How to Have Feminist Sex: A Fairly Graphic Guide

by Flo Perry

'Funny, kind, generous and smart - I could have done with the wisdom of Flo Perry far sooner' Dolly Alderton

When it comes to our sex lives, few of us are free of niggling fears and body image insecurities. Rather than enjoying and exploring our bodies uninhibited, we worry about our bikini lines, bulging tummies and whether we're doing it 'right'.

Flo broaches everything from faking it to consent, stress to kink, and how losing your virginity isn't so different to eating your first chocolate croissant. Her mission is to get more people talking openly about what they do and don't want from every romantic encounter.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Graphic Novels, Comics, Sexuality, LGBT, Queer

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 2019

About the author

Flo Perry is a writer and illustrator, former BuzzFeed editor and expert on making illustrations go viral. She was born and raised in the wilds of North London and still lives there with two lovely homosexual housemates and a terrible cat. Her book How to Have Feminist Sex was published in 2019.

Reviews

[Bear of MoonBear · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite things about this book is the drawings. Belly rolls, hairy legs, wonky boobs... and sometimes you're not even sure if you're looking at male, female or other partners, because the drawings are so beautifully ambiguous. Which is true to real life. You can't always tell what sex or gender someone is just by looking at them. I love it.
I'm leaving this on the accessible-to-all book shelf at home. I have 5 children ranging from 6-16 years, and I truly feel that this will be an important read for them all, I even learnt a thing or two myself.

[Viv JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I am about 25 years older than the intended demographic for this book but ho-hum, I thought it was great. If only it had existed when I was navigating my teens and early twenties! Flo Perry has written a fun, fearless and feminist guide to sex. It is informative and non-judgmental and really rather charming. Bravo!

[disco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, if we could hand one of these out to everyone of all ages/genders/sex that would be great. I mean Oprah "You get a car! You get a car!" level shit. Thanks.

[Niloo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has a little bit of everything!
The book focuses heavily on consent and body positivity. It also discusses virginity, orgasms, kinks, and porn, and even goes as far as giving readers dating advice. A lot of the information it offers is common knowledge (or at least, I hope so), so it doesn’t provide much new insight in that regard. However, the graphics are nice, and there are several humorous bits throughout. Overall, it's an enjoyable read.

[Char (lunarchar_) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this a 3 star as I think it could be useful for many but there were things I felt were missed/kind of missed the mark and nothing was nothing new to me as I’m so engrossed in sex education and sex positivity.

The talk on consent mentioned only men checking for consent and I really really feel like that’s dismissive of assault by women, and that women also need to check. It should very much be mutual checking-in.

A big big big thing for me was there was no disability rep and no sex worker rep and that really feels not ok in what’s aimed to be a fairly inclusive book about sex.

Some of the sketches were absolutely hysterical like: the fantasy section showing sBoris Johnson fucking a squid & someone having a threesome with Boris and Theresa

There was a comment that the vast majority adore to marriage and one partner and just no!Over estimate for sure. Lots of people are in differently types of polyamorous relationship! The majority will do so but not ‘vast majority’. Things like swinging are not necessary monogamy - it’s all so diverse! This was just a sweeping statement I didn’t so love.

And lastly dating chapter was saying you’re ghosted if someone doesn’t reply in 24 hours. And just nope. Like Hun does anyone reply in 24 hours. It takes me a minimum of 8-10 working days. So no, don’t repeat texts or nag but don’t all together assume they’re ghosting you. They may disabled. They may be mentally unwell. They may be busy. They may have a job deadline. Or heaven forbid they may just not want to look at their messages!

Overall I do definitely encourage to read others but with an open mind and conscious that no book will be 100% correct or 100% inclusive!

[Nefeli]

Cute and funny and well-drawn and enjoyable but I did have some gripes with it; namely that, unless I missed something, there is no ace rep at all, and also an arbitrary rule that rubbed me the wrong way (if someone doesn't reply to your text for 24 hours it does not mean that they're an asshole that's ghosting you, they might be busy or sick or travelling or simply don't feel like looking at their phone and that's fine).

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a little unsure of how to rate this book.

