Best Books on Sex & Intimacy

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Whether it’s a rainy day and you want to curl up by the fire, or it’s summer time and you’re raring to go to the beach and relax by the water, these books are going to heat things up for you in the bedroom.

I’ve compiled a list of life-changing books that have helped me — and my clients — transform their relationship to themselves, their desires and to each other.

Disclosure: To make it easier for you to find these books, I’ve included a link to Amazon. And as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. When you click on the links in this post and buy the book, I earn a small commission.

On Creating a Foundation of Safety for Intimacy

  • Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson — Learn why emotional safety is the bedrock of intimacy (including sexual intimacy) in a romantic relationship and learn seven key conversations to reestablish safe emotional connection with each other from the therapist who has been called the “Best Therapist in the World” by John Gottman.

  • We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection, and Enduring Love - by Stan Tatkin - Learn how to create a relationship that is deep and powerful even if you are just in the beginning stages of the relationship. Build the foundations strong, and realize what does it mean on the deepest level to turn toward each other

  • Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love - by John and Julie Gottman - this book gives you a structure of eight dates with separate topics to discuss. It includes the actual questions you will ask each other, and have a lot of examples and stories that help you get to a deeper understanding of the importance of each topic

  • Wired for Love - by Stan Tatkin — If you’ve ever wondered “What the heck is my partner thinking?" this book will explain how and why we behave the way we do in relationships. It happens that every person is wired for love differently — with different brain patterns, habits, needs, and the way they react to conflict. Thanks to Tatkin’s book, we can predictably identify these behaviors and intentionally learn to meet each other in a safe and intimate way. Part research, part practical how-to guide, the book presents 10 easy principles that can improve any relationship. I especially recommend the audio version Your Brain on Love: The Neurobiology of Healthy Relationships narrated by Tatkin himself. It’s funny and is even more packed with life-changing information.

  • Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box - by The Arbinger Institute - this book is not a traditional book about relationships. But it shows you how we all deceive ourselves into bad decisions that affect people around us. A must read if you often hear voices inside your head telling you what other people are trying to do (a.k.a how we sometimes making assumptions)

  • The Queen's Code - by Alison Armstrong - this is a must read for any woman looking to understand her male partner, and why men look great at the early stages of the relationship, and then at some point turn into a disaster to hang around. Find out how men transform from princes to frogs, and what you can do to keep them at a state where they want to protect and provide for you.

On Women's Sexual Pleasure 

  • Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski, PhD - Groundbreaking book that maps out the differences in libido, including the differences between “spontaneous” and”responsive” sexual desire, and provides questions and tools to explore the contexts that allow yours to come alive.

  • Women's Anatomy of Arousal by Sheri Winston - Whether you're a woman or a man who loves women and who wishes to learn how to fully participate in the pleasure of a woman, this book is for you! It’s a truthful and eye-opening guide to the female genitalia in a way that we’ve never seen or understood before. 

  • Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf - this groundbreaking work includes culture, science and a holistic understanding of the vagina and its implications on all that is feminine

  • Wild Feminine, Finding Power, Spirit & Joy in the Female Body by Tami Lynn Kent — This book beautifully demystifies what it means to connect with your sacred feminine through your body. Through stories, visualizations, and creative exercises, she guides you to come back to yourself as a woman and be able to read the wisdom arising within. A must read if you want to understand the workings of the female pelvis, the womb, and the pussy — and their magic. 

  • Pussy: A Reclamation by Regena Thomashauer — Regena, aka Mana Gena, is an icon, iconoclast and a tour-de-force in the female sexual education realm. In Pussy, she takes on the word that brings up no uncertain visceral reactions and is “arguably the most powerful pejorative word in the English language” to be a wake-up call and a reclamation of the feminine. Pussy aims (and succeeds) to reconnect you to your own power source—which is the part of our body that we’ve been taught to ignore, push down, and despise.

  • Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Using archetypal storytelling, Estes covers every aspect of women's lives and paints picture of women’s relationships with love to anger, finding and learning to trust our wild wisdom, and relating to the world.

  • The Man's Guide to Women: Scientifically Proven Secrets from the Love Lab About What Women Really Want by John Gottman - Based on 40 years of research, this guide unlocks the mystery of how to attract, satisfy, and succeed with a woman for a lifetime.

On Sex & Sexual Desire in a Long-term Relationship: 

On Recovering from Trauma

Which one of them do you already know of or maybe have read?
Got others you recommend?

Share your comments in the blog post below and let’s all have a great learning summer!

P.S. When you’re ready to find your way back to yourself and your partner, here are a few options for you:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. When you click on the links in this post and buy the book, I earn a small commission.