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Want Me: A Sex Writer's Journey into the Heart of Desire
A prominent sex journalist shares the confusing, funny, and sometimes painful moments that shaped her young adulthood, offering an honest look at sex and culture for modern young women.
Tracy Clark-Flory grew up wedged between fizzy declarations of "girl power" and the sexualized mandates of pop culture. It was "broken glass ceilings" and Girls Gone Wild infomercials. With a vague aim toward sexual empowerment, she set out to become what men wanted--or, at least, understand it.
In her moving, fresh, and darkly humorous memoir, she shares the thrilling and heartbreaking events that led to discovering conflicting truths about her own desire, first as a woman coming of age and then as a veteran journalist covering the sex beat. Tracing her experiences on adult film sets, at fetish conventions, and during an orgasmic meditation retreat (to name just a few), Clark-Flory weaves in statistics and expert voices to reckon with our views on sexual freedom.
Want Me is about looking for love, sex, and power as a woman in a culture that is "freer" than ever, yet defined by unprecedented pressures and enduring constraints. This is a first-hand example of one woman who navigated the mixed messages of sexual expectation, only to discover the complexity of her own wants and our collective need to change the limitations of that journey.
Tracy Clark-Flory grew up wedged between fizzy declarations of "girl power" and the sexualized mandates of pop culture. It was "broken glass ceilings" and Girls Gone Wild infomercials. With a vague aim toward sexual empowerment, she set out to become what men wanted--or, at least, understand it.
In her moving, fresh, and darkly humorous memoir, she shares the thrilling and heartbreaking events that led to discovering conflicting truths about her own desire, first as a woman coming of age and then as a veteran journalist covering the sex beat. Tracing her experiences on adult film sets, at fetish conventions, and during an orgasmic meditation retreat (to name just a few), Clark-Flory weaves in statistics and expert voices to reckon with our views on sexual freedom.
Want Me is about looking for love, sex, and power as a woman in a culture that is "freer" than ever, yet defined by unprecedented pressures and enduring constraints. This is a first-hand example of one woman who navigated the mixed messages of sexual expectation, only to discover the complexity of her own wants and our collective need to change the limitations of that journey.
Unknown Binding
First published February 16, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 337 reviews
March 31, 2022
5 EMOTIONAL STARS!
“I wanted to be wanted, and I wanted to want more than to be wanted.”
I didn't expect to cry, I didn't expect to get emotional, I didn't expect to relate soo much and actually feel seen, heard, and understood regarding my own deep, personal struggles in areas I have experienced as well as others I haven't. Tracy Clark-Flory delves into her life and her experiences growing up around the harsh and conflicting messages around sex. How this shaped her, her life, friendships, relationships, opinions, and career. Her fascination routing from anonymous echats to real life experiences, to wanting to be desired, to be "what men want" and how to achieve that all whilst liking it simultaneously. Touching on feminism and attempting to not give a flipping fuck about social construct and the ideal of being a "good girl" rather than a "bad girl". Turning the page to the harshness of evolving in this world & what it throws at you when people disagree with your choices and their entitlement. Her struggles and ultimate come togetherness of starting a family.
“That game of seeing just what men would say to me online had transformed into seeing just what they would do to me in real life.”
This book revealed that it isn't "just you", it's us, all of us. Whether or not you have been in the same scenario, Clark-Flory's feelings are one and the same, perfectly worded to spell out everything I have never been able to express.
“In a fraction of an hour, I had gone from disinterested to silently begging for a crumb of attention.”
The curiosities of the sex world from online, to clubs, to conventions, and porn sets. The intertwining of sex and sexuality in the changing times and use of it in regards to dealing with trauma and inescapable feelings. How trying to figure out herself in the sex world ultimately opened up soo much to be revealed regarding the industry—what is real and what isn't.
“If everything is a copy of a copy, if all of social life is a performance, if sexual scripts are adapted from cultural norms, then does authenticity even exist, or matter?”
