Evelyn Resh - Women, Sex, Power, And Pleasure: Getting the Life (and Sex) You Want

Praise forWomen, Sex, Power & Pleasure

If youve lost your desire, Resh will help you find your way back to sexy! Empathetic and informative, Women, Sex, Power & Pleasure smashes through common barriers to sexual satisfaction with gusto and passion!

Ian Kerner, New York Times best-selling author of She Comes First

If Erma Bombeck had been a wise sex counselor, this is the book she would have written. A happy combination of clinical insights and trenchant humor makes Evelyn Reshs book delightful and essential reading for anyone, anywhere, who has ever wondered about women, sex, power, or pleasurefrom teenage to menopause and beyond.

Gina Ogden, Ph.D., LMFT, author of The Return of Desire, The Heart & Soul of Sex, and Women Who Love Sex

Evelyn Resh teaches us how to create emotional wellness by giving us permission to keep pleasure and sex in the forefront of our minds. We need more books that advocate putting pleasure first. Brava!

Barbara Carrellas, author of Ecstasy is Necessary and Urban Tantra

As a sex therapist, writer of books for women about sex, and a teacher of sex therapy, I highly recommend Women, Sex, Power & Pleasure. If youre not happy with your sex life and frustrated with your own libido, this book may be just the jump-start you need for a new direction. Building on what you already know about sex, this book asks you to dive deeper into what you might not have known about you. Evelyn Reshs book is like a conversation with a good friendhonest, intimate and to the point. For women who want pleasure, want to take charge of their sexual lives, and want to take hold of their own capacity for change, Women, Sex, Power & Pleasure is a wonderful book.

Sallie Foley, co-author of Sex Matters for Women

Women, Sex, Power & Pleasure is a book about all this and more. It brings up-to-date information about sex and pleasure in a culture that still doesnt talk enough about these needs. Women deserve accurate and contemporary information to guide them to a healthy sexuality, and this book does just that.

Joe Kort, Ph.D., director of the Center for Relationship and Sexual Health

A very thoughtful look at a complex and often difficult subject.

Paul Joannides, Psy.D., author of Guide To Getting It On

ALSO BY EVELYN RESH

The Secret Lives of Teen Girls: What Your Mother Wouldnt
Talk about but Your Daughter Needs to Know

Available at your local bookstore, or may be ordered by visiting:

Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com
Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au
Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk
Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za
Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Copyright 2013 by Evelyn Resh

Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Cover design: Shelley Noble Interior design: Tricia Breidenthal

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Resh, Evelyn K., 1959

Women, sex, power, and pleasure : getting the life (and sex) you want / Evelyn Resh. -- 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4019-3631-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4019-3632-7 (ebook) 1. Women--Sexual behavior. 2. Women--Psychology. 3. Sex.
4. Pleasure. I. Title.
HQ29.R474 2013
306.7082--dc23
2012038468

Tradepaper ISBN: 978-1-4019-3631-0

Digital ISBN: 978-1-4019-3632-7

14 15 14 13 4 3 2 1
1st edition, March 2013

Printed in the United States of America

For Robin
because I love you more

If the world were merely seductive,
that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging,
that would be no problem.
But I arise in the morning
torn between a desire to improve the world
and a desire to enjoy the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day.

E. B. WHITE

Modern women are amazing. We have high-powered careers, smart kids, terrific partners, lots of exciting friends, beautiful homes, and financial savvy. We seem to know how to manage big money, big responsibilities, and big orgasms with the partners of our choiceand all on our own terms. The exterior is a high-gloss, showy, and impressive pattern with markers of success that women appear to handle effortlessly and with the utmost finesse. But theres so much more to the story. The women who come into my office dispel the myth of the she-has-it-all woman on a daily basis. Beneath this shining exterior, many women are feeling far from successful and are living in asensual, sexless relationships, wishing desperately that they actually had the lives we all assume theyre leading.

As a sexuality counselor and midwife, this is the side of the story that I see most often. It is in the privacy of my office that the true state of matrimonial unions and the modern American womans psyche are fully disclosed. I commonly encounter exhausted, furious, overextended wives and mothers who, for all intents and purposes, are tortured by a metastasized lack of pleasure in anything, especially sex. Many face nearly constant battles with their mates because they have disparate appetites for sex, are bored by sex, never liked it in the first place, or cant identify with the idea of its general importance and its relationship to healthy living.

What these womenand possibly youare missing is not just sex, but pleasure in general. They live lives focused on getting the job donewhatever the job isand rarely, if ever, take time to enjoy the moment theyre in or the pleasures at hand. They also arent feeling as emotionally healthy and empowered in life as they seem to be to the casual observer, nor do they always speak the truth to some of their closest confidantes.

In order to experience pleasurein all its formsour emotional health needs to be sturdy and well integrated into our beings. Genuine self-esteem, spiritual satisfaction, health-seeking behaviors, resilience, creativity, and compassion ignite and sustain our interest in, capability to, and enthusiasm for leading a life filled with pleasure and the sensuality and sexuality associated with it. When seeds of antipleasure are sown either early in life by well-intentioned parents or if our emotional well-being isnt sturdy for whatever reason, our relationships with pleasurable activitiessexual and otherwisecan be anemic. If further cultivated by the demands of career, family, and a drive for accomplishment, then integrating pleasure becomes the pastime and pursuit of only vacationers and underachievers. Pleasurein and out of bedhas gotten a bad reputation among career-minded, married, and mothering women, and their intimate relationships are showing the wear.