Books
Books
Sex, Health, and Consciousness:
How to Reclaim Your Pleasure Potential by Liz Goldwyn
Explore how the intersection of sex, health, and consciousness unlocks a new paradigm of pleasure.
Our sexuality is an integral part of who we are, yet our understanding of sex has been warped by everything from age-old taboos and religious dogma to a popular culture that views sexuality as transactional. With Sex, Health, and Consciousness, Liz Goldwyn, founder of the thriving online platform and podcast The Sex Ed, has created an inclusive, holistic, and much-needed guide to sexual well-being―and the pleasure that’s possible when we embrace our sexuality as a natural part of a healthy human experience.
In this comprehensive resource, Goldwyn shows readers how to expand their pleasure potential through an in-depth exploration of how our sexuality, physical and emotional health, and consciousness are intimately woven together. Gender fluid and non-age specific, Sex, Health, and Consciousness goes well beyond Sex 101, covering spiritual and energetic influences on sexuality―such as the chakra system, yin and yang energies, mindfulness practice, and more―along with social and biological factors―including research on sexual health and first-person accounts of sexual awakening.
“In order to have the best relationship with your sexuality, and therefore the best sex possible, you need to make sure your mind, body, and consciousness are in alignment,” writes Goldwyn. “Because experiencing greater joy, connection, and pleasure is your birthright.”
Sporting Guide: Los Angeles, 1897
by Liz Goldwyn
A brilliantly imaginative, illustrated recreation of an 1890s Los Angeles pocket guide, or "Sporting Guide," to the brothels of the day.
Los Angeles, 1897, When Vice Ruled The City
Long before the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, Los Angeles was a city where dreamers from all over the world came to make their fortunes—where a madam named Pearl Morton entertained the most powerful politicians and entrepreneurs inside her namesake brothel. In a series of haunting, interlinked stories set in the period, author and filmmaker Liz Goldwyn re-creates a “sporting guide”—a secret diary and guidebook of the best brothels and prostitutes in the city. In this world a hushed conversation inside a velvet-lined boudoir could destroy a man, and the rustle of bushes might reveal a sordid assignation. Based on original research in the libraries and archives of Los Angeles, these fictional stories are often inspired by real historical characters—like the laudanum-addicted Cora Phillips, whose tombstone Goldwyn rediscovered, or Bartolo Ballerino, Italian immigrant slumlord of the forgotten red-light district, or thirteen-year-old Frances dreaming of life beyond the Children’s Orphan Asylum. Interspersed in these stories—and featuring over a hundred historical photos and illustrations—Goldwyn reveals the history of the period, from the rage for corsets to crushed pearl powder cosmetics and the awful cures for syphilis. Sporting Guide evokes a lost world of those on the margins of Los Angeles, of the hustlers who made it into one of the great cities of the world, and Goldwyn gives a poignant voice to the people and stories forgotten by time.
Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queen
by Liz Goldwyn
“The most comprehensive study on the era of burlesque.” —V Magazine
Training her journalist’s eye on the glitter and glamour of American burlesque’s Greatest Generation, Liz Goldwyn takes readers on an enthralling tour of the original queens of the striptease. Goldwyn’s incisive expose is a retrospective of the sights and spectacles of burlesque’s golden age—and an intimate look at the women whose sexuality, ambition, and verve brought the cabaret stage to life. Today, as burlesque enters a heady resurgence worldwide—with festivals around the globe, popular books like Burlesque Fetish and The Burlesque Handbook, and even a School of Burlesque in New York City—Pretty Things offers a unique and exciting look at its formative past and its earliest heroines.