Taking Sexy Back: How to Own Your Sexuality and Create the Relationships You Want

by Alexandra H. Solomon PhD, Lori Brotto PhD (Foreword by)

Overview

Named one of Cosmopolitan's Best Nonfiction Books of 2020!

2020 Consumer Book Honorable Mention from The Society for Sex Therapy and Research (SSTAR)

As featured on The Morning Show—Australia's top-rated morning program

It is time for a new sexual revolution. It’s time to take sexy back.

As women, we’re expected to be sexy, but not sexual. We’re bombarded with conflicting, shame-inducing, and disempowering messages about sex, instead of being encouraged to connect with our true sexual selves. Sexy gets reduced to a performance, leaving us with little to no space to reckon with the complexities of sexuality.

In a culture intent on telling you who and how to be, standing in your truth is revolutionary.

From relationship expert Alexandra Solomon—author of Loving Bravely—Taking Sexy Back is a groundbreaking guide to deepening your connection to yourself, honoring your desires, and cultivating authentic intimate connections. On these pages, you’ll discover how to deepen your sexual self-awareness, and use that awareness to create experiences that not only pleasure, but elevate, expand, and heal you. You’ll learn to understand your boundaries, communicate what feels good, and bring mindfulness and self-compassion to sex. Most importantly, you’ll embrace your sexuality as an evolving, essential, and beautiful part of your life.

Sex is about more than what your partner enjoys or finds sexy. It’s about more than having an orgasm or finding the “right” positions. It’s about you. It’s time to take your sexy back!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684033461
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	02/02/2020
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	273,940
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Alexandra H. Solomon, PhD, is on faculty in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. She is a licensed clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, and is on faculty at The Omega Institute. Her first book, Loving Bravely, was featured on The Today Show. She writes articles and chapters for leading academic journals and books in the field of marriage and family. She maintains a psychotherapy practice for individual adults and couples, teaches and trains marriage and family therapy graduate students, and teaches the internationally renowned undergraduate course, “Building Loving and Lasting Relationships: Marriage 101.” Solomon is a highly sought-after speaker who works with groups like the United States Military Academy at West Point, Microsoft, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. She is frequently asked to talk about love, sex, and marriage for media outlets like O, The Oprah Magazine; The Atlantic; Vogue; NPR; and Scientific American. She is an international speaker and teacher whose work has been featured on five continents. She lives in the Greater Chicago Area.

Foreword writer Lori Brotto is executive director of the Women’s Health Research Institute in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Her research focuses on advancing the science of psychological and mindfulness-based interventions for women’s sexual health. She is author of Better Sex Through Mindfulness.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Part I Preparing for the Journey

1 From Outside-In to Inside-Out 3

Creating a New Definition of Sexy

2 Relational Self-Awareness 101 15

Understanding Your Relationship to Relationships

3 Of Warts, Bananas, and Birth Videos 29

Recognizing How Sex Ed Let You Down and Becoming a Lifelong Learner

Part II The Journey to Sexual Self-Awareness

4 Living and Loving in a Patriarchy 39

Disentangling Yourself from Played Out Stories about Gender (Sex as Cultural)

5 Your Sexy Is a Glorious and Unfolding Story 59

Making Sexual and Relational Choices That Are Aligned (Sex as Developmental)

6 What You Think Matters 85

Harnessing Your Mind for Great Sexual Experiences (Sex as Mental) 85

7 It's Time to Be Sweet to All of You 103

Ending the War with Your Body…in the Name of Love (Sex as Physical)

8 Your Feelings Are Data 127

Honoring All of What Sex Stirs in You (Sex as Emotional)

9 The Space Between You and Your Partner 141

Cultivating a Happy and Healthy Sexual Environment (Sex as Relational)

10 Sex as Transcendence 161

Connecting Sex with the Biggest Picture of All (Sex as Spiritual)

Part III Your Sexy Is Here to Stay

11 Your Grandma Never Swiped Right 175

Navigating the Challenges and Possibilities for Love and Sex in the Era of Choice

12 Reflections for Men Who Love Women Who Are Taking Sexy Back 193

Inviting Men to the Reclamation

13 Welcome Home, Sexy 205

Taking Sexy Bach Every Day

Acknowledgments 209

Additional Resources for Your Sexy 211

Endnotes 217

Interviews

Solomon resides in Highland Park, IL (The Greater Chicago Area).