As a sex writer the shame and harassment she would receive over her job and her willingness, strength, and vulnerability to be able to write so openly about things so intimate or rather discreet. How this is common just across the board for women.
“Sometimes over the years, I would think: Man, wish I could do that again. But, looking back, I’ll never shake the feeling that I was barely even there to experience it for the first time, like it was a ghost of a girl who did it all for me.”
I was recommended this as an "everyone in their twenties" should read and I would have to agree. But this is a must-read for all women. I can't express exactly how I want my thoughts to come across on how much this has hit me emotionally and made me see things.
All I can say is, read this.
“I wanted to be wanted, and I wanted to want more than to be wanted.”
I didn't expect to cry, I didn't expect to get emotional, I didn't expect to relate soo much and actually feel seen, heard, and understood regarding my own deep, personal struggles in areas I have experienced as well as others I haven't. Tracy Clark-Flory delves into her life and her experiences growing up around the harsh and conflicting messages around sex. How this shaped her, her life, friendships, relationships, opinions, and career. Her fascination routing from anonymous echats to real life experiences, to wanting to be desired, to be "what men want" and how to achieve that all whilst liking it simultaneously. Touching on feminism and attempting to not give a flipping fuck about social construct and the ideal of being a "good girl" rather than a "bad girl". Turning the page to the harshness of evolving in this world & what it throws at you when people disagree with your choices and their entitlement. Her struggles and ultimate come togetherness of starting a family.
“That game of seeing just what men would say to me online had transformed into seeing just what they would do to me in real life.”
This book revealed that it isn't "just you", it's us, all of us. Whether or not you have been in the same scenario, Clark-Flory's feelings are one and the same, perfectly worded to spell out everything I have never been able to express.
“In a fraction of an hour, I had gone from disinterested to silently begging for a crumb of attention.”
The curiosities of the sex world from online, to clubs, to conventions, and porn sets. The intertwining of sex and sexuality in the changing times and use of it in regards to dealing with trauma and inescapable feelings. How trying to figure out herself in the sex world ultimately opened up soo much to be revealed regarding the industry—what is real and what isn't.
“If everything is a copy of a copy, if all of social life is a performance, if sexual scripts are adapted from cultural norms, then does authenticity even exist, or matter?”
As a sex writer the shame and harassment she would receive over her job and her willingness, strength, and vulnerability to be able to write so openly about things so intimate or rather discreet. How this is common just across the board for women.
“Sometimes over the years, I would think: Man, wish I could do that again. But, looking back, I’ll never shake the feeling that I was barely even there to experience it for the first time, like it was a ghost of a girl who did it all for me.”
I was recommended this as an "everyone in their twenties" should read and I would have to agree. But this is a must-read for all women. I can't express exactly how I want my thoughts to come across on how much this has hit me emotionally and made me see things.
All I can say is, read this.
October 10, 2021
Mostly her life was sad. I couldn't relate to her, her world or her goals. I was expecting to learn more about the porn industry or life as a journalist or the relationship between feminism, sexuality and contemporary culture, but it was mostly a tedious narration of her unmotivated rebellion against conventions. She changes through out but there aren't any general conclusions or lessons that can be applied to other people.
February 26, 2021
This book was fun to read. I remember reading Clark-Flory's columns when she was with Salon and was drawn to her curious and candid style. I was becoming an adult then and didn't have someone to discuss my own curiosities with. Now years later, it was like reading an old friend who generously shares her adventures in giving in to curiosity. There's a lot of bravery here too: in trying things, in changing one's mind, in looking back and seeing more clearly what is what. It's comforting to find a voice that feels honest and willing to do the homework (bringing various feminist points of view into the picture) that also embraces human fallibility and metamorphic potential as facets in fine tuning the understanding of one's desires.
