is littered with excerpts from real women about their experiences as Newman drew from responses of nearly 2000 women who responded to her online questionnaire as part of her research for the book.

If you are a woman, love women, love fucking women, want to fuck a woman or just plain want to be able to please her like never before, this book is a must-read. Not just your typical "how-to" manual, this empowering book covers everything from female anatomy and orgasms, to masturbation, finding partners, playing with partners, play parties, toys, fetishes, safe sex, etc. This book is also empowering, calling on women to become more comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality. There is even a section on communication, telling women to not shy away from their desires and ask for what they want. There are even some illustrations thrown in which further add to the content.

One of my favorite things about this book is how well it is organized, especially since it contains so much information on so many topics. The organization of the book makes it an invaluable resource. The book is divided into very distinctive sections and is neatly outlined in the table of contents, allowing one to easily flip to whatever topic they are searching for. Desire & fantasy, clitoral play, breast play, vaginal penetration, anal penetration, oral sex, play parties (and many more) each get their own chapter which is further divided into sections. The layout of the chapters and sections is also written in a way that each can stand alone, making it not the type of book you need to read from start to finish. I used it more as a reference, reading it cover-to-cover non-sequentially and still refer back to it. That being said, I fully appreciate how well the writing flows; it does not at all feel abrupt or awkward in its transitions between so many varying topics as I find most other books that try to tackle this amount of information often do.

This book helped improve my sex life by making me more aware of my own body and desires as well as my partner's (not to mention it has given us some great ideas and means to explore and experiment).