Hi Sex Nerds!

The book the Sexual Health Alliance Sex Nerd Book Club has selected for April 2019 is:

Rebel Love by Chris Donaghue, PhD

When: Friday April 5, 2019 from 12:00-1:30pm
Who: Sexual/mental health professionals and those in training to do so (therapists, educators, etc)
Where: Austin Public Library-Willie Mae Kirk Branch Meeting Room (there is only 1 meeting room at this location) 3101 Oak Springs Dr, Austin, TX 78702 


Here's What It's About:

In Rebel Love, Dr. Chris Donaghue, PhD (The Amber Rose Show with Dr. Chris), reveals how traditional dating "rules" are toxic, why everything you've learned about dating and relationships is wrong, and how to have the best sex of your life.

Dr. Chris is the sex expert you've been waiting for. He refuses to pathologize those whose sexuality doesn't fit in a neat little box and he doesn't just pay lip service to the pro-sex, feminist, and body-positive mores of the day -- he demands them.

Rebel Love welcomes all sexualities and identities no matter where you fall on the spectrum and empowers people to be authentically who they are both in and out of the bedroom. Dr. Chris's prescription for hotter, healthier sex -- the two go hand in hand -- encourages you to stop participating in patriarchal stereotypes, broaden your sexual horizons, and have amazing sex. Best of all, he shows you how with real-world examples and inspirational case studies.

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The book the Southwest Sexual Health Alliance Sex Nerd Book Club has selected for February 2019 is:

When Sex Hurts: A Woman's Guide to Banishing Sexual Pain

by Andrew Goldstein, Caroline Pukall, & Irwin Goldstein

When: Friday February 1, 2019 from noon-1:30pm

Who:
Sexual/mental health professionals and those in training to do so (therapists, educators, etc)

Where: 
Austin Public Library-Willie Mae Kirk Branch Meeting Room (there is only 1 meeting room at this location)
3101 Oak Springs Dr, Austin, TX 78702 


Here's What It's About:

For the 20 million women who suffer from painful intercourse: the first book to address the multiple causes and the available treatments.

Painful sex is a condition that causes embarrassment and silence—often going undiscussed or misdiagnosed; as many as 40 percent of women who suffer from it won’t seek medical care. And most medical professionals are still in the dark when it comes to women’s sexual pain. Now, three leading experts tackle the stereotypes, myths, and realities of sexual pain in this easy-to-understand, accessible guide that will help you get the help you need and deserve. Drs. Goldstein, Pukall, and Goldstein offer answers to your most pressing questions, as well as: 

• Up-to-date information on the more than 20 causes of sexual pain

• How to choose the right doctor—and how to interpret your doctor’s lingo

• Valuable tips for understanding sexual pain, and what can be done about it

• How to rebuild sexual intimacy once the pain is gone

Featuring groundbreaking research and stories from women who’ve also suffered—and recovered—When Sex Hurts provides all of the tools you need to stop hurting and start healing.

Hi Sex Nerds!

The book the Southwest Sexual Health Alliance Sex Nerd Book Club has selected for November 2018 is:

Guide to Getting It On: Unzipped by Paul Joannides Psy.D. & Daerick Gross Sr. This is the 9th edition from 2017.  I've heard different editions can be VERY different, so FYI!

When: Friday November 9, 2018 from 12:00-1:30pm

Who: Sexual/mental health professionals and those in training to do so (therapists, educators, etc)

Where: Austin Public Library-Willie Mae Kirk Branch Meeting Room (there is only 1 meeting room at this location) 3101 Oak Springs Dr, Austin, TX 78702 

RSVP required by 11/5/18: drjennifermcadams@gmail.com 

Here’s What It’s About:
When I first wrote the Guide To Getting It On, no publisher wanted it because they said it wasn’t enough like the “Joy of Sex,” which was how all sex books were supposed to be at the time. The book also had a sense of humor, and America’s publishers believed that sex and humor were not good companions. So I started my own publishing company. Within the first year, the Guide To Getting It On was winning awards and was being used in college sex-ed courses.

