Billed as a 'modern classic of LGBT writing'. Born in 1930, Lillian Faderman is the only child of an uneducated and unmarried Jewish woman who left Latvia to seek a better life in America. Lillian grew up in poverty but fantasised about becoming an actress. When her dreams led to the dangerous, seductive world of the sex trade and sham-marriages in Hollywood of the 50s, she realised she was attracted to women, and that showbiz is as cruel as they say. Desperately seeking to make her life meaningful, she studied at Berkeley, paying her way by working as a pin-up model and burlesque dancer, hiding her lesbian affairs from the outside world. At last she became a brilliant student and a loving partner, a devoted mother, an acclaimed writer and ground-breaking pioneer of gay and lesbian scholarship. She became a very powerful woman in the Californian university system during the 1970s and hers is an amazing story of survival and success. Very graphic in the lesbian experience in parts, this is certainly a woman determined to overcome life's obstacles. 465pp, eight pages of photos including a very curvaceous Lil as Mink Frost in her days as a stripper. Paperback.

An intimate of the 1960s fashion scene and Fleet Street, Felicity Green never knew who she might be interviewing next - politicians, film stars, the latest pop stars, fashion designers. She was thrilled to be working for the Daily Mirror and she brought a new and original voice and look to the fashion pages of the newspaper. For the first time in newspaper history, she created fashion pages to appeal to both sexes, and the circulation soared to more than five million copies a day. And with all those magical names, which journalist could fail to shine? There was the inimitable Mary Quant, the sheer style genius of Barbara Hulanicki of BIBA fame, the irresistible Twiggy, Kiki Byrne, Foale and Tuffin, Jean Muir, John Bates and Ossie Clark. Felicity sailed happily through all the excitement and her role expanded. Long before her famous Dear Marje column was born, Marje Proops, columnist and agony aunt, had been beloved of the multimillion readers for six years before Felicity came on board as associate editor. Two powerful women, and together they represented the voice of women for The Mirror and got on famously, enjoying being women in a man's newspaper world under the guidance of the brilliant Editorial Director Hugh Cudlipp. There are fantastic cartoons of Felicity by cartoonist Moira Hodell picturing her from the back, and page after page of newsprint features reproduced in facsimile to take us right back to the 60s. Pictured are Her Majesty the Queen, Jackie Kennedy and Liz Taylor all wearing real leopard skin, full length coats, the rarest and best skins of which was the Somali leopard which could cost up to £3,000. 'Cheaper ones cost much less - a few hundred pounds - but who wants a CHEAP status symbol?' And then there are the most famous photographers of the time and their remarkable, classy pictures - David Bailey, Terry Donovan, John Cowan, Brian Duffy, Lewis Morley, John Adriaan and of course Terry O'Neill creating striking, saucy and stylish images bringing visual excitement to The Mirror pages. Here is all the glamour and style capturing the stellar time when London fashion conquered the world, with discussion on bikinis that let the sun shine through, tights to wear with miniskirts, new shapes in bras, the Paris catwalk fashions, a comparison of corset adverts, trouser suits and some crazy fashion statements. It is all fun, entertaining and informative in a big glamorous glossy 192 page history of beauty and fashion. 24.6 x 30.8cm published by the Antique Collectors Club.
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'The libidinal, erotic and romantic need not come together in one lover. We can fuck without devotion, adore without horniness, gape without love - this has been the stuff of literature and song for millennia.' Yet sex talk is oddly superficial and much of daily life is certainly sexualised, typically while trying to sell us something. In 'The Secret Life of Catherine M'. Catherine remembers the beautiful anonymity of orgies, the free abandonment of herself to men. Similarly, theorist David Halperin describes gay bathhouses as opportunities for sex without elaborate straight courting rites. European philosophers and theologians have been at the forefront of this campaign against carnal joy and have deemed lust ignoble. Plato was writing in the 4th century before Christ and raised without any Christian shame. In his Symposium he portrays flirting with wit and charm and has no qualms about describing an erect penis. The generation after Plato, the early Stoics were not prudish about sex - statesman Seneca called desire a 'secret destruction'. The philosopher and commune leader Epicurus believed that sex was natural but superfluous and that sex was often healthier to relieve lust than not, especially if longing and love led to pain. Here is figurative fucking, achieving oneness, and sexual intercourse while being 'ashamed of being in the body'. For Augustine our genitals are wilful and capricious, and procreation without orgasm is the ideal. In his Paradise, men ejaculate like they might reach for a fruit - calmly, with no shudder. Aristotle rarely discussed sex and sexuality; 13th century theologian Thomas Aquinas married Augustine's fear of lust to Aristotle's virtue theory, and idea of a purposeful universe. For Aquinas, we were not made by God ...to wank or suck one another. These are all sins and the only allowable fucking is between a married man and woman to make babies.... In the 15th century, philosopher Marsilio Ficino was clearly in love with the younger Giovanni Cavalcanti, but was wary of 'the filths of the body' as he put it in De Amore. To many, screwing was safer as an intellectual or poetic trope than as an actual part of philosophical life. On sex, the most radical departure from medieval and Renaissance ideas came in the 18th century with philosophers like Rousseau, Diderot and Voltaire. The Marquis de Sade took this brazen materialism and turned it against his era's gentile rationality and the aristocratic aesthete used his position to rape and torture the poor, eventually being jailed then committed for his crimes. He was typical of another powerful man abusing women and another thinker who made sense of sex only by stripping it of everything but pure physicality. Inspired by philosophy, literature and private life, Damon Young explores the paradoxes of the bedroom in a book which more than teases your mind. 278pp.

