FLICK: The Story of Female Pleasure

by Kate Lister

Brought to you by Penguin.

Meet the women throughout history who, quite literally, came before us.

From the host of award-winning History Hit podcast Betwixt the Sheets..

There is a common misconception that before modern day feminism, women throughout history simply lay back and thought of England or their respective place of origin; that the modern ‘sex positive’ movement is a radical break from the past. But women demanding better sex did not arrive with free love or the Rampant Rabbit. It has been a very long fight indeed.

From Ancient Mesopotamian sex goddesses to the contraceptive pill, Kate Lister takes us through history to show us how women’s sexual pleasure was controlled, understood and thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed.

FLICK is a rousing history of women enjoying sex with themselves, sex with each other, and occasionally sex with men as well.

Kate Lister 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, History, Audiobook, Sexuality

Audible Audio

Published May 28, 2026

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4****

As soon as I saw that Dr Kate Lister had wrote another book, I had to request this. Her previous work of “The Curious History of Sex” was a 5 star read for me and I love listening to her podcast!

This book focuses on female pleasure- how this has been seen throughout history, from Mesopotamia to now.

One of my favourite parts started immediately- loved learning about the goddesses section to start off with, and their stories. But this book explored more than just that, it showed how different societal factors have shaped and changed how female pleasure is seen and thought of.

While a lot of the history (and some present circumstances!) is harrowing, the author puts her wit through out the book which I enjoyed!

Thank you to NetGalley for the E-Arc

[Keelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly important, everyone (vagina or no) should read this! Quite a lot of the content I was already aware of, but as the bulk of my research is around male sexuality, the focus here on female sexuality brings a different perspective to the subjects I’m already familiar with. For someone who isn’t as deeply involved and interested with sex history as I am (or who hasn’t listened to one million episodes of Betwixt the Sheets like me) a lot of the info in this book would be new and probably shocking. Due to the nature of the historical sources available and discussions of female sexuality over the past few millennia, the book is primarily concerned with heterosexual intercourse and reproduction, but Lister emphasises queerness where possible, particularly in discussions around sex for pleasure rather than sex for reproduction. The last chapter about sex education, abortion and contraception is almost scarily prescient at this current historical moment.
“The liberation of sexual pleasure is central to achieving true sexual freedom and gender equality” !!!

[Luisa Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating journey through the history of humankind, with reflections on the place of women and female sexual pleasure throughout. I enjoyed Lister’s mix of humour and bite. She doesn’t hold back on arguing that women have long been seen as little more than baby-making receptacles for men to pleasure themselves with. However, where possible she highlights women through history who buck this trend, and also shows how attitudes have changed across different periods and in different societies around the world. Thought-provoking and timely, considering the rise of the manosphere, incel culture, and right-wing evangelical politics.

[Madeline Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a super-readable and really well-researched journey from antiquity all the way to the 1960s and 1970s. Though many of the stories are really harrowing, the majority of the book was fun to read thanks to Lister's wit.
Very glad it doesn't just cover white cishet history and that misogynoir is acknowledged and condemned throughout.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Transworld for this eARC

[Saimi Korhonen · Rating 5 out of 5]

”Sexual pleasure is an act of social revolution. Think of the countless women who came before you (or didn’t in this cxase), the women who suffered terribly because they were told they weren’t supposed to enjoy sex, or those who very much did enjoy it and paid a huge price for that. This is the history of women enjoying sex.”

4,5/5!

Flick: The Story of Female Pleasure explores the history of women enjoying sex (with themselves, each other and men), the ways women’s pleasure has been controlled, medicalised, demonised and challenged, and the how women, from antiquity to today, have fought back against patriarchal oppression and demanded better sex. The book focuses on topics such as masturbation, lesbian relationships, older women’s sexuality, sex goddesses and the sex act which Lister describes as the historically the most reviled sex act all: cunnilingus.

I am a huge fan of Kate Lister. She is my historian idol. So it’s no suprise I thought this book was splendid. Not only is this book an impressive piece of research and an important book (especially at this current time when women’s rights to their bodies and their sexuality are challenged and restricted all over the world), it’s also wonderfully written. Lister’s humor and personality shines through the text, as does her anger and frustration. She even encourages the reader to feel anger alongside her, which I think is really cool to see, as many historians still pretend that historians can and should remain emotionless when writing about their subjects. It’s not possible and I’d say allowing yourself to feel – whether it’s anger or sadness or whatever – makes you a better historian. It makes you care about your topic, it drives you forward and it makes your text more engaging to read.

