Promiscuities: A Secret History Of Female Desire

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 ‘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.