A clear-eyed and deeply humane exploration of how people may heal from sexual violence.
A self-help book on how survivors of sexual assault can pursue fulfilling sex lives.
Drawing on interviews with other survivors of sexual abuse and assault, as well as her own experiences, the author explores how one can find sexual agency and satisfaction after such trauma. She covers a wealth of underaddressed issues, including the necessity—and difficulty—of breaking away from violent long-term relationships; the role of friends, family, and counselors in offering help; the process of disclosing a history of assault to sexual partners; and the often agonizing hurdle of a first sexual encounter after such trauma. The book also addresses panic attacks and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress that can strike even during consensual sex, working out issues of consent with partners, the complex effects that trauma has on one’s sexual desires, and the unique concerns of men and queer people who have experienced assault. Simon notes that some survivors go through what she describes in herself as “slutty phases” or enjoy safely reenacting aspects of their experience. She mentions a few specific treatments, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy, which involves “rhythmic tapping or visuals to draw the eyes to the left and right,” but mainly she recommends clear communication with partners to explain problems, set boundaries, and straightforwardly voice wants and needs. Simon’s treatment of this difficult subject is frank, broadly accepting of diverse reactions, and forthrightly sex-positive, asserting that survivors can and should expect to recover a gratifying sex life. Throughout, her writing is evocative, raw, and psychologically rich, as when she describes a first sexual experience after an assault: “Though I was relieved that sleeping with him felt good emotionally, I felt overwhelmed by the physicality of it. More than once while we slept together that night, I nonverbally indicated I needed a pause because I felt a panic attack.…He just smiled and lay still next to me while I cried and tried to breathe. Meanwhile, I was mentally kicking myself for disrupting what was otherwise pretty great sex.” Survivors and their partners will find reassurance and resonant sympathy here. The author includes suggestions for further reading and a list of resources.
A clear-eyed and deeply humane exploration of how people may heal from sexual violence.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9780806542768
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Citadel/Kensington
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
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