Best Sex Writing 2006

by Felice Newman (Editor), Felice Newman (Editor)

Sometimes surprising, always stimulating — this book offers a snapshot of America’s complex sexual practices and mores as seen through Cleis’s unique lens. It is the best nonfiction sex journalism of the year in one unforgettable book.
In a single generation, Cleis Press has fundamentally changed the way people talk — and what they read — about sex and gender. Founded by Felice Newman and Frédérique Delacoste in 1980, the press’s mission is to explore and celebrate sex in all its forms, with a decided tilt toward the queer and the subversive. For the first time, Cleis’s founders bring their own sex-positive sensibilities to bear on one of their most popular series. In Best Sex Writing 2006, they’ve collected the year’s most challenging and provocative nonfiction articles on this endlessly evocative subject. The essays here comprise a detailed, direct survey of the contemporary American sexual landscape, a landscape Newman and Delacoste helped shape with such ground-breaking books as Sex Work and The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex. Major commentators both in and out of Cleis’s stable of writers examine the many roles sex plays in our lives in these literate and lively essays.

Genres: Essays

197 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 2006

About the author

Felice Newman is a somatic coach who works with couples and individuals. She is an author and a founding publisher of Cleis Press.

Reviews

[Annabeth Leong · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am madly in love with the Best Sex Writing series, and have been reading previous years because I can't wait for the next one. Sadly, I thought this volume wasn't as good as many of the other years. After much consideration of why, I finally put my finger on it. The awesome thing about the series is the insider view it gives into all kinds of sexual lifestyles and practices. This volume, however, has more of an observational tone. In many cases, it seems like outsiders looking in and describing something, which often gives the pieces a weird tone and loses the sense of understanding you get from pieces written by insiders. The worst offenders are the pieces that were originally published in New York magazine, which are both about high schoolers, and written as if teenagers were some sort of zoo animal. A piece about strippers and their fathers has a similar outsider quality. Some pieces by well-known sex writers seemed phoned in or not at their sharpest (such as an irritatingly superior piece about romance novels written by a well-known eroticist).

The book also had a bit of a scattered vibe. There's a section written by Tristan Taormino that I had mixed feelings about. Tristan is an awesome writer, and the selections included fascinating content. However, it seemed like a bunch of random columns thrown in with each other, and I really wanted there to be an overarching concept tying the work together, or some sort of explanation to help the reader find her way through the material.

These criticisms stated, there was still plenty of fascinating, well-written stuff in here. I found that the book really picked up past the halfway mark, so it was worth making it through to the end. Standout pieces included Paul Festa's account of auditioning for John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, Mark Pritchard's meditation on a sexually inventive ex-girlfriend, a similar piece by Virginia Vitzthum that made for a very interesting contrast with Pritchard's writing, and a lovely account of a femdom relationship by Stephen Elliot.

[HeavyReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like this volume of the series as much as I liked the 2008 volume. I just didn't think the writing in this book was as good. I wish the reader was told where each piece was originally published.

I like Tristan Taorimino's writing, but her piece in this collection did not flow very smoothly. She wrote on several different topics, but didn't connect the topics in any way, other than they were all about sex. Were these separate blog posts thrown together for this book?

In "The Pole Test" Natalie Y. Moore and Natalie Hopkinson, considered exotic dancers and their relationships with their fathers. Their writing seemed sensational and judgmental. The dancers were portrayed as victims, and I didn't think the article was balanced or objective.

I especially enjoyed "Where's the Sin? An Anti-Sermon," even though I didn't agree with all of the author's ideas.

I liked the personal, dear diary type storytelling of "Naked on the Set! Auditioning for John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus."

I guess I tended to like the personal stories a lot more than the ones that seemed academic in tone, but all in all, this book did not excite me.

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

turns out that this is a collection of essays/articles having to do with the adult industry and things related to adult conduct.