Promiscuities follows a group of adolescent girls as they gradually become aware of themselves as sexual beings and discover what our culture tells them being female means. Drawing on her own experiences as well those of her contemporaries, Naomi Wolf reveals the secrets of our coming of age: the sexual games, forbidden crushes, losses of virginity, and rites of initiation. She also uncompromisingly examines the darker territories of abortion, the influences of the sex industry, and sexual violence that underlie contemporary girl's struggle for womanhood. By bringing into light our relationship to the "shadow slut" that conditions our sexual development, Promiscuities explores how the sexual experiences of the adolescent years determine women's sense of their own value as adults, and envisions how we could better guide girls through the "normatively shocking" landscape they now inhabit. Finally, Wolf looks at the popular culture of the recent past, as well as at the history and mythology of female desire, to show how our "liberated" culture still fears and distorts female passion. Bold and candid, funny and revelatory, Wolf's stories illustrate the fear and excitement, the fantasies and sometimes crippling realities, that make up a young contemporary woman's journey of erotic and emotional discovery.

In this dynamic new book Naomi Wolf explores and celebrates the phenomenon of female sexuality - empirically, imaginatively, anatomically and personally. 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.

In this provocative and highly personal book, bestselling author Naomi Wolf explores a subject that has long been taboo in our society: women's sexual coming-of-age. Promiscuities brazenly exposes the truths behind the conflicting messages directed at young women during and after the sexual revolution. Drawing on surprising examples from the ancient and recent past, along with vivid recollections of her own youth, Wolf shows how our "liberated" culture still fears and distorts female passion. She also shares fascinating true stories that illustrate the fantasies and sometimes crippling realities women pass through on their way toward erotic and emotional discovery. A landmark book, Promiscuities is a call to women of all ages to reclaim and celebrate their sexuality.

Celebrates the phenomenon of female sexuality - empirically, imaginatively, anatomically and personally. Wolf illustrates how flawed and proscribed are the notions of what women want, and how these have changed throughout the ages. By the author of The Beauty Myth.

"There are no good girls; we are all bad girls, in the best sense of the word."   --Naomi Wolf In this provocative and highly personal new book, Naomi Wolf speaks to women with searing honesty about a subject that has long been taboo: our sexual coming of age. Today, teenage girls' sexuality is everywhere put on display. Erotic messages aimed at them are intense and conflicting; yet in a society without rites of passage to guide girls to adulthood, the signposts pointing out how to grow into a self-respecting and healthy sexual womanhood are few. Promiscuities follows a group of adolescent girls as they gradually become aware of themselves as sexual beings and discover what our culture tells them being female means. Drawing on her own experiences as well those of her contemporaries, Naomi Wolf reveals the secrets of our coming of age: the sexual games, forbidden crushes, losses of virginity, and rites of initiation. She also uncompromisingly examines the darker territories of abortion, the influences of the sex industry, and sexual violence that underlie contemporary girls' struggle for womanhood. By bringing into light our relationship to the "shadow slut"  that conditions our sexual development, Promiscuities explores how the sexual experiences of the adolescent years determine women's sense of their own value as adults, and envisions how we could better guide girls through the "normatively shocking"  landscape they now inhabit. Finally, Wolf looks at the popular culture of the recent past, as well as at the history and mythology of female desire, to show how our "liberated" culture still fears and distorts female passion. Bold and candid, funny and revelatory, Wolf's stories illustrate the fear and excitement, the fantasies and sometimes crippling realities, that make up a young contemporary woman's journey of erotic and emotional discovery. This is Naomi Wolf's bravest, most engaging, most thoroughly argued, and most important book to date. If The Beauty Myth, which helped to change what women see when they look in the mirror, was a benchmark, Promiscuities will be a landmark: an exceptionally frank sexual memoir of an individual as well as of a generation that will help change the way women perceive and talk about their own sexuality. An invitation to a better way of teaching girls the value of being female, Promiscuities is also a call to women of all ages not only to claim but also to celebrate the extraordinary nature of their sexuality.

Promiscuities follows a group of adolescent girls as they gradually become aware of themselves as sexual beings and discover what our culture tells them being female means. Drawing on her own experiences as well those of her contemporaries, Naomi Wolf reveals the secrets of our coming of age: the sexual games, forbidden crushes, losses of virginity, and rites of initiation. She also uncompromisingly examines the darker territories of abortion, the influences of the sex industry, and sexual violence that underlie contemporary girl's struggle for womanhood.

In Promiscuities, Naomi Wolf has written an exceptionally frank sexual memoir of an individual and a generation, and a call to women not only to reclaim but to celebrate their own sexual experiences, desires and histories.