Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture

By Cleis Press

In Best Sex Writing 2012, editor Rachel Kramer Bussel and judge Susie Bright collect 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. From an "X-Rated Jew," a sex blogger's custody battle and teen sex laws to SlutWalks, female pleasure workshops, porn star celebrities, gays in the military, and "guys who like fat chicks," Best Sex Writing 2012 goes behind the headlines to explore the intricacies of sex and aging, sex and the law, and many other hot topics. With a foreword and selections by renowned sexpert Susie Bright, this collection is timely, powerful and provocative, and touches on the most cutting-edge issues facing our culture today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cleis Press
• Release date: Jan 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781573447713

Reviews for Best Sex Writing 2012

[ennuiprayer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's simple math, isn't it? Start off with Rachel Kramer Bussel, add in Susie Bright, mix in the sex and you have yourself Best Sex Writing 2012.

Susie Bright selected the best of the best of the year passed, and her ability to read and choose has not waned since her departure from - and the untimely death of - The Best American Erotica. And Rachel Kramer Bussel is equally awesome.

The collection contains articles, essays, and pieces by Thomas Roche, Amber Dawn, Joan Price, Marty Klein, Susie Bright, and Rachel Kramer Bussel. The wind range of topics extends (no pun intended) the idiocy behind banning circumcision to rape culture to growing up queer in the Meatpacking District.

In Marty Klein's piece, "Criminalizing Circumcision: Self-Hatred as Public Policy," follows San Francisco's insane idea to outlaw circumcision in infants. It's the first - can I call it pro-circumcision? - positive circumcision piece I've read. It addresses the myths that anti-circumcision "activists" tout, and explains that any "physical" lacking a circumcised man feels is strictly psychological.

In "Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture," Abby Tallmer reminiscences about growing up in the Meatpacking District in the midst of the queer and leather nightclubs, reminding us to never take our presents for granted because they can simply be erased.

Both Susie Bright and Thomas Roche pieces attack the laughable "news reporting" of major newspapers that fail at fact checking and op-eds how the media fails our sexual society by filling people's minds with the Christian Right-wing agenda.

Greta Christiana, on the other hand, reports how a secular lifestyle might improve your sex life over a religious one. In "Atheists Do It Better: Why Leaving Religion Leads to Better Sex," we learn that secular households tend to do it, well, better. Not only in the bedroom, but with raising children, as well. (You'll have to read the piece.)

"Grief, Resilience, and My 66th Birthday Gift" teaches us the sex life of an older woman and author, Joan Price. From finding someone to spend her life with, to the dynamic of her sex life to the grief she felt when he passed to regaining her sexual self afterward. The piece is possibly the best in the collection - in my humble opinion, anyway.

All in all, Best Sex Writing 2012 is worth the read and a place on your shelf or e-reader.