Every chapter in this book was fascinating. It was a blast reading about the ancient goddesses who presided over both sex and war, about the women artists of the 20th century who revolutionised the way women could talk about and depict sex (like Gerda Wegener, and Dirty Blues singers like Ma Rainey, Lucille Bogan and Bessie Smith), about the way horror stories of older women’s sexual escapades were used to condemn them as witches during the witch trials, and about how sexual education (for girls, especially) has developed from something that was seen as solely a mother’s job into something that, today, while still being denied to countless young people all over the world, has become something feminists demand and think of as something that will not only allows a person to understand their own body, pleasure and rights, but also keeps them safe from illness and unwanted pregnancy. As someone who is very interested in the history of eugenics, I was intrigued (and angered) by the exploration of just how tied the early birth control movement was to eugenics. Marie Stopes, for example, made a genuine, positive difference in the lives of so many women with their brith control clinics and their advocacy for women’s pleasure and right to rex, but she was also a horrible eugenicist who admired Hitler so much she sent him a poetry book, disinherited her own son cause she married a woman who had to wear glasses and dedicated years of her career to finding ways to prevent ”degenerate” people from procreating. The history of birth control is really difficult and complex, full of contradicitions that you can't really square or solve.

It was interesting exploring the major shift from this long-standing idea of women as sex mad and endlessly horny to the now common stereotype of women as sexually controlled beings who don’t like sex and don’t think about it like men do. Neither image is correct and both of them force women into an unfair, judgemental box. Lister highlighted the rise of Protestantism (with their emphasis on self-control, their denouncement of Catholic vice, their offshoots like Puritanism and their new, strict brand of sexual morality) and the rise of the middle classes (which also saw the rise of the so called middle class sensibilities – self-control, moral purity, propriety and so on) in her analysis of how and why sexuality, especially women’s sexuality, became seen as something inherently dirty and bad. Lister also tied these major shifts in culture to the rise of medical and scientific thinking from 17th and 18th century onwards, which saw many new definitions of sexuality and sex, and, above all, focused on pathologising women’s sexuality. Nymphomania became a hit diagnosis during the Enlightenment and branded any woman who enjoyed sex too much or had sex with anyone other than her lawfully wedded hubby as insane and depraved. This led to the unfair, impossible ideal of the Angel in the House, the housewife: ”The need for 'good' women to be demure and docile arises in part from this pathologization of desire as a mental illness. To voice any kind of sexual urge was to risk beig diagnosed as mentally unstable.” During the Victorian era, this idea that if a woman couldn’t orgasm from penetration alone (something women and people with vulvas tend to not be able to do), she was frigid/impotent and, thus, defected. Sigmund Freud developed this idea and introduced the long-lasting, harmful idea of clitoral orgasms as ”immature” and bad and vaginal orgasms as the only proper, sexually mature orgasms. This made me so angry, because you can just imagine how many women in the past felt like failures and frigid, defected women because they couldn’t orgasm like they were supposed to according to doctors. Masturbation was also, drom 18th century onwards, medicalised and made into this dangerous, degenerate, life-destroying sin – the legacy of which we still live with today (in 1929, Katharine Bement Davis did a survey on women’s sexual practices and out of 2200 women only 61 said they believed masturbation was good for them – most did it but felt intensely guilty). Interestingly, it seems, in Japan and China, for example, masturbation was, at the time, while not encouraged, seen as something quite common.

