Description
Winner of the 2021 Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health Media Award
Winner of the 2019 Society for Sex Therapy and Research Consumer Book Award
We’ve been thinking about sex all wrong. Mainstream media, movies, and porn have taught us that sex = penis + vagina, and everything else is just secondary. The problem is, most cisgender women don’t orgasm this way. We’ve separated our most reliable route to orgasm—clitoral stimulation—from how we feel we should orgasm—penetration. As a result, we’ve created a pleasure gap between cisgender women and men:
- 50% of 18-35-year-old cis women say they have trouble reaching orgasm with a partner
- 64% of cis women vs 91% of cis men said they had an orgasm at their last sexual encounter
- 55% of cis men vs. 4% of cis women say they usually reach orgasm during first-time hookup sex
In Becoming Cliterate, psychology professor and human sexuality expert Dr. Laurie Mintz exposes the broader cultural problem that’s perpetuating this gap, and what we can do about it. Pulling together evidence from biology, sociology, linguistics, and sex therapy into one comprehensive, accessible, and prescriptive book, Becoming Cliterate features:
- Cultural & historical analysis of female orgasm (spoiler: the problem's been going on for ages)
- An anatomy section (it's all custom under the hood)
- Proven techniques for cliterate sex (it starts with training the sex organ between your ears)
- A comprehensive final chapter for men (because you don't have to have a clitoris to be cliterate)
Research shows that women who read this book increase their rate of orgasm and sexual satisfaction! They also improve their body image and sexual assertion.
Research shows that men who read the chapter written for them (“Cliteracy for Him”) improve their knowledge of women’s genital anatomy and sexual pleasure, as well as their sexual communication skills. They also decrease their endorsement of harmful myths related to both women’s and men’s sexuality.
Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters — And How To Get It. Dr. Laurie Mintz. Softcover. 288 Pages.
"An excellent, thorough, inspiring and much needed guide to the source of our deepest energy, pleasure,and power--the clitoris. Everyone needs to read this book and become CLITERATE." — Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and In the Body of the World
"This read doesn't just zero in on the politics of pleasure inequality, it also offers up solutions that help the reader become more hands on (literally) with their own sexuality." — Bust Magazine
"Fun, funny, and empowering. A must-read for people with clits, especially those who are having sex with people with penises." — Buzzfeed
"Becoming Cliterate will change how we think and talk about female sexual pleasure. The orgasm gap isn't a consequence of women not knowing how--it's a cultural problem that we should be reading about to discover what went wrong in the first place." — Betty Dodson, sex educator and author of Sex for One
LAURIE MINTZ, Ph.D., is a college professor at the University of Florida, has received numerous professional and teaching awards, and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She has published over fifty research studies, writes a popular Psychology Today blog, and has been quoted extensively in Parenting, Cosmopolitan, Prevention, Woman’s Day, Women’s Health, Men’s Health, CNN.com, Oprah.com and The Huffington Post.