Twenty years later, the book is in its ninth edition. It has won a number of awards, and has been used in several college sex-ed courses and in medical schools. It won book of the year from the world's top organization of sex educators and sex therapists.  It has been translated into fourteen different languages.

Hi Sex Nerds!

The book the Southwest Sexual Health Alliance Sex Nerd Book Club has selected for September 2018 is:

Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life by Justin J. Lehmiller

When: Friday September 14, 2018 from 12:00-1:30pm

Who: Sexual/mental health professionals and those in training to do so (therapists, educators, etc)

Where: Austin Public Library-Willie Mae Kirk Branch Meeting Room (there is only 1 meeting room at this location) *NOTE LOCATION CHANGE*
3101 Oak Springs Dr, Austin, TX 78702

RSVP required by 9/10/18: drjennifermcadams@gmail.com

Here's What It's About:

A leading expert on human sexuality and author of the blog Sex and Psychology offers an unprecedented look at sexual fantasy based on the most comprehensive, scientific survey ever undertaken.

What do Americans really want when it comes to sex? And is it possible for us to get what we want? Justin J. Lehmiller, one of the country's leading experts on human sexuality and author of the popular blog Sex and Psychology, has made it his career's ambition to answer these questions. He recently concluded the largest and most comprehensive scientific survey of Americans' sexual fantasies ever undertaken, a monumental two-year study involving more than 4,000 Americans from all walks of life, answering questions of unusual scope.

Based on this study, Tell Me What You Want offers an unprecedented look into our fantasy worlds and what they reveal about us. It helps readers to better understand their own sexual desires and how to attain them within their relationships, but also to appreciate why the desires of their partners may be so incredibly different.

If we only better understood the incredible diversity of human sexual desire and why this diversity exists in the first place, we would experience less distress, anxiety, and shame about our own sexual fantasies and better understand why our partners often have sexual proclivities that are so different from our own. Ultimately, this book will help readers to enhance their sex lives and to maintain more satisfying relationships and marriages in the future by breaking down barriers to discussing sexual fantasies and allowing them to become a part of readers' sexual realities.

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Please make sure you have read and/or are familiar with the majority of the text and come prepared with a few talking points or questions!

Book: More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory by Franklin Veaux & Eve Rickert

When: Friday July 13 from noon-1:30pm

Where: Austin Public Library-Carver Branch, Meeting Room #1 1161 Angelina St., Austin, TX, 78702

RSVP by July 6, 2018: drjennifermcadams@gmail.com 

Here's What It's About:

Can you love more than one person? Have multiple romantic partners, without jealousy or cheating? Absolutely! Polyamorous people have been paving the way, through trial and painful error. Now the new book More Than Two can help you find your own way. With completely new material and a fresh approach, Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert wrote More Than Two to expand on and update the themes and ideas in the wildly popular polyamory website morethantwo.com.

This wide-ranging resource explores the often-complex world of living polyamorously: the nuances (no, this isn't swinging), the relationship options (do you suit a V, an N, an open network?), the myths (don't count on wild orgies and endless sex but don't rule them out either!) and the expectations (communication, transparency and trust are paramount). More Than Two is entirely without judgment and peppered with a good dose of humor. In it the authors share not only their hard-won philosophies about polyamory, but also their hurts and embarrassments. Living poly is not always an easy road, and they hope that by reading this book, you'll avoid some of the mistakes they've made along the way.

Challenging the notion of what society considers a healthy and successful relationship, they offer up personal stories from their own lives as well as of those in the wider poly world, emphasizing that this lifestyle choice isn't for the noncommittal. Polyamory is all about the relationships and the individuals participating. Charting a Relationship Bill of Rights, the authors underscore the importance of engaging in ethical polyamory and guide readers through the thorny issues of jealousy and insecurity with the aim of encouraging readers to work consistently and conscientiously on both their relationships and themselves.

And no, they're not trying to convert you: they know that polyamory isn't for everyone. Veaux and Rickert simply provide those who might be embarking on this lifestyle or those who have always known they are poly with a set of tools and many questions to help them make informed decisions and set them on a path to enjoying multiple happy, strong, enriching relationships. 