Sub-titled 'Laying Bare and Learning to Repair Our Love Lives', here is a book to achieve better sex in ten steps by a renowned sex therapist. Think about the last time you had sex. Who initiated it? When and where did it happen? What was off-limits and why? Did you lose yourself in pleasure and connection, or did you come away feeling disappointed or even ashamed? Ian Kerner shows you how to create a sex life that works for you and helps you figure out what's working and what's not, where you might be missing some elements. He also discusses many common sexual problems such as low desire, issues with climaxing, and erectile unpredictability - and how to resolve them. He begins with desire and the call to sexual action, touch, psychological stimulation side by side and face to face, exploring erotic themes, expressing your inner kinks, deep arousal for male and female, that orgasm is a journey not a destination, entering a state of revery and getting your glow on. Create sex scripts that confirm meaning or might delay ejaculation, and he touches on porn, trauma and pain and gender dysphoria. For adults of all sexual persuasions, this is a very popular psychologist, and the sensitivity with which he writes about such personal and potentially embarrassing situations is extraordinary. For example Ella, who still had a penis and as a trans woman was taking medication which made her need to pee a lot and how her newish girlfriend Gemma suggested she wears an adult diaper, and how eventually Gemma was able to give Ella pleasure and move in a more sexual direction below the waist. There are fantastic sentences such as 'Think of G-spot stimulation as adding some serious bass to the treble of clitoral stimulation.' And 'Speaking of vibrators, we're living in a Golden Age of sex toys' (now better designed and produced). 354pp, large softback.

Lust, incest, greed, envy, pride, gluttony, murder. 'I haven't been much drawn to erotica or political allegory, but Chen Xiwo changed that.' - The Spectator. Chen Xiwo sued the Chinese authorities for banning this book, his terrifying exploration of the dark side of the human psyche. Seven novellas traverse a terrain of sexual and political deviance. In 'I Love My Mum', a disabled man who shares a bed with his mother becomes a murder suspect. In 'Kidney Tonic', a resident of an exclusive gated community indulges in voyeuristic fantasies about the sex lives of his neighbours. In 'Going to Heaven', the son of a village undertaker tries to convince his friend to enter a suicide pact. The author once worked as a 'mamasan' in a Tokyo brothel and is 'one of China's most outspoken voices on freedom of expression for writers.' A superb English translation, the text is designed to shock as we are taken into a dark world. 202pp, paperback.

Sophisticated nude photographs shot by Marc Lagrange with cool-brown tone coloration, these rare Polaroid 100 Chocolate images are from the last types of film ever to be produced before the Polaroid factory closed down permanently in 2009. This enticing series of carefully selected and mostly unpublished works of nude portraiture are dramatic and touching and shot on the sets of former large camera projects - sweeping staircases, pianos, vintage cars, manor houses and chaise longue, Moorish gardens, or a series with the Priest from 2010 who watches two naked women cavort in suspenders and high heels, then undress as he dabs his lips from the food and wine on the tableau. There are some black and Asian beauties, blondes with piercing eyes, lace bodystockings, even male and female ballerinas posed beautifully to show their physiques, a beauty dressed like Josephine Baker in an exotic bedroom, and slim beautiful naked women on every page of this special and rare collection, filled with longing and sensuality, fantasy and desire. 160pp, multilingual edition, brown chocolate cloth binding, 12" x 9½".
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'The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust Inside The White House' is the sub-title of this fascinating work of popular history by the New York Times bestselling author. She uncovers the bedroom secrets of American Presidents and explores the surprising ways voters have reacted to their leaders' sex scandals. Alexander Hamilton had a steamy affair with a blackmailing prostitute. Warren G. Harding once had to hide his mistress in a White House closet. John F. Kennedy swam nude with female staff in the White House swimming pool. Narcissism, a thirst for power, a desire for importance seem to go hand in hand with sexual promiscuity. In her eye-opening book, Eleanor Herman revisits some of the sex scandals that have shocked the public and asks provocative questions such as does rampant adultery show a lack of character or the stamina needed to run a country? Do Americans now care more about issues other than a politician's sex life? What is sex like with the most powerful man in the world? And when America finally elects a female president, will she too have sexual escapades in the Oval Office? Chapters include Thomas Jefferson's Pursuit of Happiness, Grover Cleveland's High Character, Woodrow Wilson's Throbbing Pulses, FDR and the Good-Looking Ladies, Gary Hart and the Monkey Business That Changed Everything, Bill Clinton Did Not Have Sex With That Woman, Donald Trump Can Do Anything, and From Ooh-La-La to Bunga-Bunga: The Political Sex Scandals of Other Nations. 367pp, paperback.

