This month, the Sexis Naked Reader Book Club had some interesting selections. I decided to go with a book that wasn’t an anthology by different authors this time so I selected Real Live Nude Girl by Carol Queen.
Real Live Nude Girl (Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture) was first published in 1997 by Cleis Press. The second edition came out in 2002, with a new Forward section. This is an oversized paperback a glossy cover and no illustrations. It’s 215 pages, set in easy-to-read type, and contains a forward, introduction, bibliography, index, and a section about the author in addition to the essays.
Carol Queen grew up in Oregon, and first became a queer organizer and AIDS educator there before heading to San Francisco, where she received a doctorate in sexology in 1998. She is the author of several books as well as the co-editor of many others. She writes monthly for Spectator (a sex newsweekly in northern California) and has also been featured in Penthouse, Hustler, Vogue, and Elle. She works at and owns part of Good Vibrations, has been in sex education videos and also conducts workshops and trainings with her partner.
In the forward, Carol talks about growing up in the US in an erotophobic culture: while sex permeates everything we see and hear, from television, movies and music, most people are afraid of sex, whether it’s talking about it or accepting anything that strays outside what’s considered the “norm”. Even within the norm, sex is shunned, feared, and talked about as little as possible. She explains her subtitle, “Sex-Positive Culture”, doesn’t refer to the culture in the US in which we all are a part of, but rather the counter-culture that thrives in pockets throughout the country. She believes the challenge is not to become comfortable with sex for yourself, but to understand as well that we shouldn’t be judgmental, and that the differences that separate humans sexually aren’t perversions or immoral but rather just that – differences, People should lead their lives in the way that brings them joy and happiness.
In the introduction, Carol relates growing up different, where her young classmates gave her the nickname “Queen the Queer.” Carol discovered herself, worried about being “too queer to be queer”, and explored both the lesbian and gay communities before finding her niche with the bisexual community. Even this wasn’t an easy fit.
This book is not erotica. The chapters consist of 25 essays, each a glimpse into the life and thoughts of Carol as she grew into her sexuality. Many of them deal with her discoveries, her sexuality, and what bisexual means to members of that community, homosexuals, and heterosexuals, as well as the prejudices and judgments each make on the other. She covers safe sex clubs, body modifications, Madonna, pornography, butch women and spanking, girls gone bad, and prostitution.
This is not what I’d call light reading. The essays are insightful, and really give a perspective on claiming your sexuality. Some of them are fascinating, like her work as a “real live nude girl” at the Lusty Lady Theater in North Beach, where she worked in a Private Pleasures booth and gained insight on exhibitionism, her fellow workers and the men and women who came for a private show. Some of them are also humorous, as when she had to go through desensitization to pornography in graduate school. She and other classmates were put in a room, where all kinds of pornography imaginable was shown on the walls larger than life, including 4 foot tall penises.
This is a wonderfully informative book, and one that I’d recommend regardless of your sex or sexual orientation. I liked Carol’s writing style quite a bit. She’s easy to read and understand, and the glimpses she provides into her life and sexual journey would make interesting reading for everyone. If you’d like to pick up a copy of Real Live Nude Girl, you can get yours at EdenFantasys by clicking below. Read it, ponder it, and enjoy it, then join the Sexis Naked Reader Book Club discussion on the EdenFantasys forum later this month.
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| This product was provided free of charge to the reviewer. | ||
