I have finished the second draft of the book I have been writing since May 2023, on the subject of the positive aspects of self-loving, masturbation, and solo sex.
This second draft greatly expands the book’s length. I added new sections on skillful means such as meditation and nude yoga. I added several new illustrations, especially in the section on masturbation within relationships. What can I say, it was an excuse to do more sexy drawings—some of which I have shared in this newsletter. I also moved some pages around to where they fit better topically, or into the flow of the book’s text. There is a lot of new material, added after the round of feedback I received on the first draft.
This book’s emphasis remains the same: on loving yourself, on pleasure, on joy, and on healing your self-esteem and self-doubt, both sexual and bodily. Lots of suggested exercises are about overcoming body shame, shyness, and the kinds of self-censorship we are taught to impose on ourselves.
Seriously, I never thought I’d write a book like this. I mean, it’s the sort of thing I have written about in my private erotic journal—some excerpts of which are in this book—but I never thought I’d do so quite this publicly.
It is in some ways an old-fashioned sex ed book, along the lines of that first generation of popular books on sex—which were mostly all very hetero. A book on masturbation like this is intended for individuals or every gender and sexuality. It’s not a sexual technique manual, it’s a personal book with ideas to hopefully inspire readers to become more open and free. After all, almost everyone masturbates, and almost everyone can give themselves an orgasm when masturbating, even if they have a difficult time climaxing during sex. I made a point, in the section on masturbation in relationships, to remind readers to take the pressure off themselves to “perform.” An orgasm isn’t the main goal of masturbation; self-loving is.
I have sent the book to a small circle of queer and other friends, for feedback. If you would like to be an additional beta reader, and provide me feedback on this draft, message me.
I would like to get this book published. I would prefer not to self-publish, but I will. (My hesitance about self-publishing is that marketing and education are full time jobs I would have to find the spoons to do, and probably not do well.) I am open to suggestions are to where to try to place the book, or which sex ed or radical publishers to submit the manuscript to.
Today I was reminded of a quite by feminist queer radical author bell hooks, whose writings I highly recommend. I get a lot from her books, both for myself and in thinking about our culture.
bell hooks writes about being queer. I needed this reminder today that being queer is about more than just who you have sex with. It’s about finding yourself a safe ground to stand on:
“queer not as being who you are having sex with, that can be a dimension of it, but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
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