The chapter on cunnilingus was especially interesting to me. As Lister puts it: "It is the most radical sex act under patriarchy and so has been reviled as one of the most dangerous and emasculating. Little wonder, then, that it is this act that has come in for particular censure throughout history." For eons, cunnilingus has been seen as this deviant, dangerous practice, without a doubt because it involved no penis and was not about a man’s pleasure. Lister describes the countless graffiti in Pompeii where men are mocked as ”cunt-lickers”, the way witches’ familiars were said to give their mistresses head during the witch-trials (linking cunnilingus to demonic forces) and how Roman politicians used accusations of cunnilingus as a way to discredit their opponents – Seneca the Younger claimed that his political rival went down on slave girls when they were on their periods. Shakespeare used it as comedy, as did Aristophanes, and Marquis de Sade included it in his books that were meant to shock and disgust readers with their depravity. While it still is seen by some men as something embarrasing, since the Victorian era, there has been shifts. It was interesting how in Victorian pornography, for example, pictures of cunnilingus are quite common, though whether this was because it depicted a change in cultural attitudes or because it was something taboo and thus titillating, is up for debate. Both, I imagine.

This book introduced me to so many interesting figures from history. I had never heard of Celia Mosher, who, in 1892, conducted the first known sex survey where she asked 45 married women about their sex lives. Her survey was never published until its rediscovery in 1980, when it challenged people’s assumptions of Victorian wives. They weren’t all prudish and lying back and thinking of England, not at all! And then there’s Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain, who wrote shamelessly about women’s pleasure and sex (alongside many other less sexy topics) in the 15th and 16th centuries. Her poetry wasn’t printed and published in its entirety until 2001. Perhaps the most peculiar and memorable figure discussed in the book was Ira Craddock, who, in the late-19th century, wrote about birth control and sex, women’s right to pleasure and faced brutal pushback from the justice system and anti-vice asshats like Anthony Comstock – she was arrested multiple times and eventually, because she was endlessly hunted and hounded, she took her own life. But not only was she an early advocate for birth control and women’s rights to enjoy sex, she also claimed she was married to an angel/ghost called Soph, who visited her every now and then. Someone, please, make a movie of this wonderfully strange woman.

Lister does a great job, throughout the book, highlighting the way experiences of women of different races, ethnicities and sexual orientations have differed and still do. The history of pleasure is very different to different types of women. For example, when talking about how the pill revolutionised the world, it was only very certain types of white, well-to-do women who could truly experience a ”sexual revolution” – at the same time, in Ireland, young unmarried mothers were locked up in Magdalene laundries and thousands of women of color were forcibly sterilized without their consent in the USA. She also wrote about the impact of colonialism and racism on understanding female sexuality, and how white Europeans used women of the countries they invaded to build this image of the good, white, sexually pure, innocent white woman: ”They were unable to decentre their own experiences and so viewed the practices they encountered as sexual deviance. As a result, Indian, Asian and African women were fetishized as exotic, erotic, and, above all, sexually available. In contrast, the Victorian white woman was constructed by the colonizers as pure as the driven snow, biddable and forever in need of protection." Lesbians get their own chapter, and in it Lister explores how lesbian desire has been understood and discussed, and how obsessed scientists have been, since antiquity, on this idea that lesbian sex must be all about using something that replaces the all-mighty penis: ancient doctors, medieval arabic writers and anatomists of the 1600s all were convinced that lesbian women could grow their clitoris to resemble a penis because, well, how else could two women have sex? It’s interesting how lesbians have not been as aggressively persecuted as gay men have been in history: "Gay men were, and continue to be, persecuted because they are apostates of traditional masculinity, and as such they threaten to turn the heterosexual man into 'the girl'. Lesbians do not pose the same kind of threat to the patriarchy because their existence does not place heterosexual men in the role of the woman." But not being criminalized came with a sort of invisibility and a persistent idea that surely no woman could actually be satisfied without a man in the bedroom – something that persists to this day.

As Lister says on many occasion, many might think that the history of pleasure and women enjoying sex is not that important or relevant. That it’s frivolous and that there are much more important topics to research. But what people don’t get is that the reason we live in the sexual culture we do is all because of what has come before and that the reasons so many women struggle with their own bodies, their own pleasure and feel awkward asking their partners for anything (and fake orgasms to please them, especially if their partners are male) is because of centuries-old sexual scripts that prioritise men over women and shame women for their desires and bodies. These scripts are social constructs and made up to benefit the patriarchy, and understanding their origins can help tear them down and create a more sexually equal world for everyone. This is important stuff and I am happy Lister is working on this.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history of sex and sexuality or women's history. My 4,5/5 rating is mainly because I already knew a lot of the stuff she was writing about because this is a topic I've read quite a bit about in the past – it's not an objective fault, of course, that she wrote about topics I am familiar with, it just means that there were less surprises for me. I will read anything Lister writes – she's such a fab historian!