January 12, 2022
Hmm glad I’m not straight anymore
October 26, 2021
The funny thing about this one is that my life is absolutely nothing like Tracy Clark-Flory’s, our beliefs on certain points are very different, and I’ve done absolutely none of the things she reflects on, and yet I found myself relating to so much of her inner experience of desire. I cried multiple times, which—what?? Did not see that coming. But she explores all these complicated layers of female desire and fears and the experience of growing up with all kinds of conflicting messages about sex and femininity and “what men want”, some of which I’ve been thinking about and some of which I recognized in her writing as something I’ve felt without articulating. And she blends feminist and sexual theory into her personal reflections beautifully on top of all of that, so while it is a memoir first and foremost, I think there are many women that would recognize some of their own experience in this.
February 26, 2021
As someone who briefly published accounts from her sex life online, I can empathize with some small piece of the bravery it takes to publish honest writing about deeply personal topics. I am so grateful that Tracy has that courage.
I'm reading the last 30 pages of Want Me and trying not to cry or scream since I'm (ill-advisedly 🦠) in a coworking space right now. (As I just texted a friend, "the last 30 pages of this book are making me want to cry and scream and embrace the author".) So, instead, the emotions are running back and forth from my head to my feet like a chemical game of pong. I'm telling myself that I should at least do the author the courtesy of finishing her book before I post this review...and yet the heightened emotions have gotten the better of me, so here I am. Sorry!
I picked up Want Me after reading Do the Patriarchy to Me in Jezebel. I have a lot of disempowering fantasies that I harbor shame for, and I've been craving a frank discourse on the internal friction I feel between the ideas that progressive people should embrace their kinks and that empowered women (among whom I tenuously stand) shouldn't wanted to be "degraded" in bed. I'm a trans woman partnered with an ungendered person who has a woman's lived experiences, and I wish that being partnered with her somehow allowed me a loophole out of that mental bind. Instead, we must deal with all the shoulds and shouldn'ts that we've each individually internalized. After all, for being trans, for being pansexual, for being polyamorous, in society's eyes we're both whores. I guess that makes our apartment a whorehouse? :P
Want Me gave me the discourse I needed and so much more. I came for a chat about sex and shame. I stayed for the raw treatise on gender and relationships and grief and privilege and life itself. I cried reading about how Tracy dealt with her mother's illness and death. I punched the air joyously reading about how she fell in love and awe with her body when she was pregnant and after. (And maybe felt a bit jealous - I've often wondered whether I'd have wanted to have children if I were cis.) I laughed throughout at her honest commentary about herself, society, porn, the mind, and - especially - men and our tense but unavoidable relation to them.
Every other day I feel like I'm going to go mad. I'm bursting to the brim with unresolved conflicts and untreated raw nerves and yet I must make myself sit at a desk and get a headless version of Chrome to run on an Ubuntu Docker image. (Who knows what that means, or rather, who cares.) This memoir has acted as a sort of medication for me, helping me push further into the future that moment at which I may leap up, cut off my hair, don tattered black clothing, and stalk the halls of some parliament building weeping and wailing of the end of days.
I'm grateful to Tracy for giving me a vaccine against patriarchy because tbh I think I need it more than one for COVID
I'm reading the last 30 pages of Want Me and trying not to cry or scream since I'm (ill-advisedly 🦠) in a coworking space right now. (As I just texted a friend, "the last 30 pages of this book are making me want to cry and scream and embrace the author".) So, instead, the emotions are running back and forth from my head to my feet like a chemical game of pong. I'm telling myself that I should at least do the author the courtesy of finishing her book before I post this review...and yet the heightened emotions have gotten the better of me, so here I am. Sorry!