Hey Sex Book Club Members,

Book: The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel

When: Friday April 20, 2018 from noon-1:30pm

Where: Austin Public Library-Carver Branch (Meeting Room #1) 1161 Angelina St., Austin, TX, 78702

RSVP by April 16, 2018: drjennifermcadams@gmail.com 

Here's What It's About:
Iconic couples’ therapist and bestselling author of Mating in Captivity Esther Perel returns with a provocative look at relationships through the lens of infidelity.

An affair: it can rob a couple of their relationship, their happiness, their very identity. And yet, this extremely common human experience is so poorly understood. What are we to make of this time-honored taboo—universally forbidden yet universally practiced? Why do people cheat—even those in happy marriages? Why does an affair hurt so much? When we say infidelity, what exactly do we mean? Do our romantic expectations of marriage set us up for betrayal? Is there such a thing as an affair-proof marriage? Is it possible to love more than one person at once? Can an affair ever help a marriage? Perel weaves real-life case stories with incisive psychological and cultural analysis in this fast-paced and compelling book.

For the past ten years, Perel has traveled the globe and worked with hundreds of couples who have grappled with infidelity. Betrayal hurts, she writes, but it can be healed. An affair can even be the doorway to a new marriage—with the same person. With the right approach, couples can grow and learn from these tumultuous experiences, together or apart.

Affairs, she argues, have a lot to teach us about modern relationships—what we expect, what we think we want, and what we feel entitled to. They offer a unique window into our personal and cultural attitudes about love, lust, and commitment. Through examining illicit love from multiple angles, Perel invites readers into an honest, enlightened, and entertaining exploration of modern marriage in its many variations.

Fiercely intelligent, The State of Affairs provides a daring framework for understanding the intricacies of love and desire. As Perel observes, “Love is messy; infidelity more so. But it is also a window, like no other, into the crevices of the human heart.”

Hey Sex Nerd Book Club Members,

Book: Sensate Focus in Sex Therapy: The Illustrated Manual (1st Edition) by Linda Weiner (Author),‎ Constance Avery-Clark (Author)

When: Sunday February 18, 2018 @ 11:30am-1pm

Where: Heather McPherson's Office 2525 Wallingwood Drive, Building 12, Austin, TX 78746   

RSVP by February 11, 2018: drjennifermcadams@gmail.com 

Here's What It's About:
Sensate Focus in Sex Therapy: The Illustrated Manual is an illustrated manual that provides health professionals with specific information on the use of the structured touching opportunities used regularly by Sexologists to address their clients’ sexual difficulties (Sensate Focus 1) and enhance intimate relationships (Sensate Focus 2). This book is the only one to: vividly describe and illustrate the specific steps of, activities involved in, and positions associated with Sensate Focus; emphasize the purpose of Sensate Focus as a mindfulness-based practice; and distinguish between the purposes of Sensate Focus 1 and Sensate Focus 2. 

Through the use of artful drawings and descriptive text, this manual engages mental health and medical professionals and their clients by appealing to both the visual and the analytical. It discusses how modifications to Sensate Focus can be applied to diverse populations, such as LGBTQ clients, the elderly, the disabled, trauma survivors, and those with challenges such as Autism Spectrum, anxiety, and depression. The book also offers suggestions for dealing with common client difficulties such as avoidance, confusion, and goal directed attitudes. This comprehensive approach to Sensate Focus will remind readers of the beauty and power of touch while offering suggestions for moving from avoidance to sensory transcendence. 

*Please make sure you have read and/or are familiar with the majority of the text and come prepared with a few talking points!*

I'll send a reminder email about the book club meeting in early February.  

Thank you!!

Warmly,

Jennifer McAdams

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.

Do women have sex simply to express love, experience pleasure, or reproduce? When clinical psychologist Cindy M. Meston and evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss, both at the University of Texas at Austin, joined forces to investigate women's underlying sexual motivations, what they found astonished them. 

