40 Books About Sexuality That You Have to Read

As the new school year heats up, so does the public debate about sex education. What do we teach teenagers about sex, and what do we leave them to figure out on their own? If we can agree that few teens learn about sexuality in an accurate, age-appropriate, and comprehensive way, then where does that leave adults who came through the same school systems they did? Many of us are still full of questions that we aren’t quite sure how to articulate. Few can claim that they’ve figured sex -- and its social influence -- out.

If you want to graduate to the next level of sexual health, pleasure, and social awareness, now’s your chance. Get yourself schooled with a crash course in sex ed for adults. From orgasms to organs, from contraceptives to court decisions, look to the reading list below for the can’t-miss books and articles about sex.

Take your time, because there will be a test. Probably many tests, actually. And you want to be ready.

1. Woman: An Intimate Geography, by Natalie Angier 

   An exuberant and detailed celebration of the female body, Woman won a Pulitzer Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. It is a vibrant and inclusive study of hormones, chromosomes, muscles, menstruation, hysterectomy, breastfeeding, orgasm, aggression, and Angier’s trademark charm.

2. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private, by Susan Bordo 

   Bordo brings both personal and cultural analysis to the changing expectations put upon the male body. Hollywood, Ken dolls, literature, male beauty standards, Michael Jordon, sexual harassment, and the uneasy cultural obsession with the penis all given attention.

3. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, by Julia Serano 

   Serano brings her insight as a biologist and transsexual woman to bear in a thoughtful book on gender diversity. Whipping Girl critiques media depictions of trans people, dismantles science’s longtime characterization of transsexuality as pathology, and offers a whip-smart vision of a world that celebrates sexual difference.

4. “Menstruation, Work, and Class,” by Emily Martin. Published in The Woman in the Body: A Cultural History of Reproduction. 

   Martin’s essay traces shaming public conceptions of menstruation, and particularly looks at how non-domestic realms -- like workplaces and schools -- don’t make it easy for women to get through a day of menstruating while feeling they must keep their activities a secret.

5. Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era 

   It’s long been the go-to guide for all things practical about living in a female body. More than an inclusive manual for how to respond to the body’s natural processes, OBOS is also a testament to how the body intersects with culture and politics.

6. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives, by Judith Halberstam. 

   In this essay collection by the author of Female Masculinity, Halberstam explores the significance of masculinity in all its forms. Particular focus is given to the life and death of Brandon Teena, a transgender man who was the victim of a hate crime, as well as the constructions of trans bodies in cinema, literature, and music.

7. Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, by Mattilda, a.k.a Matt Bernstein Sycamore 

   Sycamore’s collection of essays challenges the rules for “belonging” in a particular gender identity, and articulates how the notion of “passing” as the ultimate goal suffocates sexual diversity.

8. The Joy of Sex: The Ultimate Revised Edition, by Alex Comfort AND/OR The Joy of Gay Sex: Fully Revised and Expanded Third Edition, by Charles Silverstein & Felice Picano 
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