Editorial Reviews

10/14/2019

Psychologist Solomon (Loving Bravely) empowers and enlightens in this manual that encourages women to accept and control their sexuality. Dividing her lessons into three sections—“Preparing for the Journey,” “The Journey to Sexual Self-Awareness,” and “Your Sexy Is Here to Stay” —Solomon packs valuable advice, touching on such topics as giving consent, hookups, and self-compassion. Quoting Maya Angelou—“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better”—she counsels women to reexamine their long-held beliefs about sex and relationships, inviting them to understand that some of those beliefs—religious hang-ups and self-judgment among them—are damaging. Like a wise older sister or a trusted friend, Solomon illustrates how to move from fear to love with meditations, creative writing (“write an erotic short story”), and mental exercises (ask, “at which point in the day do you feel most connected to Your Sexy”). She also tackles the topic of sexual traumas and the poison they inject into relationships, and encourages experimentation and sexual fantasies as tools to learn one’s own sexuality. “Joyful sex rests on risk, self-compassion, and trust,” she writes. Solomon proves to be a savvy, empathetic voice in this educational and inspiring guide. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Taking Sexy Back is going directly on my top list of recommended sexuality readings. Not only did I learn a lot, but I also enjoyed the ease, directness, and warmth with which Solomon guides us to deeper sexual and relational self-awareness. An invitation we can’t refuse!”
—Esther Perel, couples therapist, TED speaker, host of the hit podcast Where Should We Begin?, and author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs

Esther Perel

In these enlightening and powerful pages, Alexandra Solomon provides a clear path to thinking about our sexuality in the context of our psyches, our relationships, and our pleasure. There are countless books on relationships and countless books on sexuality, but never have I seen a book that asks us to examine our sexual lives in such a holistic, empowering, and eye-opening way. This is a rare and life-changing gift for women everywhere.”
—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Lori Gottlieb

Taking Sexy Back welcomes women into an adventurous reclamation of our sexuality as just that—ours! And ours alone.”
—Linda Kay Klein, author of PURE, and founder of Break Free Together

Linda Kay Klein

Have you ever wished you knew someone that combined the intimacy of your best friend with the skills and competency of a PhD in psychology? Someone who could support you on the road to creating a wildly fulfilling sex life—both with yourself and your partner(s)? This book will change your life, open doors, and allow you to own every drop of the hot, sexy woman you were born to become.”
—Regena Thomashauer (aka Mama Gena), founder and CEO of The School of Womanly Arts at www.mamagenas.com, and New York Times bestselling author of Pussy

Regena Thomashauer (aka Mama Gena)

When the next sexual revolution comes, this book will certainly be among its founding documents. It takes the best parts of what psychology has learned about love and sex, and distills them to their simplest human essence. Love and sex, as the author notes, are a powerful and ancient magic, and this book will do much to help the next generation of women claim more of this magic for themselves.”
—Stephen Snyder, MD, host of the Relationship Doctor podcast on Macmillan Publishers’ QDT Network, and author of Love Worth Making

Stephen Snyder

In Alexandra Solomon’s book, Taking Sexy Back, she asks us to dig deep, to look beyond our assumptions, to shift from being sexualized to being sexual, and to find our erotic selves under years of cultural repression. This book helps women to reclaim their inherent right to their sexuality, which we all need as we move into the next wave of empowering ourselves, fighting for our right to feel pleasure in our own bodies—without guilt, shame, or remorse. I will pass Solomon’s wise advice on to my own daughter.”
—Tammy Nelson, PhD, certified sex and relationship therapist, and author of Getting the Sex You Want and The New Monogamy

Tammy Nelson

With grace, savvy, and compassion, Solomon dismantles the web of erroneous messages that stand in the way of sexual fulfillment for countless women. Taking Sexy Back is a powerful, much-needed guide to reclaiming your sexuality and blossoming into your fullest, most pleasure-capable self.”
—August McLaughlin, media personality, podcast host/producer, and author of Girl Boner

August McLaughlin

Chock-full of poignant real-life stories, scientific data presented in an accessible format, and questions to provoke deeper thinking, Taking Sexy Back is what every woman needs to set her on the path to sexual empowerment and fulfillment. It is the only book of its kind written in a wonderfully inclusive way, encompassing the experiences of those who identify as straight, lesbian, bisexual, cisgender, gender-queer, monogamous, nonmonogamous, and more. Solomon’s passion and compassion for women’s sexual discovery shines through. I will be recommending this book to students, clients, and friends for years to come.”
—Laurie Mintz, PhD, professor in the department of psychology at the University of Florida, and author of A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex and Becoming Cliterate

Laurie Mintz

12/01/2019

Instead of striving to be sexy to fulfill the desires of others, women need to explore their own sexuality, writes Solomon (psychology, Northwestern Univ.; Loving Bravely) in this deep dive into the messages most women hear about sex growing up. The author advises readers to turn the "I shoulds" to "I want" and shows women how to be mindfully present during sex and to create situations with their partners that are safe and playful. While concentrating on sexy as a state of mind, Solomon also addresses the physical and erotic components of intercourse. VERDICT A welcome read for women looking to explore more adventurous, impassioned sexual lives.

Library Journal

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