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Self-Love Reading List
We're halfway through the Summer of Self-Love! This week, we've got a reading list of some of our favourite books to inspire you on your self-love journey.
The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength.
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good
How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life? Author and editor adrienne maree brown finds the answer in something she calls “pleasure activism,” a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work.
Recipes for Self-Love: How to Feel Good in a Patriarchal World
Based on her popular Instagram feed of the same name, Recipes for Self-Love is a book by Amsterdam-based artist Alison Rachel of empowering images of and for women, and accompanying mediations on feminism, self-care, boundaries, intersectionality, sexuality, anxiety, ritual, beauty, individuality, and self-expression.
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
In their new collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and disability justice activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centers the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all. Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of color are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient communities of liberation where no one is left behind.
Dedicated to trans women everywhere, this inspirational collection of letters written by successful trans women shares the lessons they learnt on their journeys to womanhood, celebrating their achievements and empowering the next generation to become who they truly are.
Written by politicians, scientists, models, athletes, authors, actors, and activists from around the world, these letters capture the diversity of the trans experience and offer advice from make-up and dating through to fighting dysphoria and transphobia.
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Burnout. Many women in America have experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them. How can you “love your body” when every magazine cover has ten diet tips for becoming “your best self”? How do you “lean in” at work when you’re already operating at 110 percent and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a sexist world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy, and too selfish?
Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Instead of asking us to ignore the very real obstacles and societal pressures that stand between women and well-being, they explain with compassion and optimism what we’re up against—and show us how to fight back.
Nerve Endings: The New Trans Erotic
A trans woman watches her sleeping lover and contemplates the moment of his departure. A genderqueer sissy fantasizes alone about connection in their hotel room. A trans woman adjunct professor and sex worker is hired for a sex party held by her college's philosophy department. A trans boy has a Craigslist hookup with a queen embarked on detransition. A bodiless AI announces its gender, takes a lover, and works to revolutionize the world. Presented here are thirty stories—edited and with an introduction by Tobi Hill- Meyer—that offer revolutionary erotic fantasies by trans people, about trans people, and for trans people at the crossroads of history, biology, anxiety, and love.
Curvy Girls: Erotica for Women
"Curvy Girls" is an anthology of erotic stories for women, that challenges the notion that women need to be thin in order to be sexy. "Curvy Girls" stories are written by women who defy mainstream ideals of thinness, working to broaden the scope of what is considered erotic and desirable. This steamy collection features a great range of stories.
Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma
The first encouraging, sex-positive guide for all women survivors of sexual assault who want to reclaim their sex lives. While most books on the topic broach sexuality only to reassure women that it is all right to say "no" to unwanted sex, Healing Sex encourages women to learn how to say "yes" - to their own desires and on their own terms. This mind-body approach to healing from sexual trauma was created by Staci Haines, who has been educating in the area of sexual abuse, sex education, and somatic healing for over 15 years.
Girl Sex 101 is a sex-ed book like no other, offering helpful info for ladies and lady-lovers of all genders and identities, playful and informative illustrations on each page, and over 100 distinct voices, plus a hot narrative that shows you how to put the info to good use!
Learn how to navigate the twists and turns of female sexuality, with special guidance from sixteen guest sex educators including Nina Hartley, Sex Nerd Sandra, Jiz Lee, Tristan Taormino, Julia Serano, Reid Mihalko and more!
This is the sixth blog post for our 2019 Summer of Self-Love! Every week for 12 weeks, we're sharing questions, activities or ideas that we hope will help you fall more in love with yourself this summer. You can find our first post here, or sign up for our Summer of Self-Love Newsletter here.