I picked up Want Me after reading Do the Patriarchy to Me in Jezebel. I have a lot of disempowering fantasies that I harbor shame for, and I've been craving a frank discourse on the internal friction I feel between the ideas that progressive people should embrace their kinks and that empowered women (among whom I tenuously stand) shouldn't wanted to be "degraded" in bed. I'm a trans woman partnered with an ungendered person who has a woman's lived experiences, and I wish that being partnered with her somehow allowed me a loophole out of that mental bind. Instead, we must deal with all the shoulds and shouldn'ts that we've each individually internalized. After all, for being trans, for being pansexual, for being polyamorous, in society's eyes we're both whores. I guess that makes our apartment a whorehouse? :P
Want Me gave me the discourse I needed and so much more. I came for a chat about sex and shame. I stayed for the raw treatise on gender and relationships and grief and privilege and life itself. I cried reading about how Tracy dealt with her mother's illness and death. I punched the air joyously reading about how she fell in love and awe with her body when she was pregnant and after. (And maybe felt a bit jealous - I've often wondered whether I'd have wanted to have children if I were cis.) I laughed throughout at her honest commentary about herself, society, porn, the mind, and - especially - men and our tense but unavoidable relation to them.
Every other day I feel like I'm going to go mad. I'm bursting to the brim with unresolved conflicts and untreated raw nerves and yet I must make myself sit at a desk and get a headless version of Chrome to run on an Ubuntu Docker image. (Who knows what that means, or rather, who cares.) This memoir has acted as a sort of medication for me, helping me push further into the future that moment at which I may leap up, cut off my hair, don tattered black clothing, and stalk the halls of some parliament building weeping and wailing of the end of days.
I'm grateful to Tracy for giving me a vaccine against patriarchy because tbh I think I need it more than one for COVID
July 31, 2021
I don't even know if I can review this book without deviating into deep, personal, existential angst. It hit so close in so many places. I see a lot of essays/memoirs about journeys into adult sexuality after escaping purity culture or family shame or whatever. It felt validating to hear from someone else with old free-love hippie parents and who grew up bingeing porn and HBO, believing them to be very real depictions of normal adult behavior. And it was helpful to see laid out how that can become twisted into, "If he doesn't want to roughly shove his dick down my throat, I guess he just hates me and thinks I'm ugly/undesirable."
Maybe I will come back and review it later. I have 5 pages of notes for my therapist.
Based on the descriptions I thought this would be more like a collection of essays, but it was a cohesive memoir, which I definitely appreciated. It struck a good balance of personal reflection and just the right amount of academic theory.
ONE NOTE FOR TRACY IF YOU ARE READING THIS: I think I just paid deep, deep, close attention (deeper than all of the deepthroat videos) to the parts of the dancing woman/fantasy stripper self because I have recently been examining my own, identical fantasy stripper. (And reaching an end goal of integrating the stripper version of me into my own sense of self and letting her drive when it feels right is now my highest aspiration.) But in these moments you shit on your own "indefensible" taste in pop music. Girl, no! I spent my entire teenage years following various stupid indie-rock boys to their stupid concerts in stupid bars, trying to be that version of male desirability and convincing myself that that music was good and I was a super cool girl for being into that whole scene instead of "indefensible pop music." As a society, calling things women like lame is just another way we stifle female desire. Now I only listen to Taylor Swift and Megan Thee Stallion and I am 10,000x happier. They are more talented as writers and performers than every male indie-rocker who ever lived combined.
Maybe I will come back and review it later. I have 5 pages of notes for my therapist.
Based on the descriptions I thought this would be more like a collection of essays, but it was a cohesive memoir, which I definitely appreciated. It struck a good balance of personal reflection and just the right amount of academic theory.
ONE NOTE FOR TRACY IF YOU ARE READING THIS: I think I just paid deep, deep, close attention (deeper than all of the deepthroat videos) to the parts of the dancing woman/fantasy stripper self because I have recently been examining my own, identical fantasy stripper. (And reaching an end goal of integrating the stripper version of me into my own sense of self and letting her drive when it feels right is now my highest aspiration.) But in these moments you shit on your own "indefensible" taste in pop music. Girl, no! I spent my entire teenage years following various stupid indie-rock boys to their stupid concerts in stupid bars, trying to be that version of male desirability and convincing myself that that music was good and I was a super cool girl for being into that whole scene instead of "indefensible pop music." As a society, calling things women like lame is just another way we stifle female desire. Now I only listen to Taylor Swift and Megan Thee Stallion and I am 10,000x happier. They are more talented as writers and performers than every male indie-rocker who ever lived combined.
