Visiting Pittsburgh December 18-20

August 28, 2024

For your Reading Pleasure

Titles that make for excellent dinner conversation and even better pillow talk.

Because the most unforgettable connections evoke both mind and body, I don’t just want to make you sweat – I want to make you think. 

Here are some of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in the past few years. They’re sure to stimulate you almost as much as I will.

Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us
by Jesse Bering

Why are people sexually aroused by feet, masochism, and even amputees? And why do we view some desires as normal and others as strange or even deplorable?

This book will challenge everything you thought you knew about “perverts,” down to the very meaning of the word itself.

Bering presents some of today’s most captivating ethical debates on society’s sexual laws and moral codes. His sarcasm and cutting wit make this book my number one pick.

The Holy Hour: An Anthology on Sex Work, Magic and the Divine

Edited by Molly Simmons and Emily M. P. Duffy (featuring an essay by yours truly!)

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to shamelessly plug my own writing + the creative masterpieces of 45 other sex workers.

A provocative, insightful and sometimes hilarious exploration of the convergence between the sacred and the erotic in the age of late-stage capitalism.

My parents both gave glowing reviews, so it must be good.

Drug Use for Grown-ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear

By Dr. Carl L. Hart

If, like me, you have always suspected drugs weren’t as bad as everyone makes them out to be, good news!

You’re keeping company with people like Columbia professor Carl Hart, whose eye-opening book creates a case not just for ending the war on drugs, but for embracing all drugs as a part of a healthy, functional society.

How to Change your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence

By Michael Pollan

Using psychedelics to change our minds isn’t some new, radical venture; it’s our birthright.

A perfect handbook for skeptics and beginners, this book outlines a detailed history of psychedelics, the modern psychedelic renaissance, and cutting edge research in the fields of neuroscience and psychology.

Untrue: Why Nearly Everything we Believe about Women, Lust and Infidelity is Wrong and how the New Science can Set us Free

By Wednesday Martin

It may surprise you to learn that a book about female desire taught me more about why men seek out my services than any other book I’ve read.

Despite spending almost a decade in this line of work, I held tightly to beliefs that men crave variety more than women, and women have lower desire than men. I viewed myself as an exception, of course; a freak of nature.

This book upended my feelings of otherness and highlighted the glaring flaws in research that has historically “proven” men are hornier than women.

For example: did you know the idea that men seek variety while women seek monogamy originally comes from a study conducted on deformed fruit flies? Neither did I!