
Best Sex Writing 2013: The State of Today's Sexual Culture
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kristin Kalbli
-
Fleet Cooper
About this listen
The Best Sex Writing series has fundamentally changed the way people think - and what they say - about sexuality. Once again, Rachel Kramer Bussel has 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. Major commentators examine the many roles sex plays in our lives in these literate and lively essays.
Judged by the Dr. Carol Queen, who is without peer, this stunning collection of sex-smart essays is sure to stir the heart, the brain, as well as other major organs.
©2013 Rachel Kramer Bussel (P)2013 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Sex & Cupcakes
- A Juicy Collection of Essays
- By: Rachel Kramer Bussel
- Narrated by: Rose Caraway
- Length: 2 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sex and Cupcakes is a collection of essays from writer Rachel Kramer Bussel reflecting on her years as a sex columnist and cupcake blogger, detailing her dirty and sweet sides as well as sexual adventures, politics, heartbreak, tattoos, and more.
-
-
Cupcakes and sex...such fun to enjoy
- By LeeAnn O on 02-25-15
-
The Truth
- By: Neil Strauss
- Narrated by: Neil Strauss, Ione Skye, Jessica Sattelberger
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of the blockbuster best seller The Game: a shockingly personal, surprisingly relatable, brutally honest memoir in which the celebrated dating expert confronts the greatest challenge he has ever faced: monogamy and fidelity.
-
-
Interesting but not the whole truth
- By Ville on 01-21-16
By: Neil Strauss
-
Female Chauvinist Pigs
- Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
- By: Ariel Levy
- Narrated by: Aimee Jolson
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig - the new brand of "empowered woman" who wears the Playboy bunny as a talisman, bares all for Girls Gone Wild, pursues casual sex as if it were a sport, and embraces "raunch culture". If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better. They think they're being brave, they think they're being funny, but in Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy asks if the joke is on them.
-
-
Women's empowerment via objectification?= False!
- By Kerry on 11-27-13
By: Ariel Levy
-
Not That Bad
- Dispatches from Rape Culture
- By: Roxane Gay
- Narrated by: Roxane Gay, Brandon Taylor, Emma Smith-Stevens, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and best-selling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are "routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied" for speaking out. Contributions include essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers, and critics.
-
-
definitely an important book
- By nikiverse on 05-25-18
By: Roxane Gay
-
Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?
- Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform
- By: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
- Narrated by: Mark Bachman
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it's an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out”, what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?
-
-
Forget the Status Quo South Beach B.S.
- By Susie on 03-14-13
-
Girls & Sex
- Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
- By: Peggy Orenstein
- Narrated by: Peggy Orenstein
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A generation gap has emerged between parents and their girls. Even in this age of helicopter parenting, the mothers and fathers of tomorrow's women have little idea what their daughters are up to sexually or how they feel about it. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over 70 young women and a wide range of psychologists, academics, and experts, renowned journalist Peggy Orenstein goes where most others fear to tread, pulling back the curtain on the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important possibilities of girls' sex lives in the modern world.
-
-
Must read for anyone who has a daughter
- By Erin on 04-01-16
By: Peggy Orenstein
-
Sex & Cupcakes
- A Juicy Collection of Essays
- By: Rachel Kramer Bussel
- Narrated by: Rose Caraway
- Length: 2 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sex and Cupcakes is a collection of essays from writer Rachel Kramer Bussel reflecting on her years as a sex columnist and cupcake blogger, detailing her dirty and sweet sides as well as sexual adventures, politics, heartbreak, tattoos, and more.
-
-
Cupcakes and sex...such fun to enjoy
- By LeeAnn O on 02-25-15
-
The Truth
- By: Neil Strauss
- Narrated by: Neil Strauss, Ione Skye, Jessica Sattelberger
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of the blockbuster best seller The Game: a shockingly personal, surprisingly relatable, brutally honest memoir in which the celebrated dating expert confronts the greatest challenge he has ever faced: monogamy and fidelity.
-
-
Interesting but not the whole truth
- By Ville on 01-21-16
By: Neil Strauss
-
Female Chauvinist Pigs
- Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
- By: Ariel Levy
- Narrated by: Aimee Jolson
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig - the new brand of "empowered woman" who wears the Playboy bunny as a talisman, bares all for Girls Gone Wild, pursues casual sex as if it were a sport, and embraces "raunch culture". If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better. They think they're being brave, they think they're being funny, but in Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy asks if the joke is on them.
-
-
Women's empowerment via objectification?= False!