August 1, 2021
This fell flat for me - a small part of that was I felt the supplementing quotes/material didn't further the ideas. Maybe I shouldn't hype up TikTok book recommendations so much in my head.
August 4, 2022
the personal writing in this book is. so boring. but there are so many brilliant insights into porn and sex. i just don't really care about her marriage.
March 10, 2021
An excellent, smart, and accessible narrative, in-bedded with wit, candor, and occasional Magic Mike references. Top shelf.
November 9, 2021
more like a 1.5 — there was a strip of like, 100 pages I enjoyed, but the rest I found super disappointing and way too full of girl boss energy…. not sexy and v boring and repetitive imo
June 3, 2022
3.75/5
July 30, 2022
tiktok recommended this book to me some time ago and i’m just getting to it now. i thought it was good, but not mind blowing. i know it’s a personal account, so it feels strange to rate it because everyone has their own (equally valid) experience navigating a world where you come to realize how deeply entrenched the patriarchy is in your life and own self image(particularly in your sex life). to avoid spoilers, all i’ll say is that the seemingly main reason for to the realization of coming into her own power wasn’t quite the powerful ending i was expecting, but maybe that’s because i’m not at that stage of life yet? i appreciated her feminist musings. were there moments when i was like ‘woah?’ yeah. but it fell slightly short of the mark for me.
October 22, 2024
4.8: Reading books like this sometimes scares me because I’m faced with my own mortality of … we’re in our twenties and that’s crazy! Everything is supposed to be fun all the time! And sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. This book made that seem ok, and I appreciate that. We’re all on our journey - sex, life, femininity, relationships - it all blends. Bravo to this book and I would recommend it for everyone. Very cool to read something like this that encourages the exploration of self.
February 10, 2022
Reading other reviews talking about how this wasn’t “relatable” enough for them, and I’m reminded of something I just saw about how we now consume media through relatableness. I truly enjoyed this book, I found parts of myself in it and other parts were not like me, some were sort of like me or a lot like me. The true value exists outside of this question of relatability. Clark-Flory shows what the sentiments surrounding female sexuality in the West do to women raised in and living in the West. This was an incredible narrative of her experience, bolstered by references to significant texts on gender and sexuality.
April 6, 2023
I had high hopes and was really disappointed by this! I wish she’d probed far deeper onto each idea she touched. Also how r u gonna write a critique of female sexuality under patriarchy and barely talk about capitalism at all. Whatev
August 12, 2021
Sex journalist Tracy Clark-Flory shares her experiences that shaped her relationships, friendships and career in this memoir. From adult film sets and wild conventions to interviews with sex workers this memoir is brazen and moving all the while peppered with dark humour. Want Me delves into media’s mixed messages on sexual expectations for all genders while getting to the roots of desire.
It’s rare I pick up a non-fiction title and finish it in one day, so rare that I can’t think of any but this title! Want Me was engrossing, shocking, hilarious and eye opening. I was hooked the entire book and loved how it delved deep into what desire means for women and how the media portrays the “role” of women in specific situations.
The encounters this author experienced were wild and it was freeing to read about these moments through a woman’s point of view. I learned some new things I haven’t ever heard about before and viewed other topics through a different lens. Also, did I mention it was hilarious? That dark humour gets me every time.
I really enjoyed this book and it has me wanting to pick up more books on the topic. 10+ years ago I read Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach and I really wanted to read more and it took me 10+ years to do so. Definitely going to make it a priority not to wait that long again because I find these books interesting and very important. 5✨ for Want Me!