Some interesting facts I learned:

- The first recorded act of sexual intercourse was between two fish in a Scottish lake 385 million years ago. The species was named, hilariously, microbrachiu dicki after the discoverer, Robert Dick.

- In Norse myth, Freyja, the goddess sex, beauty, war and sorcery, hosted an afterlife, Folkvang. Half of dead soldiers went to Odin’s Valhalla, the others went to Freyja’s hall, which doesn’t seem to have been regarded as any lesser.

- Puritan fornication laws in Cromwell’s England were so severe that some married couples were prosecuted if their baby was born less than nine months after their wedding.

- Nymphomania had many synonyms – uteromania, metromania, andromania, erotomania, hypathia, furor uterinus and libidinosa. Some suggested cures for this ”disease” included a vegetarian diet, bloodletting and cocaine.

- The first woman to be executed for sodomy with a woman was Katherina Hetzeldorfer in 1477. The last was Catharina Linck. Both were specifically sentenced for using dildos with other women.

- After WWI, lesbianism became so associated with the liberated, hedonistic Paris that the city was sometimes called Paris-Lesbos.

- In 2005, Helen O’Connell produced a 3D image of the full structure of the clitoris, revealing, properly, for the first time, how large an organ it is.

- There is a mention of a dildo in the Bible! In Ezekiel 16:17, it is mentioned that a woman has made a ”male idol” and ”engaged in prostitution” with it.

- In Polynesian myth, Māui tries to make humans immortal by entering goddess Hine-nui-te-pō’s vagina and exciting through her mouth, but she awakens and crushes him with her toothed vagina, which is why humans remain mortal. I had no idea that there were so many myths about toothed, monstrous vaginas in mythology all over the world.

- Only a handful of animals live beyond their fertile years (humans, some toothed whales and some Ngogo chimpanzees). George C. Williams has offered the Grandmother Hypothesis as reason for this: females of these species live beyond their fertile years in order to help raise the next generation and offer their wisdom. In a 2019 study, it was discovered that grandmother whales show their kids and grandkids where to catch salmon and that whales die a lot younger if they lose their mother/grandmother early.

- Margaret Sanger opened, in 1917, the first birth control clinic in the USA. She was arrested as a public nuisance for it. She also coined the term ”birth control”.

- In 1993, the contraceptive pill was referred to by the Economist as the 8th wonder of the world which placed men and women on equal sexual footing. It’s hyperbolic and not true at all, but it says a lot about how the pill is thought of.

- One of the only cultures that celebrates cunnilingus is Tantric culture, though there too is this idea that men do it to gain access to spiritual energies within women.

- The Gala, worshippers of Inanna, were biological males who took on female names and performed as women in celebrations. There are also hints in literature that hints at them being passive partners in gay sexual acts. A cool example of history of gender fluidity.

- Spartans used to call Aphrodite ”Aphrodite Areia” aka Aphrodite the Warlike.

- Ali ibn Nasr’s The Encyclopaedia of Pleasure is the earliest surviving (10th century) Arabic erotic work.

- The story that Queen Victoria refused to pass laws criminalising lesbianism because she didn’t believe it existed is bollocks. During her later reign, conversations of queerness were on the rise and there were many ”female husband” scandals, and Vicky was very well read.

- In many languages (latin, spanish, hebrew, japanese, chinese etc.), the word for lesbian means to rub or to grind. One word for it, in Cantonese, means ”tofu grinder”.

- In the 1960, Robert Wilson, who researched menopause and peddled new hormone treatments, declared that without this pill, menopausal women will lose all their femininity and beauty and become ”galloping catastrophes”. Like so many aspects of women’s sexuality, menopause was medicalised immediately and made into a product.

- Early French words for menopause included ”des reines détrônées” aka ”unthroned queens” and ”l’enfer des femmes” aka ”the women’s hell”.

- The Restoration playwright Aphra Behn was a spy for Charles II in the Netherlands until 1665, when she had to stop cause the king forgot to pay her wages and she had to find work.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting.

[Cordelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is so fun!