I was very much enjoying it for the first 90% of the book, however there were quite a few comments towards the end that really rubbed me the wrong way and hampered my reading experience of this book.

If I was rating this purely on the illustrations and comic styles, this would be a solid 5 star read. I found some of the allusions hilarious and the diversity in the characters was amazing.

I didn't really learn too much from this book, which is I think was a little bit disappointing, but overall an enjoyable book, and one I'm glad to have started the new year with!.

Probably a 3.5 star read for me.

[muthuvel · Rating 4 out of 5]

bell hooks says patriarchy has no gender. What does she mean by that? It's largely, I think, has to do with tendency/desire to align ourselves with those in power however unfair power structures might be. This include very subtle unnoticeable ways by which genders from all walks of construct abide by the ways as prescribed as norm. One wouldn't even have known it's a norm in the first place and that's okay because our Imagination is quite limited by our culture and language. Could one be complacent with it? Not okay.

If I could sum up only one thing that I learned from the course of my studying Anthropology, it's that no particular ways of living is superior or inferior to other forms. If it appears so, there's either biases or exploitation which is often ignored. Not trying to romanticize as if it's an innate characteristic of the subject but it's definitely a part of experiencing life. In my opinion, Feminism does the same thing that to be aware that the only ways to live are not the ones that we have already been reinforced ourselves to be especially if the existing reinforcement is not inclusive of everyone.


Unlike my serious writing here, this illustrated book is full of funny and insightful remarks. One thing I loved about the book is that it doesn't pretend it to be authoritative but remains as an easygoing witticism challenging the existing norms 'expected' in our existing cultures.


It covers a lot of ignorant aspects that most of us took for absolute. Say, I have seen some of the womxn here share memes about G-Spot but is it really there? I don't want to give away many things and there are many misconceptions that are cleared in the book. In that regard, this is a must read for everyone.


Even in the age of 'woke' peoples, almost all of us still live in the sexual poverty. More conversations, awareness, accepting it as a part of ourselves as something not as a taboo, slowing destigmatizing oneself could help us get through. Also wonderful books like these.


How to have Feminist Sex (2019) ~ Flo Perry

[Nat Gonzalez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the best way that i can describe this book comes from a particular scene (minor spoiler, its really just a line though, and this isn't a novel or anything w a plot so,) where the author mentions "reading your fave sex scene or some homoerotic Harry Potter fanfiction" and underneath that line is a suggestive illustration of Harry and Hermione, hermione on her hands and knees, and harry behind her saying "we can do whatever you want"

now, the reason I think this is the perfect summation of this book is because the author makes some surface level effort to include queer people ("homoerotic fanfiction") and then seems to immediately forget it and go back to being extremely heteronormative to an extent that doesnt even make sense (the image she draws becoming heterosexual for seemingly no reason at all). This is a consistent pattern in this book. In the section when she talks about genitalia, she has a small blurb about how not every woman has a vagina and not all people with vaginas are women, and then immediately moves on to "and here is a section about penises and i will only refer to them as male, and talk directly to men about their penises" which genuinely gave me whiplash.

Overall this book seems to try to be inclusive and critical of modern pop feminism, but it fails spectacularly and is just extremely unaware of the fact that it IS modern pop feminism in every way.

but, to end on a positive note, the illustrations are definitely great, and I do think it's somewhat of an entry point for cis women who experience attraction to cis men to start their sex positivity journey, but it very much should not be anywhere near the last stop on that journey.

[Mehrsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great illustrations. Difficult subjects are coverd. A great suggestion for reading with your (sex) partner!

[Jessi ❤️ H. Vojsk [if villain, why hot?] · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sex positive book full of important information 💜

[Anna Kļaviņa · Rating 1 out of 5]

A feminist sex guide that supports watching porn, hahaha.

Also what's the author's beef with vegans, slim & sporty women? And yoghurt(?!)

Tries to be very hard to be sex positive but at the same time in one of the drawing mocks a man who couldn't get hard on, and that just 3 reasons of many why I'm giving this book 1*

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, tongue in cheek look at sexuality for the modern woman and anyone who considers themselves a feminist. I wish this book would have existed when I was a lot younger, as it tackles lots of subjects that are important for young women to know about.