It’s rare I pick up a non-fiction title and finish it in one day, so rare that I can’t think of any but this title! Want Me was engrossing, shocking, hilarious and eye opening. I was hooked the entire book and loved how it delved deep into what desire means for women and how the media portrays the “role” of women in specific situations.
The encounters this author experienced were wild and it was freeing to read about these moments through a woman’s point of view. I learned some new things I haven’t ever heard about before and viewed other topics through a different lens. Also, did I mention it was hilarious? That dark humour gets me every time.
I really enjoyed this book and it has me wanting to pick up more books on the topic. 10+ years ago I read Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach and I really wanted to read more and it took me 10+ years to do so. Definitely going to make it a priority not to wait that long again because I find these books interesting and very important. 5✨ for Want Me!
January 4, 2023
a captivating and poignant memoir about sex, desire, and the plight of womanhood in modern hook up culture. clark-flory was incredibly vulnerable and dissected a myriad of taboo topics in a very professional, yet still personal way.
there were parts of this book that were hard to get through. it felt quite redundant and sometimes suffocating, but accurately paralleled the formidable era of discovering one’s desire.
there were parts of this book that were hard to get through. it felt quite redundant and sometimes suffocating, but accurately paralleled the formidable era of discovering one’s desire.
August 8, 2021
For anyone wondering if it's "just you" struggling with sex, desire, and pleasure in patriarchy, this is your book. It's equal parts funny, tender, and whip-smart, and author-cum-journalist Clark-Flory expertly weaves memoir with criticism to give us insight into the sexual revolution still left unfinished. 6 out of 5 stars.
August 24, 2025
It’s fine. It’s a neurotic introspective journey into the author learning to love herself so that she could love other people and experience pleasure. Sort of modern day coming of age, where the coming-of-age happens in one’s 30s. Live, laugh, love, except with more explicit content.
It’s not bad. It’s just you can only take so much therapy speak mixed in with “the expectations of the world shaped who I am” and part of my rejection of this is that I fear we all sound like this when talking about our internal journey. Everyone deserves to feel embodied and embrace our sexuality and our love life. What we don’t all deserve is to be subjected to the introspective journey of others.
I found it offputting that the author consistently talked about how she wasn’t truthful in her columns, but expected us to believe that she’s being fully self disclosing NOW. Like “I used to lie and pretend that things were different than they were but now I’m really being real“ I sensed this expectation to manage expectations so much it made the writing annoying. Faux performative rhetoric that I find to be the sludge of modern New Yorker type writing.
I think the author is very well-versed in modern feminist scholarship, and the most interesting parts of the book are which she compares her desire for pleasure and intimacy to the structures and constraints that feminism have imposed, and how that is set in relief against a sort of societal expectation and backdrop. There’s a venn diagram that happens there that is very fascinating. However, beyond throwaway lines none of these threads are really explored beyond a punchline of being a “good feminist who also watches porn.“ which disappoints because that is a really interesting disconnect in modern life that the author has the potential to explore. How do we Reconcile our personal beliefs and journey with these larger issues of patriarchal control, objectification, and oppression? And it’s honestly a really difficult question on so many fronts from animal cruelty to the war in the Middle East. Oh well, guess we will just stick to dick jokes.
So instead of saying something a value, we just get of the same thread of wanting to perform for men, to be valued by men, despite being a #GoodFeminist, told in many different ways. Oh well
It’s not bad. It’s just you can only take so much therapy speak mixed in with “the expectations of the world shaped who I am” and part of my rejection of this is that I fear we all sound like this when talking about our internal journey. Everyone deserves to feel embodied and embrace our sexuality and our love life. What we don’t all deserve is to be subjected to the introspective journey of others.
I found it offputting that the author consistently talked about how she wasn’t truthful in her columns, but expected us to believe that she’s being fully self disclosing NOW. Like “I used to lie and pretend that things were different than they were but now I’m really being real“ I sensed this expectation to manage expectations so much it made the writing annoying. Faux performative rhetoric that I find to be the sludge of modern New Yorker type writing.
