Reading Resources from a Sex Therapist

Self-care looks different for everyone; for me, it often includes some variation of a latte, my favorite chair, and a new (or weathered favorite) book. Below is a short list of my most-recommended books, and the ones I find myself drawn to when in need of inspiration, affirmation, or growth.

Attached by Amir Levine, M.D. and Rachel S. F. Heller, M.A.

Considered a groundbreaking book on attachment theory, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and psychologist Rachel S. F. Heller apply an understanding of attachment theory to adult relationships, providing readers a toolkit for finding a sustaining healthy love. Attached guides readers through their own experiences to understand recurring attachment patterns and behaviors, offering a wealth of advice on navigating relationships with compassion, awareness, and skillful communication.

BEST FOR: anyone looking to understand their own patterns and behaviors in partnership; partnered folks seeking to understand recurring patterns within romantic relationships

So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex by Ian Kerner, PhD, LMFT

Renowned sex therapist Ian Kerner (author of bestseller She Comes First) provides a framework for how he approaches sex therapy sessions with couples and partnerships. Through deconstructing what he calls the “sex script”, Kerner illustrates his practice of seeking to understand client’s sexual personalities, roles, and patterns in an effort to reconstruct the sex script for sexual fulfillment, whether single or partnered. This book provides end-of-chapter questions and homework for those seeking to continue their own work, and also provides sexual pleasure education and interventions for specific cases (such as trauma, erectile variability, and gender dysphoria).

BEST FOR: male-identifying individuals looking to hear from a male-identifying sex therapist; partners out of sexual alignment; individuals seeking to understand pleasure centers and sexual patterns; individuals struggling with erectile variability

Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski, PhD

Based on groundbreaking research and brain science, renowned sexual health educator Emily Nagoski explores the why and how of women’s sexual functioning. Nagoski breaks down women’s sexuality outside of a patriarchal lens, identifying the uniqueness of individual sexuality, sexual response mechanisms, anatomical variability, and the importance of context in sexual fulfillment. Nagoski provides insights into social conditioning and what we didn’t learn in sex ed - and what women can do about it.

BEST FOR: individuals with vulvas looking to better understand their own sexual functioning, responses, and anatomy; allies and partners seeking to support vulva-bodied individuals

Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel

Socially, we’ve almost resigned ourselves to the belief that long-term relationships mean dull and stagnant sex lives. Esther Perel examines the duality of eroticism and stability, inviting us to explore the juxtaposition that is security and excitement. She asks us: is it possible to have a fulfilling sex life and be in a stable, loving relationship? Utilizing case studies from her 20 years of clinical experience, Esther Perel provides a framework that allows for erotic, exciting, and passionate sex throughout a relationship’s lifespan.

BEST FOR: partners exploring sexual misalignment; individuals who believe that long-term relationship and erotic sexuality are at odds

The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel

Esther Perel looks at relationships through the lens of infidelity. She explores the dynamics of one of the most challenging intimate dynamics a partnership can experience: an affair. Perel asks questions that allow us to look critically at infidelity and rethink the concept - what is an affair? Are they physical? Emotional? Why do they happen? How do we understand and heal experiences with infidelity? Can the experience of an affair actually help rebuild a relationship? By applying her real-life case studies to this question, readers are invited to consider what infidelity, marriage, partnership, and commitment mean in our modern day and age.

BEST FOR: partners or individuals struggling with experiences of infidelity or betrayal; polyamorous or ethically non-monogamous people looking for rhetoric to better explain sexual non-exclusivity

Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much by Jen Winston

Every once in a while, a memoir speaks to the depths of your being in a way that is laughable. Quippy, whip-smart Jen Winston provides a hilarious collection of essays offering personal experiences with bisexuality, gender, identity, and sex. This laugh-out-loud memoir is perfect for anyone who is coming into their sexuality or for anyone who just loves being surrounded by others who have done the work of coming into their own identity - or not? Greedy is the validating “IT’S ME!” memoir of a bisexual person’s dream - I read it on an 11-hour layover on the Phoenix airport floor and snort-laughed in public more times than I can count.

BEST FOR: bisexual, pansexual, and queer-identifying individuals; allies; partners of bi/pan/queer people

All About Love by bell hooks

Visionary activist bell hooks provides readers with radical new ways to think about love in order to heal and connect an increasingly disconnected society. hooks offers readers an opportunity to critically examine the stories we are told about love, rethink self-love, and establish ways of being in love outside of the romantic, socially-defined notion of love. This intersection of love, culture, social justice, and connection is deeply poetic, original, and profound.

BEST FOR: social theorists; activists; agents of change