Sexual Ecstasy | Making Love
In 1972 Alex Comfort published The Joy of Sex, an illustrated book celebrating sexual playfulness, curiosity and erotic delight. Nothing had ever been seen like it: it sold millions and is still in print (see below)!
We've called this website The Joy of Making Love partly in homage to Dr. Comfort - and also because ecstatic sex is profoundly joyous! Ester Perel said, "Sex isn't something you do -- it's someplace you go." The books we recommend here are excellent introductions, invitations, and guidebooks to the joyous universe of sexual ecstasy.
Recommended Books on Sexual Ecstasy
This landmark book on human sexuality makes the sacred lovemaking techniques of the East fully comprehensible to western readers. Elegantly illustrated and filled with detailed exercises, it helps the reader acquire new attitudes and broaden his or her range of experience. The book is especially strong on methods for couples to revitalize and strengthen their relationship. 1991, Jeremy P. Tarcher
Dr. Sprinkle's Spectacular Sex: Make Over Your Love Life with One of the World's Great Sex Experts
Annie Sprinkle has done it all. From porn star to stripper to performance artist to sex-life coach, she has confronted (and experimented with) just about everything sex-related under the sun. In Dr. Sprinkle's Spectacular Sex, she shares with readers a powerful program for improving the overall quality of your life through better understanding and embracing one of the most powerful sources of happiness in our lives: sex. Annie Sprinkle provides encouragement and inspiration for anyone who longs for greater intimacy, excitement, and pleasure. She invites readers to make a virtual visit to "Dr. Sprinkle's Sex-Life Makeover Spa," where they will undertake a fourteen-step program that begins with "Makeover Your Mind" and ends with "Bask in the Afterglow." 2005, Jeremy P. Tarcher
Ecstatic Sex : A Guide to the Pleasures of Tantra
In Ecstatic Sex, Tantric partners and longtime teachers of the Tantric approach to life and love, Ma Ananda Sarita and Swami Anand Geho, present an eye-opening course in the sexual aspects of Tantra. Exploring everything from basic sexual anatomy and opening your chakras to self-pleasuring, foreplay, creative positions, and orgasm, this book will teach you -- whether you are single or married -- to enhance the pleasure, sensuality, and satisfaction of your every sexual experience. 2003, Fireside
ESO: How You and Your Lover Can Give Each Other Hours of Extended Sexual Orgasm
Drs. Alan and Donna Brauer have redefined what it means to unlock sexual potential. Through years of research and clinical work, they have developed an amazing technique which will revolutionize readers' sex lives. This classic guide will help readers learn how to use new discoveries in anatomy to increase pleasure; apply advanced stimulation techniques; employ honest communication to give and get more pleasure; overcome inhibitions, solve problems, and enrich relationships; and give partners more pleasure than ever before . 2001, Grand Central Publishing
"How are we to liberate the human potential to experience love, freedom and joy?" asks sexuality educator Barratt in this provocative and persuasive book. The answer? "It comes not through philosophical reasoning, nor through theological argument, nor through proclamations of belief, and not from any attempt at adherence to lofty ideals and inspiring narratives. Rather, our human potential to experience love, freedom and joy, comes from the sensual flesh of our embodiment." 2009, Xlibris
Maps to Ecstasy: The Healing Power of Movement
Gabrielle Roth, who has taught expressive movement to thousands of people around the world, takes us on a shamanic journey that leads us to explore the whole self -- body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit -- and move from the limits of the ego to the expanses of the soul. Maps to Ecstasy initiates us into the five sacred rhythms inherent in all our actions and shows us how to turn our lives into art, discovering the dancer, singer, poet, actor and healer within. 1998, New World Library
The Multi-Orgasmic Couple: Sexual Secrets Every Couple Should Know
The Multi-Orgasmic Couple will show you and your partner how to experience intense multiple whole-body orgasms; pleasure each other profoundly; use sexuality for health and healing; deepen your love and spiritual relationship. Couples will discover simple step-by-step techniques for a level of sexual pleasure, intimacy, and healing they may not have known was possible. This fully illustrated guide will inspire couples to make love all night-and make love last a lifetime. 2002, HarperOne
The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know
Offering men clear and practical guidelines for reaching their real but seldom-realized sexual potential, The Multi-Orgasmic Man vividly explores these extraordinary facts: by learning to separate orgasm and ejaculation (two distinct physical processes) men can transform the momentary release of ejaculation into countless peaks of whole-body orgasms. Men who experience multiple orgasms report increased vitality and longevity, by avoiding the fatigue and depletion that follow ejaculation. This book shows you how! 1997, HarperOne
The Multi-Orgasmic Woman: Discover Your Full Desire, Pleasure, and Vitality
