Getting It: A Guide to Hot, Healthy Hookups and Shame-Free Sex

by Allison Moon

Overview

An empowering guide to casual sex and hooking up from sex educator and Girl Sex 101 author Allison Moon.

A comprehensive and fun-to-read guidebook for people of all sexual identities and experience levels, Getting It covers all the bases of hook-up culture from first moves and sex etiquette to navigating nonmonogamy and sexual health. In an era of endless crossed signals and heightened awareness of consent and respect, award-winning author and sex educator Allison Moon shows you how to achieve safe and enjoyable encounters by practicing clear communication and consideration of all parties involved—yourself included. Getting It helps you understand what casual sex means for you and offers an instructive and empowering deep dive into how to get it, do it well, and feel great about it every step of the way. And since we're all imperfect, Moon offers guidance for how to gracefully recover when you screw up—or get screwed over.

Refreshingly intersectional and respectful, Getting It is an honest guide to understanding the basics of hook-up culture and how to partake.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984857156
Publisher:	Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date:	12/29/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Allison Moon is the author of the critically acclaimed sexual education guide Girl Sex 101. Moon is a popular sex educator, leading workshops on sexual pleasure and technique, polyamory, LGBTQ+ issues, and more. She has been quoted in Cosmopolitan, New York magazine, and the Washington Post. Her other writing includes the story collection Bad Dyke: Salacious Stories from a Queer Life, articles for Bustle, and stories for the RISK! podcast, Bawdy Storytelling, and various anthologies.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction


When I was eighteen, I walked into my dorm room, agitated. I couldn’t name the source of my frustration, but my (older, wiser) roommate saw the signs loud and clear. I was horny.

Of course I knew what horniness felt like, but this feeling was beyond the need to have an orgasm. It was deeper. I wanted to smell someone’s hair, rub my face against their chest, and squeeze their muscles beneath my palms.

I wanted to f***.

But I was still grappling with the lessons my parents taught me when they insisted sex was something to be shared only when you were in love (and preferably married; but let’s be real, that wasn’t happening any time soon). My high school sex ed taught me “Abstinence is the Best Choice!” My church taught me physical pleasure was suspicious and most likely sinful. Despite these warnings, I’d had sex with three people before I turned eighteen. Though, heeding my parents’ advice, each was a committed relationship, and we were “in love” or some teenage approximation of it.

When I walked into my dorm, ready to rub myself against a tree like a grizzly bear, I was single and nursing a broken heart after Boyfriend #3 abruptly moved away.

I needed to get properly laid. Without a sweetheart, though, how was that supposed to happen? My roommate suggested I just go out and find someone to have sex with. I scoffed in prudish horror.

I’ll never forget how she replied: “Allison, horniness is like hunger. It’s a basic bodily function signifying a need.”

Her friend agreed. “You’re in college surrounded by other hot, single people. Go find someone to hook up with. Scratch that itch.”

The permission those two women gave me changed my life. For the first time, I didn’t see desire as love’s by-product, but a perk of being a living, breathing human being. I could choose to work through the feelings in my body in another way, maybe through exercise or art. Or I could choose to go find someone cool to help me “scratch the itch.” The choice was up to me.

I chose sex.

Since that night, I’ve had amazing sex with lots of wonderful people. Some of those people became lifelong friends. Some I never saw again. Each experience taught me something new about myself and people in general. Though I’ve gained lots of experience getting naked with people, I never stop feeling giddy, nervous, and thrilled when I get to do it with a new, wonderful person.