[Liv Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I needed any other encouragement to remain a single woman, here it is... Phenomenal.

[Kirsty-Elise Noonan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is exactly what it promises to be - a history of female sexual pleasure, from ancient goddesses and Greek attitudes towards sex, all the way through to Victorian hysteria, masturbation panics, menopause myths, birth control, lesbian history, Freud, modern feminism, and everything in between. It covers an enormous amount of ground without ever feeling boring or overly academic, which is pretty impressive considering how heavily researched it is!

What really makes the book work though is Kate Lister’s voice. She’s funny, blunt, clearly angry in places, but also genuinely compassionate towards the women she’s writing about. There were multiple moments where I laughed out loud, immediately followed by paragraphs that made me SO furious about the past.

Some of the historical attitudes in this book are absolutely insane (and I don’t say that lightly). Roman men treating cunnilingus as emasculating, doctors removing women’s clitorises to stop masturbation, Freud deciding clitoral orgasms were “immature”, Victorians acting like women naturally hated sex while simultaneously being completely obsessed with policing female sexuality every second of the day... there were several moments where I had to stop reading just to stare into space for a minute because the misogyny was so deeply embedded and so incomprehensible.

I think one of the strongest things about the book, and something I really appreciated, is the throughline running underneath all the different historical periods. Even though it jumps between mythology, medicine, religion, politics, social expectations, queer history, sexual education, etc. it never feels random because the central argument always stays the same... that female sexuality has historically been feared, controlled, medicalised, politicised, and shamed because controlling women’s bodies is a form of social power.

I also liked that the book doesn’t just go with the whole “wow, people back then were backwards” angle. Instead, Lister spends a lot of time dismantling myths we still repeat now, and some of the most interesting parts of the book were actually the moments where she challenged things we just accept as fact today.

The sections around ancient goddesses and sapphic history were probably my favourites, and the discussions around how differently sexuality was viewed in some cultures before later religious and patriarchal structures became dominant. I also liked the way she explored how much history around women’s sexuality has either been erased completely, filtered through male writers, or at least distorted over time.

That said, because the book is covering so much, there were definitely bits that could easily have been entire books on their own. I didn’t mind that too much because the book is clearly intended to be a broad overview rather than a deep dive into one specific era, but I could definitely see some readers wanting more depth in places (hint hint: do deep dive books next!)

Overall though, I thought this was so good - funny, accessible, enraging, fascinating, and incredibly readable for a nonfiction book covering such a huge historical scope, while also reminding you that a lot of these attitudes are not nearly as historical as we like to pretend they are.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the ARC.

[i · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Dr. Kate Lister, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers | Bantam, and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

FLICK is a non-fiction novel covering the history of female pleasure from ancient Sumeria to the 1960s. We touch on how societal factors and pressure have changed how female pleasure is treated throughout history and in different societies, from devious sex-mad demons to submissive holes.

I found it really interesting how in ancient polytheistic communities there was a goddess of sex and war and quite how unhinged the swap was to, and ongoing sexual oppression is under, Abrahamic religions. The ongoing mutilation of female bodies to control sexual pleasure is horrific. It was also theorised that homophobia is born from deep loathing of femininity and by extension women.

We also cover the effect of patriarchal inheritance and control over wombs, feminist medieval Welsh poets, Sappho, and trailblazing Stuart playwrights, manosphere influencers, trad wives, racial sexuality, and compulsory heteronormativity.

A strong favourite was the 18th century doctor who believed women who liked luxurious novels, strong wines, and too much chocolate were most susceptible to nymphomania. Whoops.

It was incredibly well researched with a great structure and personable, engaging, and hilarious tone. Another fantastic read from Dr Kate Lister - I would recommend her podcast too!

The dedication was a personal highlight - ‘for all the men who didn’t make me cum.’

[Ana Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has made me laugh, and it has made me cry. Dr Kate Lister the woman that you are.

It dives deeply into the history of women’s experience of sex. How it has been deeply controlled, hidden and demonised. This book shows the true importance of female sexual pleasure, how it is not something to be trivialised. How the repression of female sexuality is intrinsically linked to the repression of women. There cannot be liberation of women without the liberation of our sexual pleasure.