- By Kerry on 11-27-13
By: Ariel Levy
-
Not That Bad
- Dispatches from Rape Culture
- By: Roxane Gay
- Narrated by: Roxane Gay, Brandon Taylor, Emma Smith-Stevens, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and best-selling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are "routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied" for speaking out. Contributions include essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers, and critics.
-
-
definitely an important book
- By nikiverse on 05-25-18
By: Roxane Gay
-
Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?
- Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform
- By: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
- Narrated by: Mark Bachman
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it's an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out”, what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?
-
-
Forget the Status Quo South Beach B.S.
- By Susie on 03-14-13
-
Girls & Sex
- Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
- By: Peggy Orenstein
- Narrated by: Peggy Orenstein
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A generation gap has emerged between parents and their girls. Even in this age of helicopter parenting, the mothers and fathers of tomorrow's women have little idea what their daughters are up to sexually or how they feel about it. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over 70 young women and a wide range of psychologists, academics, and experts, renowned journalist Peggy Orenstein goes where most others fear to tread, pulling back the curtain on the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important possibilities of girls' sex lives in the modern world.
-
-
Must read for anyone who has a daughter
- By Erin on 04-01-16
By: Peggy Orenstein
-
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
- Narrated by: Wednesday Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Primates of Park Avenue, a bold, timely reconsideration of female infidelity that will upend everything you thought you knew about women and sex. In Untrue, feminist author and cultural critic Wednesday Martin takes us on a bold, fascinating journey to reveal the unexpected evolutionary legacy and social realities that drive female faithlessness, while laying bare our motivations to contain women who step out.
-
-
Interesting, Not Regrettable, But Kinda Angry Feminist-y
- By Bree Dirkmaat on 03-21-19
By: Wednesday Martin
-
It's Messy
- On Boys, Boobs, and Badass Women
- By: Amanda de Cadenet
- Narrated by: Amanda de Cadenet
- Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From childhood fame to a high-profile marriage (and divorce) to teen motherhood to the sexism that threatened to end her career before it started, Amanda shares the good, the bad, and the messy of her life, synthesizing lessons she's learned along the way. Through it all, she offers an original perspective as a feminist on the front lines of celebrity culture. Edgy, irreverent, poignant, and provocative, It's Messy addresses the issues, concerns, and experiences relevant to women today.
-
-
Loved it
- By Michelle on 04-06-22
-
Unscrewed
- Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All
- By: Jaclyn Friedman
- Narrated by: Jaclyn Friedman
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Unscrewed, Friedman reveals that the anxiety and fear women in our country feel around issues of their sexuality are not, in fact, their fault but instead are side effects of our toxic culture. Dubbed the "era of fauxpowerment", that culture gives women the illusion of sexual power, with no actual power to support it. Exploring where media, religion, politics, and education overlap with feminist issues, Unscrewed breaks down the causes and signs of fauxpowerment then gives listeners tools to take it on themselves.
-
-
when we know better, we do better
- By CharismaHen on 05-15-18
By: Jaclyn Friedman
-
Labor of Love
- The Invention of Dating
- By: Moira Weigel
- Narrated by: Kyra Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weaving together over 100 years of history with scenes from the contemporary landscape, Labor of Love offers a fresh feminist perspective on how we came to date the ways we do. This isn't a guide to "getting the guy". There are no ridiculous "rules" to follow. Instead Weigel helps us understand how looking for love shapes who we are and hopefully leads us closer to the happy ending that dating promises.
-
-
Not Meant To Be Useful, But Quite Fun
- By Gillian on 02-14-17
By: Moira Weigel
-
The Sex Lives of African Women
- Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing
- By: Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
- Narrated by: Iesha Nyree, Adenrele Ojo, Deanna Anthony, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thanks to her blog, Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah has spent decades talking openly and intimately to African women around the world about sex. For this book, she spoke to more than 30 African women across the globe while chronicling her own journey toward sexual freedom.
-
-
Bad narrators
- By L on 07-01-22
-
Bad Sex
- Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution
- By: Nona Willis Aronowitz
- Narrated by: Nona Willis Aronowitz
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz’s life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what “sexual liberation” meant were suddenly up for debate.
-
-
I was born in the 50s, sexually active in the mid 70s
- By Pixel on 08-22-22
-
American Hookup
- The New Culture of Sex on Campus
- By: Lisa Wade
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hookup is now part of college life. Yet the drunken encounter we always hear about tells only a fraction of the story. Rising above misinformation and moralizing, Lisa Wade offers the definitive account of this new sexual culture and demonstrates that the truth is both more heartening and more harrowing than we thought. Offering invaluable insights for parents, educators, and students, Wade situates hookup culture within the history of sexuality, the evolution of higher education, and the unfinished feminist revolution.
