I’ve always been a bookworm, and I consider reading a huge pleasure. So when I was in the process of leaving Christianity, exploring my own sexuality and healing my relationship with it, and then started training as a sexologist, books were a huge influence in my journey.
Books can be where you begin your journey and start to dip your toes in the water, which is why I am always recommending books to clients, followers on social media, or literally anybody who asks me.
I was asked what the top 10 books influenced me as a sexologist, and that got me thinking as there have been so many! How on earth could I whittle them down to just 10? This list is by no means everything, but I hope it will also encourage you to dip your toes in the water.
Some of these books are considered “standard” in sexology and sexual healing, others are more specific to my own path of healing from Purity Culture and leaving Christianity, and thus healing my relationship with my sexuality.
It means that many of the books include spirituality, and others are considered quite old.
These books also reflect that I am a white, cis-gendered, heterosexual woman who grew up in the UK in the 90s and 00s- IE a certified Millennial. I have never felt uncomfortable in the gender I was assigned at birth, I have always been attracted to cis-gendered men, and I have never experienced direct racism or racial discrimination. I have also never directly experienced homophobia or transphobia, or internalized homophobic or transphobic messages towards myself.
It is important I name this because as Jesse Bering so succinctly put it in his book, Perv, which is on this list, it means I essentially won the “sexual lottery”.
What this means is that in pretty much every culture in the world, being heterosexual and cis-gendered, with no fetishes or kinks, is seen as the default. From therapy to medical care, to cultural discourse, to films and TV, the whole cultural soup that I swam in, it was always catered to these characteristics.
Then add in that I am white and middle class living in the UK, so I have never experienced racial microaggressions, discrimination, or abuse, and up until very recently, had little awareness of how deeply embedded racism is to the structure of western society.
This means that while I have experienced all sorts of other pain and difficulty in my life, I didn’t have the extra pain and trauma of struggling with my sexual orientation, gender identity, having socially unacceptable fetishes, or living as an ethnic minority in a predominantly white culture.
I have a bias in how I was brought up, how I came to see the world and how I experience myself as a woman and sexual being. I wonder how different this list would be if I had grown up in the 60s, 70s, or 80s, or if I came of age in the ’10s and be Gen Z, or if I were queer or trans.
Now we’ve established that, enjoy the list!
The Top 10 Books That Influenced Me As A Sexologist
1. Shake Your Soul Song! A Woman’s Guide To Self-Empowerment Through The Art Of Self-Pleasure: Volume 1, by Devi Ward
This was the first “sex” book I ever read, and I still have it on my kindle! It’s a book on pleasure as a lifestyle, self-pleasuring, and connecting your sexuality with spirit, using theory and practices from Tibetan Tantra. It felt like an initiation into sex and pleasure as integral to my personal and spiritual development- which was balm to my soul recovering from Purity Culture.
2. Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, by Emily Nagoski
I call this book, “The Bible for women/people with vulvas”! I remember reading this book and so many lightbulbs going off. It feels like a 101 in everything sex, sexuality, desire, and gender roles, in an easy and accessible format.
3. Sex For One: The Joy of Selfloving, by Betty Dodson
I call this book “The Other Bible for women/people with vulvas”! It’s a shameless manifesto on masturbation as a liberation tool for women, and this book was one of the game-changers for me in releasing shame I had around masturbation.
4. Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex For The 21st Century, by Barbara Carellas
This book is hands down, my absolute favourite tantra book because it takes so much of the woo and waffle out of sacred sexuality, yet also keeping the mystery and magic at the same time. The exercises are really easy to do, and it’s shamelessly sex positive gender inclusive, which I also loved.
5. The Art of Sex Coaching: Expanding Your Practise, by Dr. Patti Britton
The Art of Sex Coaching was one of the staple texts books in my sex coaching training. Deeper than that, it laid out the foundations of why I just love sex coaching and why it is so effective. I remember reading this book sitting on the sofa in my parent’s living room feeling so many lightbulbs go off and, “aha!” moments.