Of course the majority of the book is illustrative, but there are many short paragraphs to read that cut out the unnecessary ramblings and just get down to the nitty gritty, in all its naked glory.

A perfect addition to any feminists book shelf.

[Inês Lopes da Costa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll start by saying that I'm really torn on the rating of this one since there were a few things that rubbed me the wrong way.

First of all I didn't quite understand the target audience. It seemed to me that it was targeted at teenagers. In fact it remind me of a book my dad gave me when I was a teen which covered every single topic about puberty and teenage life that someone could think of at the time. But unfortunately this one is lacking on what should be a very inclusive guide about sex since topics like disability, aging, transsexuals and sex work for instance weren't mentioned and sex toys only showed up in a drawing (it should have had an entire topic about them) and kinks weren't explored properly.
But anyway the target audience dilemma is based on the fact that Flo makes some some what "old" references such as "Sex and the City" and "The L word" and writes as if talking to someone who has had multiple sexual experiences before and there's even a space to write down your most enjoyable sex experience and what turns you on and off (although of course you can carry this book throughout the beginning of your sex life and use it to discover what you like and dislike). At the same time the topics that she approaches such as body image, virginity, masturbation, consent, pubes are written in a way that seems to be more directed at older teenagers, the ones starting their sex lives or being more aware of their sexual needs and sexuality making comparisons that seem clear to me that is target at teens. On the other hand if it's target at teens there are some aspects of sexuality that were left unsaid and many more that were underdeveloped like sexual exploration, what kind of lube is the one supposed to buy since she does mention lube often, contraception methods since she only mentions condoms, etc.

Some of the information given or atleast heavily implied was totally wrong at times such as when having period sex with your tampon still in was mentioned as a good practice. This was one of the things that made the book lose some points with me. That is a big NO. Always always always remove the tampon. You may lose it during penetrative sex. Another thing was the author using the word vagina to refer to a vulva. She did admit to being using the wrong term but in my opinion if you're writing an educational book and you're not using the right terms what's the purpose of it? Also there is no such thing as vaginal orgasms, all of them are from the clitoris which is a pretty well known fact by now (at least for people that are sex educators or research the topic to write about sex).

The most critical point for me was when the author talked about consent and sexual assault and unfortunately the "feminist" part was lacking, meaning that the author didn't make it clear that any person of any gender could be a victim or the perpetrator. Also about consent it was emphasize that men should look for it and that "men aren't entitled to sex" which obviously but it forgot to mention how women can also be pushy about sex or assume wrong things when a man doesn't want sex like him not being attracted to her, cheating on her or being gay.

Flo Perry does mention that she isn't an expert on the subject and some topics such as the ones mentioned above and the one about nudes and ghosting should be read with care and consideration.

By the way again if you're having penetrative sex during your period don't do it with your tampon on. Do trust me on that one.

At last some sentences didn't make much sense or were kinda weird to write in my opinion like bragging about being woke but maybe it was a joke not sure.

Nevertheles there aren't many books like this and it does cover a wide range of topics in a non-judgemental way. It's written in a friendly, accessible manner and it's relatable. It tries to shed some light in many different topics that are usually in teenagers and young adults minds.

The drawings are very diverse and close to real life which is amazing to see and they were funny.

Overall it's an enjoyable book but I didn't learn anything new which was a bit disappointing and has some flaws that are critical to me.

[Anna Sjösvärd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please give this to every teenager there is.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Have Feminist Sex: A Fairly Graphic Guide, by Flo Perry, is a very progressive graphic novel on feminism, sex, and what it all means. It really isn't that graphic, but it explores topics such as consent, monogamy, and sexuality with an eye for fulfillment and happiness. Certainly not for everyone, but a good book to see on the shelves, and a good read for those interested in the above topics.

[Sara Anselmo · Rating 4 out of 5]

o livro que eu gostava de ter lido quando iniciei a minha vida sexual

[César Galicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. Me hace mucho ruido el título. ¿Cómo alguien puede determinar que cierta forma de coger es feminista o no? ¿Desde qué autoridad? ¿Se puede hacer una guía para eso? No sé.