Using women's own words, and backed by extensive scientific evidence, the authors delve into the use of sex as a defensive tactic against a mate's infidelity, a ploy to boost social status, a barter for household chores, and even as a cure for a migraine headache. Meston and Buss offer a revelatory examination of the deep-seated psychology and biology that often unwittingly drive women to have sex, sometimes in pursuit of joy, and sometimes for darker, more disturbing reasons. 

Why Women Have Sex stands as the richest and deepest psychological understanding of women's sexuality yet achieved and promises to inform every woman's (and her partner's) awareness of her relationship to sex.

This is not your standard sex book. Sex therapist, sociologist, and Psychology Today contributor Dr. Marty Klein goes beyond the sex manuals to reveal how our mindsets during sex are more important than any tricks or techniques—and that the way to a healthier, more exciting, more fulfilling sex life lies in first developing our sexual intelligence. This book is the antidote to the many gimmick-oriented sex guides and manuals; Dr. Klein shows us how to reorient how we think about sex in order to experience a truly different way of being sexual.

**Note! Emily Nagoski will be joining in on our book club meeting this month over Skype. Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity!

An essential exploration of why and how women’s sexuality works—based on groundbreaking research and brain science—that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy.

Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a “pink pill” for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never be the answer—but as a result of the research that’s gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women’s sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all.

The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others’ experiences. Because women vary, and that’s normal.

Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm.

Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it. Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible.

And Emily Nagoski can prove it.

**Note! Dr. David Ley will be joining in on our book club meeting this month over Skype. Don't miss out on this opportunity!

This enlightening work investigates the history, incidence, and causes of a unique sexual lifestyle pursued by increasing numbers of couples. It is called by many names, and lived in a variety of ways by different couples. The most common terms used to describe it are 'hotwife' or 'cuckold lifestyle.' This sexual practice, a form of sexual nonmonogamy, is distinguished from swinging and polyamory in that the husband rarely seeks sexual contact outside the marriage except for participation in group sex with his wife and other men, while the wife is permitted and often encouraged to pursue unrestrained sexual encounters with other men. The author includes interviews and comments from couples living the lifestyle throughout the U.S., and presents the stories in an attempt to determine the history of this sexual practice and its role in society and in relationships. He explores the psychological, social, biological, and evolutionary underpinnings of this uncommon and socially taboo behavior in an effort to make it more comprehensible to those engaged in the lifestyle and those who are just curious.

Jennifer can’t believe it. Just married and pregnant, she discovers that her husband has been meeting Brad for sex. When confronted, Tom doesn’t deny it, but he insists it’s just “a thing” and he isn’t gay. Elsewhere, John’s wife, Karen, discovers that her husband likes to watch gay porn. John doesn’t understand his wife’s reaction. Why does she care what he watches if he’s not unfaithful? In couple’s therapy, Karen and Jennifer raise the same questions: Does this mean my husband is gay? Can my marriage survive?

These and other stories illustrate the difficulties inherent when a wife or girlfriend finds out her man has had or wants to have sexual contact with other men. But many times, the man is not gay or even bisexual. Of course, some men with gay sexual interests are gay men in a process of self-discovery; they are “coming out.” These desires may only reflect a different side of a man’s sexuality or some response to childhood trauma or experiences they have not fully processed. Here Joe Kort and Alexander P. Morgan make the distinction between gay men and “straight men with gay interests” clearer to women who want to know how they can overcome these revelations. The authors explain the many reasons why straight men may be drawn to gay sex; how to tell whether a man is gay, straight, or bisexual; and what the various options are for these couples, who can often go on to have very fulfilling marriages. 

Is My Husband Gay, Straight or Bi? is intended to help couples understand how male sexuality can express itself in ways that may be difficult to understand. Many marriages have been hurriedly terminated when couples (and their therapists) have lacked the information they needed to understand their current situations. This book provides the clarity, describes the choices, and (in many cases) offers hope for relationships and marriages that have been brushed off as doomed.

The New Male Sexuality addresses the most urgent questions of men today--and of the women who love them.  Bernie Zilbergeld reports findings from his twenty years as a psychologist specializing in human sexuality, as well as those other experts in the field, and shares his own and his clients' experiences.  the result is the most comprehensive guide ever to enhancing desire and arousal, focusing on pleasure rather than performance, and keeping sex exciting and fulfilling.