For women who seek heightened spiritual consciousness with their extended and multiple orgasms, Chia and Abrams prescribe a series of meditations and exercises from the Chinese Taoist tradition. The authors' inclusive language speaks to all women, regardless of age, sexual orientation, relationship status, orgasm tendencies or level of experience with meditation. The good, basic information on general sexual health and wellness emphasizes holistic approaches to maintenance and treatment, and the primer on the fundamentals of chi (energy) provides a solid overview of the theoretical basis for the methods developed to cultivate and use this energy. 2006, Rodale Books
A new edition of the best-selling classic guide to sex features completely redone illustrations, erotic duotone photographs, and a text that has been restructured to address today’s health concerns. Witty, wise, uninhibited, frank and exuberant discussion of sex. 1992, Pocket Books
The Pleasure Zone: Why We Resist Good Feelings & How to Let Go and Be Happy
In this groundbreaking work, author Stella Resnick links a happy and fulfilling life to one's ability to enjoy fully eight core pleasures, among them pain relief, play and humor, and mental, emotional, sexual and spiritual pleasure. In an accessible and inviting style, Resnick discusses each core pleasure in detail, pointing out subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which people may deny themselves each one. 1997, Conari Press
Radical Ecstasy: SM Journeys to Transcendence
Leather, tantra and spirit combine in this revolutionary sex book, which partners BDSM and sacred-sex practices. For millennia, seekers have used physical and emotional extremes to achieve transcendence and exaltation. Today, many BDSM and leather practitioners are discovering the potential of SM practice to reach personal, interpersonal and spiritual goals. With trademark frankness and humor, these popular BDSM/sexuality authors share techniques using tantric breathing, visualization and movement with BDSM to create states of transcendence during solo and partnered sexual and practice. The authors also document their own journeys into the realm of transcendent kink: one author journeys Eastern and pagan spiritual paths while the other struggles to accept bliss. They share their triumphs, too: when conceptual frameworks cease to matter and bodies and spirits combine in radical ecstasy. 2004, Greenery Press
Drs. Broder and Goldman help readers combine the oldest wisdom with the newest research to achieve sexual ecstasy. This guide contains more up- to-date information from qualified sources than any other book-including interviews with a variety of noted psychologists, including Dr. Lonnie Barbach and Dr. Albert Ellis. Readers will discover how to optimize their sex life with the five ingredients of ultimate sexual satisfaction, attitudes and practices conducive to spectacular sex (and how to achieve them), strategies for overcoming obstacles to great sex, and how to train the brain to fall in love again. 2004, Alpha
Sexual Ecstasy: The Art of Orgasm
In Sexual Ecstasy, Margot Anand offers a magnificently illustrated, concise, and step-by-step guide to giving magical orgasms to your partner, male or female. Sexual Ecstasy will help you bring fresh awareness to sexually sensitive areas and new ways of caressing these areas; open the way for ecstatic states of orgasm; reveal and dissolve psychological and emotional blocks inhibiting the flow of orgasmic energy; and enhance communication between you and your love partner, deepening your sense of intimacy. 2000, Jeremy P. Tarcher
Sexual Energy Ecstasy: A Practical Guide to Lovemaking Secrets of the East and West
A Joy of Sex for the new age, this treasury of eastern and western sexual secrets will help couples enjoy the best physical and spiritual relationship possible. The book contains Tantric and Taoist techniques of sacred sexuality, guided meditation passages, and tasteful drawings. 1995 Bantam Books
Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving
This artfully illustrated book distills the art of Tantric practice into simple language with clear explanations, helpful exercises and gentle encouragement. Charles and Caroline Muir offer modern couples ancient Tantric secrets for deepening relationships, intimacy, and passion. 1990, Mercury House
Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love
Daniel Odier writes about his search to find a Tantric master. On the verge of giving up, he retreats to a small village in India where he finds a great Tantric master, Devi, in the forest. She agrees to take him on as her student and warns him that his journey will be difficult. As the master-student bond is strengthened, Devi's teachings become more deep and subtle. The final part of the time spent with Devi involves his initiation into Tantric ritual sexuality, the joining of Shiva and Shakti, which causes the rising of the Kundalini, the sacred spiritual force that purifies the body. Odier also relates the challenges of coming back to the "real world" to use what he learned. 1997, Inner Traditions
Transcendent Sex: When Lovemaking Opens the Veil
Developmental psychologist Wade claims that lovemaking can be a path to soulful realization. In this book based on first-hand accounts of nearly 100 respondents, she describes ordinary people's spontaneous spiritual awakenings through transcendent sex. Wade describes many forms that mystical experience may take, provides warnings on the down side of altered state sex and offers suggestions for facilitating transcendent sex. A fascinating and unusual book. 2004, Pocket
Women Who Love Sex: An Inquiry into the Expanding Spirit of Women's Erotic Experience
This intelligent and readable book reframes conventional ideas about how women experience sexual relationship. Based on original research with women whose stories inform each chapter, it questions male-centered definitions of sexual desire and performance. 1999, Womanspirit Press
