SHARED INTIMACIES: Women's Sexual Experiences

This is one of those sex compilations likely to give some readers ideas and others nausea. It's based on the premise that women are so constrained by social no-nos that they seldom feel free to chatter about sex among themselves: hence, the authors elicited pseudonymous comments from 120 interviewees to fill our information gap. Of course, some people will enjoy learning how ingeniously others ""set the scene"" for ""gourmet love-making"": special lighting, oils, crotchless lacy underwear, etc. Others will delight in hearing that it's A-OK to masturbate (""it tones your body for intercourse with a partner,"" one woman informs us). And still others will appreciate attention to special issues: how to have a satisfying love life throughout pregnancy, while the kids are underfoot, and in later years. But the book is talky, talky, talky: the women are quoted at length, so much so that the authors have no recognizable voice; and beyond the earthy ""hints and solutions"" that the interviewees offer, most of them sound very much alike. Yes, Barbach and Levine do sum up here and there--timidly, tentatively--but even that sum is no greater than its individual parts. For highly specific solutions to individual problems only.