2. Entiendo su valor como un libro para adolescentes. Creo que es una lectura chida y trasgresora para alguien que tenga, no sé, 13 o 14 años. Pero hay ciertos juicios que emite la autora, no sé si conscientes o no, que hacen que la lectura me parezca de repente hasta algo nociva. El más claro de ellos es su renuencia a usar el término "vulva" por ser "muy técnico" y quedarse con "vagina". Porque no es un término técnico, sino el nombre correcto y porque uno pensaría que si se va a hacer una lectura feminista del cuerpo, pues habría importancia en nombrar las cosas correctamente y darle a cada órgano su lugar que corresponde al hablar de placer. Pero pues yo qué sé.

El resto está bastante bien.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, quick little read

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a great birthday gift for a 16 year old!

I would've loved this book as a teenager because the drawings and the text feel quirky, raw and actually very funny. For now, it offered nothing new, especially since I've read "Come as you are" which is a little more detailed.

[anna t · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just brilliant! Reading this book was like talking to a sex therapist who's a friend... You come away lighter and more empowered. It will benefit all sexes and genders!

[brontë reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an absolute delight to read. It was tongue in cheek, smart and witty. The illustrations are 10/10, chefs kiss, perfect. I felt it covered a lot of ground and I particularly loved the body image section.

I think it’s a brilliant one to have on your feminist bookshelf. It was my first book on sexuality and it felt like chatting to a friend - it wasn’t intimidating and it left me with so many new thought points. It also made me hopeful for a more inclusive sex education system for the next generation. It’s actually scary when you begin to unpack how skewed towards heterosexual cis men sex is in the media. It’s so detrimental to everyone- including those men.

Armed with a good base knowledge from this book, I’m now curious to read up on how people with mental health issues or disabilities are impacted by society’s narrow view of sex, so I’ll be looking out for other books to supplement my re-education. I can’t wait to keep adding to my feminist library. Any recommendations welcome!!

[Elena Coorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este es un libro sobre educación sexual básica y positiva que todo adolescente o adulto tendría que leer. Además, sus ilustraciones son graciosísimas, realistas y muy inclusivas, lo que facilita tanto la lectura como el aprendizaje.

El libro educa sobre la masturbación, el orgasmo, el consentimiento, la monogamia, la presión social sobre los cuerpos de hombres y mujeres, la trans y la intersexualidad, la conciencia de género, raza, cuerpo y sexo... entre otros temas muy interesantes.

En mi opinión, resulta una novela gráfica muy completa para todos aquellos que desean iniciarse y educarse sexualmente de una forma realista y respetuosa, pero en general es un libro que profundiza poco en esos temas y que se puede quedar un poco corto para aquellas personas que ya tienen un buen bagaje previo en educación sexual.

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genuiny so good would recommend to anyone who feels that the sex ed they had was lacking or has big scary feelings about the topic because it is so helpful. Reassuring and I learnt a few new things. So that's fun. :) Was a graphic novel which is a style I struggle with somewhat but I actually thought the pictures and stuff reallly added to the overall effect. So all in all pretty epic.

[Dominique Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend this to any woman honestly.
And man.
And person.
Anyways, pure key info and in a fun way to read

[mayy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Witty, insightful und extremely important. This is book every young girl and boy should read to understand their own and their partner’s sexuality.

[Isha Ashta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book for its illustrations and its snacky, bite sized content and humour. Perfect for a non -reading year.
Wish I'd read this in my twenties.

[Chiara Lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this book (the illustrations!) but sadly, also quite a few aspects where I found it a bit lacking. It posits itself as a really inclusive book and yet doesn't really follow through on it (most of the time, the sentences that were clearly trying to be inclusive felt more like an afterthought). There's also a few sentences that were just plain weird. ("Many women quite enjoy being objectified, but, for some, feeling like a living blow-up doll can be a major turn off"???? Or, my personal favourite: "But not everyone is as woke as me.")

However, 5 stars to the conversation about feminism and the sex positivity movement this sparked between Emma and me.

[Karina Webster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative & fun. Could have done with this 10 years ago!