Alexandra Solomon’s Taking Sexy Back

Although sex is something you (usually) experience with another person, your sexuality is yours.

Alexandra Solomon’s Taking Sexy Back is a very reaffirming book on the complicated nature of women’s sexuality. Having surveyed quite a few of the books within this genre, I find her to be reasonable but a little generic. However, I did find her sections on trauma sexuality very helpful. It’s good to hear how trauma affects a female’s sexuality especially in conjunction with the judgmental nature of social narratives regarding preferences. Recently, I watched the film Hotel (2002) featuring Salma Hayek and a number of other fantastic actors. The film features a scene in which a woman pegs her sexual partner. It was not clear to me whether the couple was married, but I thought about this book suddenly. Two points flashed before my mind: (1) the scandalous idea that the woman found it enjoyable to perform that specific act on a willing partner, (2) the ambiguous nature of the male’s sexuality; regardless of the act performed for the camera, he isn’t necessarily homosexual in the “conventional” sense.

One-third of all women will be subjected to sexual violence in their lifetime, and the risk of sexual violence is higher for women of color and for those who belong to the LGBTQ+ community.

If women cannot say no, then women cannot truly say yes.

Consent is a huge, huge issue in society today! I think I was part of a generation that had to learn a lot about sexuality independently. Through trial and error, mostly error if I’m honest, we figured out a lot of truths and facts that were not common knowledge for us growing up. So, for me, this book was more of a warm reassurance. I think for an older generation that didn’t really have the opportunity to develop a sense of sexual freedom this book would be a great read. I kept thinking it would be a great read in Spanish for the older divorced generations that married young and didn’t have much experience prior to marriage and whose experience during marriage sucked. Having become familiar with Alexandra Solomon on Instagram, I give her props for having such a warm personality. Though Taking Sexy Back was a lukewarm read for me, I actually look forward to reading her other work.

Pleasure is quite literally your birthright.

Work Cited

Solomon PhD, Alexandra. Taking Sexy Back, New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 2020. Accessed via CloudLibrary 2022.