6. Woman On Fire: 9 Elements to Wake Up Your Erotic Energy, by Amy Jo Goddard (name now changed to A’magine Nation)
A practical step by step guide into diving into, exploring, and healing your sexuality as a woman or vulva owner. I loved how she distilled it down to 9 elements, infusing evidence based sex education with spirituality and ritual. It felt so easy for me to follow and like I was feeding my soul.
7. Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want From Sex and How To Get it, by Dr. Marty Klein
Sexual Intelligence was another staple in my sex coaching training. I loved how it was so no nonsense, practical, and thorough on how to have awesome sex for couples. You read it and realize how bloody simple it can be and why on earth isn’t this taught widely. I remember reading this in El Retiro park in Madrid feeling so inspired and excited to work as a sex coach.
8. The Return of Desire: A Guide To Rediscovering Your Sexual Passion, by Dr. Gina Ogden
Another book in exploring the intersections of sex and spirit- do you notice a theme here?! An exploration in how women experience sexual desire and why we are actually a lot hornier than society would have us believe. I remember reading this and feeling lightbulbs going off and feeling so validated. This book and her other books are based on a groundbreaking survey she did in the 90s of American women and sexuality. It was called the ISIS survey (Integrating Sex In Spirituality), which then went on to form her body of work: The ISIS Wheel… but she then had to rename it to the 4D Wheel for obvious reasons! Dr. Ogden sadly died in 2018, and I was lucky enough to meet her in person at the WAS Congress in 2017.
9. His Porn, Her Pain: Confronting America’s Porn Panic, by Dr. Marty Klein
Another classic by Dr. Marty Klein that I cite to anyone who talks about the “dangers” of porn. It’s an exploration into heterosexual relationships where women feel uncomfortable with their partner watching porn, and a thorough debunking of myths and discomfort we have around porn. The TL:DR if you’re interested is that we must think critically and examine our own biases and shame around porn and explicit sexual material. While the porn industry itself absolutely has issues and you can absolutely form an unhealthy relationship with porn, many issues are more to do with social factors and existing sexual shame than porn being a serious danger.
10. Perv: The Sexual Deviant In All of Us, by Jesse Bering
I have to include this book as it was another instrumental book in helping with my own sexual shame. The book is a deep dive into everything that we currently or used to deem as “perverted”- including homosexuality, fetishes, kink, and anything that is outside of the heteronormative paradigm. It explains that the concept of perversion is actually defined by the culture you live in and come from, and while there are some things that are absolutely harmful to other humans, we need to understand the bigger picture and question our own biases.
And because it’s my website and I can do what I want, here are 2 more books that heavily influenced me:
11. Aphrodite’s Daughters: Women’s Sexual Stories and the Journey of the Soul, by Jalaja Bonheim
This was also one of the first “sex” books I read as I was coming out of Christianity. It’s a compilation of real stories of women and their experience of sex and spirit, which I devoured. If you haven’t come from a Faith background, you may never fully understand how much it emphasizes an absolute divorce between your sexuality and spiritual connection. When I discovered sacred sexuality and the teachings that your sexuality could be a vehicle through which you experience and connect with the divine, it was like my whole body started to sing.
12. Mating In Captivity: How to keep desire and passion alive in long-term relationships, by Esther Perel
Exploring sex and desire in long term relationships and debunking common myths around it. I found this book so refreshing and easy to read, like I was sitting in a room with Esther as she was talking. It also appealed to me as Esther talks about different cultures have different attitudes towards relationships, as I have always considered myself an international citizen. I remember reading this book on a Eurostar to Paris and devouring every word.
There are so many other books I can recommend, which I may do in future posts. Hopefully these books are enough for you to get started, and inspiration to buy and read.
What books influenced you around sex and relationships? I’d love to hear, tell me in the comments below.
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Lucy Rowett, CSC – Pronouns: She/Her/Her