-
-
Great book! I didn't love the voice of the reader.
- By Kelly on 03-04-17
By: Lisa Wade
-
Gender Outlaw
- On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us
- By: Kate Bornstein, S. Bear Bergman
- Narrated by: Kate Bornstein
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author Kate Bornstein ushers listeners on a funny, fearless, and wonderfully scenic journey across the terrains of gender and identity. On one level, Gender Outlaw details Bornstein's transformation from heterosexual male to lesbian woman, from a one-time IBM salesperson to a playwright and performance artist. But this particular coming-of-age story is also a provocative investigation into our notions of male and female, from a self-described nonbinary transfeminine diesel femme dyke who never stops questioning our cultural assumptions.
-
-
wonderful book read very well by an amazing person
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-18
By: Kate Bornstein, and others
-
Open
- An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy
- By: Rachel Krantz
- Narrated by: Rachel Krantz
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Rachel Krantz met and fell for Adam, he told her that he was looking for a committed partnership—just one that did not include monogamy. Intrigued and more than a little nervous, Krantz decided to see whether their love could coexist with the freedom to date other people. Could they strike an exquisite balance between intimacy and independence, and find a way to feel passion for each other once the honeymoon phase ended?
-
-
I wrote this book
- By rachelkrantz on 02-05-22
By: Rachel Krantz
-
Cunt (20th Anniversary Edition)
- By: Inga Muscio
- Narrated by: Inga Muscio
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fully revised anniversary edition of the classic testament to women's empowerment, Muscio explores with candidness and humor such traditional feminist issues as birth control, sexuality, jealousy between women, and prostitution with a fresh attitude for a new generation of women. Sending out a call for every woman to be the "Cuntlovin' Ruler of Her Sexual Universe", Muscio stands convention on its head by embracing the provocative and celebrating womanhood.
-
-
Best book ever
- By Paula Daniels on 07-28-19
By: Inga Muscio
-
Unhooked
- How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both
- By: Laura Sessions Stepp
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here's an eye-opening examination of the "hookup" culture, seen through the experiences of high-school- and college-age women who confront the hard lessons of dating, love, and sex. Stepp follows three groups of young women and comes away with some disturbing insights. Relationships and romance are seen as messy and time-consuming, and love is postponed or, worse, seen as impossible. Many young women can't handle this, and they're being battered physically and emotionally by the new dating landscape.
-
-
Essential Reading for Parents
- By Elton on 04-19-07
-
Unbound
- Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity
- By: Arlene Stein
- Narrated by: Suzanne Elise Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Transgender men comprise a large, growing proportion of the trans population, yet they remain largely invisible. In this powerful, timely, and eye-opening account, award-winning sociologist Arlene Stein draws from dozens of interviews with transgender people and their friends and families, as well as with activists and medical and psychological experts. Unbound documents the varied ways younger trans men see themselves and how they are changing our understanding of what it means to be male and female in America.
-
-
Hetero Author’s experience, not Trans Experience
- By Paige Huggins on 11-22-22
By: Arlene Stein
Editorial reviews
Twenty of the sexiest stories of the year are compiled in Best Sex Writing 2013, a broad range of informative, provocative, and analytical viewpoints on sex and erotic culture. Some of these stories, both fiction and nonfiction, are funny and titillating, while others can be disheartening and sad.
Narrated with flirtatious eloquence by Kristin Kalbi and hunky coolness by Fleet Cooper, the collection is led off by acclaimed author Jonathan Letham, of Motherless Brooklyn fame. This will stimulate both the brain and the body.
What listeners say about Best Sex Writing 2013: The State of Today's Sexual Culture
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Susie
- 10-23-13
The Sexual State of the Union Today
This is a cutting-edge collection of current thought on the state of sexuality in the United States.
In so many ways, we are making progress, becoming more open, and in so many other ways, things are as dark as ever.
As Carol Queen states in her forward, “It’s easier to fill a conference hall with thousands of kinky people than it is to get a public school to represent sexuality as something other than a danger.”
Thankfully, Rachel Kramer Bussell has been manning the boat and brings the best writing on sex and sexuality this year. From having babies to a submissive's manifesto, to reproductive rights, there’s something to learn for every piece in this collection.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful