What a girl wants

Not only is this book what you need and want, it’s also precisely what you’d expect from a sex-positive feminist like Jaclyn Friedman. What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety is a handbook of women’s sexuality and independence, and as such, it focuses much more closely on emotional and psychological needs than on getting off (although that is also part of the plan, obviously). Friedman has designed the book to be used as a guide to personal writing, with plenty of places for a reader to stop and think about how she really feels about sex, her body, her emotional well-being and her relationships. It’s not proscriptive in the least; instead, it’s loaded with questions that women might never ask themselves about what we want. And how will we know if we never ask? It’s an excellent thinking-woman’s guide to sex without tons o’ baggage.