Promiscuities

Promiscuities

An Opinionated History of Female Desire

Summary

By following a group of four contemporary girls - including her younger self - as they come of age in the seventies, Wolf shows how our culture tries to shape and confine women's desire. Embarking on a voyage of discovery, she illustrates how flawed and prescribed are the notions of what women want, and how these change through the ages - from Taoist techniques for giving women pleasure, to Victorian repression, and the so-called liberated nineties.

Drawing on scholarly texts, secret diaries, real life and fantasy, she demonstrates that female sexuality is wilder, more demanding and more powerful than our culture dares to accept.

Reviews

  • Her book is a searing and thoroughly fascinating exploration of the complex wildlife of female sexuality and desire.
    New York Times

About the author

Naomi Wolf

Naomi Wolf is a bestselling American writer, known for her advocacy of feminism and progressive politics. She studied at Yale before becoming a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, and working in Edinburgh. She became internationally famous with the publication of her first book, The Beauty Myth, in 1991, and has gone on to write many subsequent titles, including: Fire with Fire, Promiscuities, Misconceptions, The Tree House and Vagina: A New Biography.
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