This book presents an integrative, growth-oriented approach to therapy with couples that demonstrates the dynamic interplay between partners’ emotional issues and their sexual difficulties. It offers a model for relational and sexual enhancement that focuses as much on partners’ present, nonverbal body-to-body communications as on their words. Dr. Stella Resnick draws on research from interpersonal neurobiology, sexology, positive psychology, and Gestalt therapy, and shares a rich assortment of therapy vignettes to demonstrate the transformative power of pleasure and how a focus on body-to-body intimacy can heal emotional wounds from the past and encourage greater presence, empathy, authenticity, playfulness, and sexual pleasure between intimate partners. The therapeutic process is explored in four related spectrums: the Problem-Transformation Spectrum, the Attachment-Sexuality Spectrum, the Pain-Pleasure Spectrum, and the Cognitive-Somatic-Experiential-Behavioral-Spectrum. Part I lays the theoretical foundation for the work. Part II examines the early attachment bond between parent and child and its effects on adult capacity for emotional closeness and sexual pleasure. Part III offers methods for resolving painful emotional issues underlying many sexual difficulties. Finally, Part IV describes the procedure for moving from a cognitive reframing of the problem to a somatic focus on the body and tracking present-moment emotional interactions to the repair of relational injuries that nurture transformational change. Also included is a series of process-oriented exercises and a handout that therapists can use in their own practice. Body-to-Body Intimacy will enable couples and sex therapists to expand their practices and enrich their clients’ sexual and relational dynamics. This book also contains valuable information that will be appreciated by anyone interested in a greater understanding of a growth-oriented therapeutic process for couples and what can be achieved together by gaining a deeply loving and sexually fulfilling intimate love relationship.

It won’t be an exaggeration to say that the whole movement of the civilization is centered around Sex, and yet it is the least understood aspect of our everyday life. This lack of understanding has lead to centuries of suppression and sensationalism, which is at the root of all kinds of insanity a sensitive mind perceives in their life. At one point, the author says, 'Know the body, but don't say no to the body', just to point at our acquired heedlessness towards the body. This book becomes an ideal medium through which one can appreciate the intricacies of a sexual relationship and rise above the social taboo. It is a collection of discourses given by Acharya Prashant, where he not only probes deeper into the physical as well as social aspects of the human relationships but with the touch of the mystical he gives us a glimpse of an altogether new way of living.

In 1973, the year the women's movement won an important symbolic victory with Roe v. Wade, reports surfaced that twelve-year-old Minnie Lee Relf and her fourteen-year-old sister Mary Alice, the daughters of black Alabama farm hands, had been sterilized without their or their parents' knowledge or consent. Just as women's ability to control reproduction moved to the forefront of the feminist movement, the Relf sisters' plight stood as a reminder of the ways in which the movement's accomplishments had diverged sharply along racial lines. Thousands of forced sterilizations were performed on black women during this period, convincing activists in the Black Power, civil rights, and women's movements that they needed to address, pointedly, the racial injustices surrounding equal access to reproductive labor and intimate life in America. As horrific as the Relf tragedy was, it fit easily within a set of critical events within black women's sexual and reproductive history in America, which black feminists argue began with coerced reproduction and enforced child neglect in the period of enslavement. While reproductive rights activists and organizations, historians, and legal scholars have all begun to grapple with this history and its meaning, political theorists have yet to do so. Intimate Justice charts the long and still incomplete path to black female intimate freedom and equality--a path marked by infanticides, sexual terrorism, race riots, coerced sterilizations, and racially biased child removal policies. In order to challenge prevailing understandings of freedom and equality, Shatema Threadcraft considers the troubled status of black female intimate life during four moments: antebellum slavery, Reconstruction, the nadir, and the civil rights and women's movement eras. Taking up important and often overlooked aspects of the necessary conditions for justice, Threadcraft's book is a compelling challenge to the meaning of equality in American race and gender relations.

Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.