Clear, comprehensive, witty, and refreshingly realistic, The New Male Sexuality is destined to be a classic of the nineties and beyond.

In this fascinating and provocative book, Dr. Michael Bader offers a groundbreaking new theory of sexual desire. Drawing on his twenty-five years as a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, Dr. Bader demonstrates that rather than being programmed by biology or society, sexual fantasies and preferences are really psychological antidotes to unconscious dangers. Armed with this novel theory, man and women will no longer need to feel ashamed about what arouses them or confused about what arouses others.

“Sex at Dawn challenges conventional wisdom about sex in a big way. By examining the prehistoric origins of human sexual behavior the authors are able to expose the fallacies and weaknesses of standard theories proposed by most experts. This is a provocative, entertaining, and pioneering book. I learned a lot from it and recommend it highly.” — Andrew Weil, M.D.

 “Sex at Dawn irrefutably shows that what is obvious—that human beings, both male and female, are lustful—is true, and has always been so…. The more dubious its evidentiary basis and lack of connection with current reality, the more ardently the scientific inevitability of monogamy is maintained—even as it falls away around us.” — Stanton Peele, Ph.D. 

A controversial, idea-driven book that challenges everything you (think you) know about sex, monogamy, marriage, and family. In the words of Steve Taylor (The Fall, Waking From Sleep), Sex at Dawn is “a wonderfully provocative and well-written book which completely re-evaluates human sexual behavior and gets to the root of many of our social and psychological ills.”

In What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire, critically acclaimed journalist Daniel Bergne disseminates the latest scientific research and paints an unprecedented portrait of female lust: the triggers, the fantasies, the mind-body connection (and disconnection), the reasons behind the loss of libido, and, most revelatory, that this loss is not inevitable.

Bergner asks: Are women actually the less monogamous gender? Do women really crave intimacy and emotional connection? Are women more disposed to sex with strangers and multiple pairings than either science or society have ever let on? And is “the fairer sex” actually more sexually aggressive and anarchic than men?

While debunking the myths popularized by evolutionary psychology, Bergner also looks at the future of female sexuality. Pharmaceutical companies are pouring billions of dollars to develop a “Viagra” for women. But will it ever be released? Or are we not yet ready for a world in which women can become aroused at the simple popping of a pill?

Insightful and illuminating, What Do Women Want? is a deeper exploration of Daniel Bergner's provocative New York Times Magazine cover story; it will spark dynamic debates and discussions for years to come.

Challenging accepted theories about what makes for terrific sex, The Erotic Mind is a breakthrough exploration of the least understood dimensions of human sexuality—the psychology of desire, arousal, and fulfillment. Nationally known sex therapist Dr. Jack Morin offers a bold new perspective that celebrates the joys of Eros without denying its risks.

Based on an in-depth analysis of over 1,000 provocative stories of peak sexual experiences, The Erotic Mind offers clear, accessible guidance on how anyone can utilize his or her own peak encounters and fantasies as powerful tools of self-discovery.

The Erotic Mind explains the many paradoxes of erotic life, such as: why we're most excited when we must overcome obstacles; how anxiety, guilt, and anger—generally thought to have a negative impact on sexual arousal—often turn out to be aphrodisiacs; how we use unresolved issues from our early lives to intensify passion; and why the best sex is dynamic and unpredictable, rather than static and safe.

These and other insights, combined with concrete suggestions for increasing our enjoyment, overcoming our problems, and revitalizing our relationships, will change forever the way we think about our eroticism.

One of the world’s most respected voices on erotic intelligence, Esther Perel offers a bold, provocative new take on intimacy and sex. Mating in Captivity invites us to explore the paradoxical union of domesticity and sexual desire, and explains what it takes to bring lust home.

Drawing on more than twenty years of experience as a couples therapist, Perel examines the complexities of sustaining desire. Through case studies and lively discussion, Perel demonstrates how more exciting, playful, and even poetic sex is possible in long-term relationships. Wise, witty, and as revelatory as it is straightforward, Mating in Captivity is a sensational book that will transform the way you live and love.