There Have So Been Books About Female Sexuality in the Past 35 Years

In a recent piece in The Guardian, “Feminism in the 21st Century,” Zoe Williams claims that no one has talked seriously about female sexuality since the ’70s: “The last person to make any serious noise about female sexuality was Shere Hite; that was nearly 35 years ago.”

This is a claim I see all the time, and it’s starting to make me feel like I’m delusional.

But unless it’s a mirage, I am staring at a shelf full of zines and books from the last 35 years that address women’s sexuality seriously, whether in fiction or theory. Williams also says she’s never read an account of a woman’s period starting. An anthology completely devoted to first-period stories, My Little Red Book, just came out in 2009. And what about Judy Blume with her famous period scene? She’s still in print. I have long suspected there was a law that every anthology about women or feminism had to include at least a couple of those, so I find this dubious.

Here’s a short list of books of various sorts (novels, theory books, memoirs) that are all related in some way to questions of female sexuality and that I can see from where I’m sitting…

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape

Full Frontal Feminism

One of the Guys

He’s a Stud/She’s a Slut

Manifesta

Female Chauvinist Pigs

The Female Thing

Sexual State of the Union

A Girl’s Guide to Taking Over the World

Angry Women (also Angry Women in Rock)

The Sexual State of the Union

No Means No

Pornified

I Love Dick

Milk

The Surrender

What You Really Really Want

S.E.X

The Lisa Diaries

One of the Guys

Live Nude Elf

Prude

Catching a Wave

Sex, Art and American Culture

Growing Up Female

Feminism and Pop Culture

Defending Pornography

Ecological Feminism

Gender Outlaw

Promiscuities

No Turning Back

We Don’t Need Another Wave

Look Both Ways

Embroideries

The Hearts of Men

And I throw away books all the time!

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