I think the author is very well-versed in modern feminist scholarship, and the most interesting parts of the book are which she compares her desire for pleasure and intimacy to the structures and constraints that feminism have imposed, and how that is set in relief against a sort of societal expectation and backdrop. There’s a venn diagram that happens there that is very fascinating. However, beyond throwaway lines none of these threads are really explored beyond a punchline of being a “good feminist who also watches porn.“ which disappoints because that is a really interesting disconnect in modern life that the author has the potential to explore. How do we Reconcile our personal beliefs and journey with these larger issues of patriarchal control, objectification, and oppression? And it’s honestly a really difficult question on so many fronts from animal cruelty to the war in the Middle East. Oh well, guess we will just stick to dick jokes.
So instead of saying something a value, we just get of the same thread of wanting to perform for men, to be valued by men, despite being a #GoodFeminist, told in many different ways. Oh well
April 28, 2025
3.5 - i put this down multiple times, felt uncomfortable sometimes, and didn’t always connect with the author, but ultimately found this vulnerable, thought-provoking, and worth the read. my personal reaction aside, I respect the courage it takes to share one’s most intimate/taboo thoughts and experiences (the good and the bad) with the world. there were parts I didn’t like, but there were also many parts that made me sit and think about what it means to be a woman navigating sex, sexuality, & desire in a society where you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
July 12, 2022
this book put me through the WRINGER!!! it literally felt like i was reading my own internal monologue, and it voiced the the thoughts and experiences that I and so many other women go through soooo well. if you want to become painfully self aware, read this. there were also so many things I learned! flory does a great job describing the sexual landscape of today and how women are forced through it. i loved everything about it
June 1, 2023
At first, this book felt like gossip (which was great) but it also was very deep and vulnerable. I loved the way she talked about her relationship with her mother and how motherhood changed her. Even though I couldn't relate to every single aspect of this book, it felt validating to hear her struggles to navigate desire in our society. did feel like the book ended a bit abruptly, but overall an easy listen (ty audible) to get back into reading
June 14, 2022
Tracy Clark-Flory does such an amazing job with this book - I thoroughly enjoyed every page. the writing style and concepts talked about are so raw and human and the way that feminist theory is integrated and cited adds so much depth.
the quote that had stuck with me: “I had inherited the right to be sexual, to have sex, but on what terms, and to whose advantage?”
the quote that had stuck with me: “I had inherited the right to be sexual, to have sex, but on what terms, and to whose advantage?”
June 16, 2025
This was really interesting and fun to read! I really enjoyed the authors writing style, and how the book follows her for a long period of her life. You can really map the authors growth and change throughout. I also liked the more science-y bits of information and studies presented throughout!
November 29, 2021
I loved Clark-Flory's voice in this. I got totally invested in this memoir and finished it in one day.
I'd give 5 stars, but it's too cis-heteronormative for me to genuinely say that I ~loved~ this book lol
I'd give 5 stars, but it's too cis-heteronormative for me to genuinely say that I ~loved~ this book lol
September 12, 2024
Five stars five stars five stars. Funny, smart, emotional, and so real.
April 25, 2024
Very much recommend for u Willis (ains read too and liked!)
July 24, 2022
I wish we could give half stars on this app because I would give this memoir 3.5 stars instead of just the 3. It was definitely intriguing and took me on a journey of a subject I personally don’t pay much attention too. Unfortunately there were parts that dragged on a bit and had me losing interest. But then there were other sections of this memoir where I gasped in horror at her honest truth and found myself looking on in admiration of the freeness she felt in herself to explore and/or desire. Overall, I admire the author’s courage for sharing her life’s experience as a sex journalist along with her own personal explorations.
December 18, 2025
DNF. Read like 60% but it was sooo repetitive
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