I listened to this as an audio book and having the authors voice narrate it took the experience to the next level - her voices she uses when she quotes men’s historical quotes / scientific findings are honestly hilarious. She consistently makes well evidenced arguments, and I’ve come away feeling that I have learnt more.

Parts of the book even challenged my own thinking and made me see ways that, I - who claim to be so liberated, still fall victim to thought patterns. She focuses on many different cultures and constantly provides a wide overview.

This book is the perfect combination of enjoyable and educational, her tone of voice is flexible based on the topic which really suits the material, you go from laughing to feeling angry even in one sentence.

I wish that everyone could read this book, it’s sad that the people reading this book are probably the people who least need to read it.

[em · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to preface this review by clarifying that my opinions will most likely be biased, I was fortunate enough to be a student of Lister's for years and spent many hours debating topics and indulging in history with her.

Incredibly well researched, while still managing to be funny and entertaining, this was a romp to read. I learned so much, some of it depressing, some of it funny, all of it important. I enjoyed the vast historical element of it, Lister doesn’t just focus on heterosexual, white, cisgender history but rather explores all of it.

My favourite was the tone of writing, even when discussing the more sensitive and horrifying topics. Lister was able to do something most historians struggle with, which is acknowledging the murky truth of history, without coming across as patronising. The lighter topics were also fun to read, with her one liners leaving me laughing or at least smirking to myself at her wit.

This was a pleasure (pun intended) to read. And a great resource to learn about something we shouldn’t be ashamed to talk about.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #Flick #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[Niamh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very kindly given an e-ARC of this book via Netgalley and Random House UK / Transworld.

Told with her trademark wit and straightforwardness, Kate Lister explores the history of women's pleasure, from the Ancient Greeks up to the modern day and the so-called 'Sexual Revolution'. Read the book and you'll understand why I put that term in inverted commas with an implied derision to it. I sped through this book, wanting to gobble up as much history as I could about this fascinating topic. We jumped wildly from the Witch Trials to the Victorians to the 60s and right back to the Greeks and Romans, discussing everything from the Orgasm Gap to Menopause to why, for a while there, some men thought oral sex was a sign of witchcraft.

Lister makes the history of female pleasure accessible and fun, whilst never shying away from the nuances and difficulties that still plague our social understanding of women's sexuality today. This is the kind of book I think every woman deserves to read - especially those whose thoughts on sex and their bodies STILL remain influenced by the (wildly inaccurate) theories of men.

'FLICK' by Kate Lister is available now.

[Kimberley Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr Kate Lister has done it again. I have eagerly awaited this book as I am an avid listener to her historical podcast ‘Betwixt the Sheets’. I listened to the audiobook as it was read by her and I adore the conversational tone of her books, which only she could do justice.

Be warned, this is a book about self-love and as such, the language used is very direct, wonderfully fruity and Kate pulls no punches. And while female masturbation is a fun subject, its history is fraught with misogyny and politics from day one.

Kate exposes this carefully hidden or ignored history of women and their sexuality from a global perspective, how different countries and societies perceive the needs of women, including trans women (though much of this book focuses on biology). This book refers to the works of ancient philosophers and early (and not so early) scientists and their frankly bizarre ideas such as literally wandering wombs.

Kate made me laugh, made me angry and blew my mind on occasion. This isn’t a feminist rant, this is a balanced explanation of why female pleasure matters. To quote the closing line of this book: “get loud, get angry and for gods sake, get yours!”

[Lavania · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t read anything of Kate’s before, but any person, let alone a woman who wants to sing me the song of my people (the history of female pleasure), sold. Reading this book was like walking down the path of time as Cersei Lannister, with every Tom, Dick and Harry yelling “Shame”. Shame, for being too sexual. Shame, for even considering pleasure from sex. Shame, for any decent sexual/reproductive education. Shame, for getting old, being old and wanting sex. Shame, shame and more shame. No wonder I suffer from shame for any sexual pleasure. The one shame that did surprise me was the shame I felt for the pioneers of sexual health clinic start ups such as Marie Stopes and Planned Parenthood who really smothered their cause in the horrible eugenics sauce they had for life. Kate did give a brief summary of the witch trials which I could kinda see how it related to this topic but I didn’t feel like she did justice enough like “How to kill a witch did” to even include the content? Was the book mind blowing? No. I do think it is an essential read, it’s given me other areas to read and explore.

