The Editors of Goop - The sex issue: Everything Youve Always Wanted to Know about Sexuality, Seduction, and Desire

The advice herein is not intended to replace the services of trained health professionals, or be a substitute for medical advice. You are advised to consult your health-care professional in regard to matters relating to your health, and in particular regarding matters that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

Copyright 2018 by GOOP, Inc.

Illustrations by Christine Mitchell Adams

Cover design by Claire Brown.

Cover copyright 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

Grand Central Life & Style

Hachette Book Group

1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

grandcentrallifeandstyle.com

twitter.com/grandcentralpub

First Hardcover Edition: May 2018

Grand Central Life & Style is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Grand Central Life & Style name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.

Print book interior design by Fearn Cutler de Vicq.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Goop, Inc., editor.

Title: The sex issue : everything youve always wanted to know about sexuality, seduction, and desire / by The editors of GOOP ; foreword by Gwyneth Paltrow.

Description: First Edition. | New York : Grand Central Life & Style, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017052345| ISBN 9781538729441 (hardback) | ISBN 9781549168499 (audio download) | ISBN 9781538729434 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Sex. | Sex instruction. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Sexual Instruction. | HEALTH & FITNESS / Womens Health. | HEALTH & FITNESS / Sexuality. | REFERENCE / Handbooks & Manuals.

Classification: LCC HQ21 .S4712 2018 | DDC 306.7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017052345

ISBNs: 978-1-5387-2944-1 (hardcover); 978-1-5387-2943-4 (ebook); 978-1-5491-6849-9 (audiobook, downloadable)

E3-20180313-JV-NF

To our readers,
who have asked us questions about sex we didnt know the answers to, and who have gone on the journey with us to find them.

M ost days lately, it feels like were living in the midst of a seismic shift in gender issuesthe feminine is really (finally) on the rise. But with every step forward, there always seems to be a pushback. When women want to ask questions that are deemed uncomfortable or impolite or out of their jurisdiction (for whatever reason), they are silenced in a myriad of ways, both blatant and subtle. The message we hear too often, whether implicit or not, is: Stay in your lane.

And sex is the great hot-button issue. While this is not surprising, it has been eye-opening for all of us at GOOP to see how triggering conversations around womens pleasure and sexual health can be for so many. No content weve published on the site has incited such a visceral reaction from readers (on all sides) as interviews with sexuality experts and first-person accounts of womens own experiences of their sexuality. Women talking about sex, about what they like and dont like, what they are getting and not getting in their intimate relationships, the toll of sexual trauma and how they healhas a tendency to make people (both men and other women) extraordinarily self-conscious and uneasy.

Which isnt to say that men have it easy in the realm of intimacy. There are plenty of ways that men are silenced in relationships, and there are arguably fewer places today for men to have certain conversations around sexualitynamely those exploring vulnerability. Vulnerability is not something we as a culture do a good job of allowing boys and men to own.

The idea behind this book was to create a safe space where questions of sexuality could be explored for everyonewomen, men, heterosexual, homosexual, in a relationship, single, young, experienced. Its never too late, or too early for that matter, to get comfortable with your own desires. Were fortunate at GOOP to work with a circle of thought leaders who empower us to ask questionsand who accepted our sex laundry list: everything we and readers have always wondered about seduction, attraction, dating, fantasy, orgasm, hormones, sexual power, and so on. Interspersed with the personal stories of GOOP staffers, this book is the culmination of those conversations weve had with psychotherapists, psychologists, researchers, doctors, healers, and other sex gurus. Whether tantra or BDSM or threesomes or vanilla are your thing will never be the point; knowing yourself, all your options, and how to ask for and pursue what feels good to you, is. The perspectives of bright minds included here help us, at GOOP, get there. We hope theyll support you as you look inward, too, while illuminating whats out there.

Our other hope is that this book will create more conversations off the page and be a part of destigmatizing pleasure for good. In this moment in time, theres a collective opportunity to do away with the dangerous notion that women shouldnt be completely comfortable talking about their sexualityor that anyone should be shamed for asking questions.

In the meantime, lets keep sharing our experienceshere are ours.

Love,

GP

The clichs surrounding the word seduction tend to involve a lot of smoke and mirrors: vamping, dressing up, mind games, plotting, and consulting with trusted third parties. While all those aspects certainly have a role in sex and seduction, the experts weve assembled here tell a different, less striving, yet infinitely more powerful story.

Whether the seduction in question involves swiping right and hoping for the best, or trying to create new patterns and deepen intimacy with a long-beloved partner, seduction resides within usin our attitudes, in our intentions, and, most of all, in our feelings about ourselves. Trying to push past that crucial grounding toward the more surface-level markers of seduction defeats the purpose. Seduction is about slowing down, feeling your power, and only then turning your focus, energy, and endless charm toward a deeply appealing other.