ABSTRACT
The sexual experience notoriously defies clear-cut categorizing. What constitutes pleasure, what turns a person on, when and why— these are some of life's kaleidoscopic questions. If people could know a lot more about sex in psychological, physiological, sociological ways, they would be more protected against misinformation and hysteria. The idea that the best sex life comes from surrender to the unknown—like in the movies, being swept away by the waves—it's a myth. In Leonore Tiefer's view, sex can be ecstatic or boring, but it can also be something in the middle: a way to comfort others, to find relief from the drudgeries of our lives; an affirmation of our ability to please someone else, as well as an affirmation of our own desirability. Her goal is to decrease people's anxiety about sex, to put its importance into reasonable perspective.