[Emma Vickers-Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of Flick by Kate Lister in exchange for an honest review.

This was a genuinely engaging read that surprised me in the best way. It moves effortlessly between laugh-out-loud humour and moments that are quietly, and sometimes sharply, heartbreaking. That contrast could easily feel jarring, but instead it’s handled with real skill, making the emotional impact land even harder.

I particularly enjoyed the historical elements, especially the mythology chapters at the beginning. They added depth and context in a way that felt both informative and entertaining, setting the tone brilliantly for what followed.

It’s one of those books that lingers after you’ve finished, not just because of what it says, but because of what it makes you want to say. Now I just need to work out how to casually bring it up in conversation… which is easier said than done given the subject matter, but absolutely worth the effort.

A bold, thought-provoking read that proves you can be both clever and candid.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Kate Lister's A Curious History of Sex and was delighted to be approved to read this through NetGalley. It is exactly what you would expect from Kate Lister and that is a great compliment. She is funny, smart, thoughtful and righteously angry with the material she delivers. She steers us through a potted history of the ideas and practices of female, sexual pleasure. As you might expect, the practice of pleasure is the bit where the righteous anger comes in. This is hugely readable and delivers a great deal of information without any of it feeling like a lecture or a drag. I finished it last week and have talked about it with all the women of my acquaintance. It has led to some wild conversations.

[Gem ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr Kate Lister has a fantastic way of writing that is engaging, witty, attention grabbing and clear to follow and takes you through different chapters on the historical and current issues of female pleasure.
Covering so many topics from motherhood to menopause, this is a feminist and intersectional look at how society has tried to change and minimise female pleasure throughout the centuries and celebrates notorious characters, pioneers and everyday women that did it anyway.
A fun and insightful read

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual Dr Kate Lister takes us in a journey to the past to discuss the history of female pleasure and how for centuries we’ve been repressing it. She combines education with humor and makes this topic easy to understand for everyone. I highly enjoyed this book and I really hope more people get into it. Also, I appreciate being introduced to “Shave ‘Em Dry” by Lucille Bogan, it’s become a new favorite for me.

[Mia Clement · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr Kate Lister is an utter legend. The summary of this absolute “flick”-tastic book is that by understanding, loving and pleasuring our own bodies is the key not only to sexual liberation but social liberation as well. Spanning millennia Dr Lister takes you from the Ancient Greek times of Lesbos and Sappho to critiquing modern day sex ed and pornhub statistics. Read. This. Book.


“So, get loud, get angry and, for God's sake, get yours.”

[Becky Swales-Blanchard · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can tell this book is very well researched despite there being a lack of female perspectives on pleasure through the ages. Lister is a very talented writer and I liked how the chapters were set out.

I wasn't aware of Lister's podcast before reading but I will definitely be listening!

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc

[Charlotte Patrone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is clearly very well researched, but presented in a way that's easy to read for everyone. I love how down to earth the writing style is, and I'd read more serious books if they were written like this! It's a really interesting history, and I like how the book covers different time periods and places. I loved it!

[Ageminireader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flick is an incredibly important book. Looking at women’s history from antiquity, in religion and modern day Kate Lister asks questions that go beyond the catchy chapter titles. It’s a shame that it’ll likely get dismissed quickly as ‘the sex book’ because it is so much more than that and something I would urge people to read.
Bonus points go to the audiobook, narrated by Lister herself

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting and informative look at the history of female sexuality.
A bit dry, no pun intended but we need to understand the history to understand the beliefs and norms today's society..
Empowerment in a book

[JoJo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr Lister always speaks about those topics other ignore or skirt about, those topics that should be spoken of and understood. As well as being highly informative, this is a book that should be read widely.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Granted I have read a few books on this topic, I don’t feel like this really brought anything new to the conversation. Though, it covers a range of important messages so still feels like an important read

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A PERFECT BOOK

[Rosemarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://everythingisbetterwithdragons...

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful book that discusses the history of women's pleasure with warmth, empathy and no humour.

[Marley Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and fascinating account of women's sexuality, read so engagingly by Kate Lister herself, a personal icon of mine.