Go beyond surviving to reclaim your sexual self. If you have experienced sexual abuse, assault, harassment, or rape, you may feel disconnected from your sexual self—even if you’ve overcome the initial trauma of your experience. You are a survivor; but surviving is just the beginning. This book explores what comes next. Written by a psychotherapist and grounded in cutting-edge research, Reclaiming Pleasure picks up where other sexual trauma recovery books leave off. It offers practical tools to help you cultivate a sense of safety, security and trust in order to reclaim the vitality, pleasure and great sex you deserve. The book will also serve as your compass on a journey toward the rediscovery of desire, letting you explore what you want from others and for yourself. This groundbreaking book will help you: Understand the lasting mental, physical, sexual, and relational impacts of sexual trauma Move beyond feelings of shame Reclaim pleasure and reignite passion in your life Surviving is merely the first step in the process of recovery from sexual trauma. With this sex-positive and empowering guide, you are invited to take your recovery to the next level. You’ll feel emboldened by the desire for better sex, healthier relationships, and a more connected, pleasurable life.

Weaving together somatic psychotherapy, dance/movement therapy, and sex therapy approaches, this uniquely interdisciplinary and practical book offers guidance on how to strengthen your connection with pleasure, receptivity, and ecstasy in an embodied way. Melissa Walker contextualizes the erotic body as being embedded in a sex-negative culture. Taking an experiential somatic approach, this book helps readers map the erotic self to establish a whole-body sexuality, becoming an important sexuality ally in a larger social movement toward erotic inclusiveness. This groundbreaking text illuminates how to shed the harmful messages that an individual has internalized about their sexuality, to learn the language of their somatic self, and begin to build a whole-body appreciation for their creative potential. Filled with questions, guided experientials, and map-building practices that help readers learn more about themselves, this book is essential reading for sex therapists to navigate the vast map of sexuality to create true health and sexual evolution.

"A must-read for women even if they're one of the lucky ones with no pressing body image issues, and couples who want to strengthen their relationships or just have more fun in bed." — Sex tips for women, Lifebytes books Is Your Body Image Getting In The Way Of Intimacy And Desire? Fifty percent of women put off sex—even when they're in the mood—because they feel too fat. Even normal- and below-normal-weight women can't seem to let go and enjoy themselves in bed because they're worried their bodies aren't good enough for their partners. How A Bad Body Image Impacts Women's Sexual Desire. Do you find yourself avoiding or postponing sex because you're too self-conscious about your body? Have you started putting "conditions" on sex—only with the lights out, only with cover-up clothing, only in positions that prevent your partner from seeing or touching perceived imperfections? Not Tonight Dear, I Feel Fat will change your love life tonight with surprising solutions from the latest sex research. Find out proven ways to: Shut off the negative thoughts about your body before, during and after sex. Use sex techniques that will make you forget to "check" your thighs or worry about your partner seeing something you're ashamed of. Stop panicking when your partner touches a body part you're self conscious about. Stay present, attend to your pleasure and engage with your partner. The Sex Drive Solution For Women Who Struggle With Body Image Issues Women with body image issues also experience a noticeable drop in their sexual desire. That's because negative body esteem creates low libido in women. By reducing sexual desire it helps them avoid the fear of being shamed in the bedroom. Not Tonight Dear provides the most innovative solutions for low libido, including these sex tips for women: The 'Flicker Stage' technique—it'll make your sexual desire go from zero to sixty in minutes. Situational and contextual 'cuing'—prompt your sex drive in conscious and subconscious ways. Read the comprehensive list of sex cues that might be right for you. The "20/70" exercise—an exercise proven over and over to significantly, sometimes dramatically, raise sexual desire in low libido women—even in those taking antidepressants. Learn How To Fully Enjoy Sex Without Worrying About How You Look Not Tonight Dear, I Feel Fat will help you build body confidence, heal your relationship and provide the blueprint for a vibrant, rewarding sex life. Remember, sex is not the reward for a perfect body. It's the reward for being human.