Ren Hang, who took his life February 23, 2017, was an unlikely rebel. Slight of build, shy by nature, prone to fits of depression, the 29-year-old Beijing photographer was nonetheless at the forefront of Chinese artists' battle for creative freedom. Like his champion Ai Weiwei, Ren was controversial in his homeland and wildly popular in the rest of the world. His models, friends, and in his last years, fans, are naked, often outdoors, high in the trees or on the terrifyingly vertiginous rooftops of Beijing, stacked like building blocks, heads wrapped in octopi, body cavities sprouting phone cords and flowers, whatever entered his mind at the moment. He denied his intentions were sexual, and there is a clean detachment about even his most extreme images: the urine, the insertions, the many, many erections. In a 2013 interview said "It's not just dicks I?m interested in, I like to portray every organ in a fresh, vivid and emotional way." True though that may be, the penises Ren photographed were not just fresh and vivid, but unusually large. Hang also stated, "Gender isn't important when I'm taking pictures, it only matters to me when I'm having sex," making him a pioneer of gender inclusiveness. Young fans still eagerly flock to his website and Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr accounts. His photographs, all produced on film, have been the subject of over 20 solo and 70 group shows in his brief six-year career. He self-published 16 monographs, in tiny print runs. Taschen's new book covers his entire career, with well-loved favorites and many never-before-seen photos of men, women, Beijing, and those many, many erections. Text in English, French and German. 8.9" x 11.8", 312 pages. New from Taschen.

Celtic sex aims to deliver a spell by harnessing the energy of orgasm, whether performed singly, in couples or in groups. This book describes in detail how to do it, with a focus on keeping the visualisation of the spell at the front of consciousness while subject to increasing sexual excitement, and in the case of a group, achieving the necessary control to release the energy of orgasm simultaneously. The author belongs to a Druidic tradition whose secrets are closely guarded, and he places emphasis on using the techniques described as part of an ongoing journey towards awareness of the infinite within the belief system of paganism. Aspects of these techniques, for instance the lack of distinction between homosexual and heterosexual activity, may be illegal in some cultures and the author warns against contravening the law. A further warning is that love has no place in the use of sex as part of magic, and practitioners are urged to put aside emotional involvement. The spell is written down, circulated among a group for approval, and then visualised or made part of the practitioner's everyday thoughts. Visualisation is followed by entering and exiting the collective space through different portals. The tools of performing the ritual are discussed here, including a wooden wand, stave, dagger, chalice, libation vessels, cauldron, phallus, and a working stone or surface. You are now ready to start the rituals of sex magic, from awakening and arousal to orgasm. This is followed by cleansing and purifying, unsealing and erasing the circle. Final chapters give advice on details specific to the individual, for instance creating your own ritual salt. Illustrated by line drawings, this book contains sexually explicit material. 230pp, softback.

Considered young Hollywood's favourite photographer, this ultra modernist and hyper-synthetic aesthetic appeals to the young at heart and the super saucy who love sexy photo shoots. He has acquired a dazzling celebrity clientele such as Miley Cyrus, Paris Hilton, Nicki Minaj, Gwen Stefani and Kim Kardashian West. Fascinated by all who defy norms, genders and boundaries, this former assistant of David La Chapelle never ceases to celebrate our differences in fantasy worlds where Paris Hilton eats an ice cream wearing a teeny frilly pair of panties and bra, Rita Ora looks painted and beautiful, a huge transvestite with yellow hair and black lipstick and nails holds a bottle of Chanel parfum, and in the same colour scheme a transvestite with a Marilyn Monroe blonde wig and huge breasts lies on a bright yellow and white rug wearing vertiginous black stilettos and surrounded by five fluffy white pussy cats. On the page before she is posed towering over a semi naked large lady on all fours. Glammed up to the nines, beautifully made up in feminine lingerie, furs and posed against colourful backgrounds and surreal settings, whether you are familiar with the models or not, these are the most striking, provocative, sensual, lustrous, colourfully created, bizarrely eccentric and fantastically imaginative set of photographs in an art book ever. Slip into some latex, squirt whipped cream over your bum, blow bubbles, pour milk all over the place, light a cigarette and enjoy these elegant and saucy romps. 256 large pages, 23.8 x 31cm.
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