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Vagina: A New Biography [Paperback]

Naomi Wolf
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
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Book Description

6 Sep 2012

An astonishing new work that radically changes how we think about, talk about and understand the vagina - and consequently how we think about women and sexuality - from Naomi Wolf, one of our most respected cultural critics and author of the modern classic, The Beauty Myth.

As Naomi Wolf embarks on a life-changing journey to tease out the link between sexuality and creativity, what she discovers is revelatory and exhilarating - a scientifically supported link between the vagina and female courage, assertiveness and consciousness itself. Emboldened by these new discoveries she looks back in history and show us how the vagina was considered sacred for centuries until it began to be cast as a threat. Even now in an increasingly sexualised world, it is thought of as slightly shameful. Why?

Vagina: A New Biography combines cutting-edge science with cultural history to explore the role of female desire and how it affects female identity, creativity and confidence. Provocative and engaging, positive and inspiring, this book brings to light female impulses, history and dreams - and, in exploring what women really need - it goes to the very core of what it means to be female.

For any woman who wants to understand her body and her mind and the culture that defines her - Vagina is essential reading.


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Vagina: A New Biography + The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women + Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism
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Product details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Virago (6 Sep 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1844086887
  • ISBN-13: 978-1844086887
  • Product Dimensions: 15.7 x 3.1 x 23.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 13,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

Naomi Wolf has tried hard to look at female sexuality as it really is, not as pop culture or political correctness would like it to be... The science of female arousal is complex and woefully neglected, and Wolf has done us all a favour by trying to drag it into the mainstream (Jemima Lewis The Mail on Sunday )

Wolf's tome could not be better timed... at a time when Western women's bodies have never been more highly politicised, the one person who might be able to shine a ray of light... has to be Wolf. Perhaps this history will do for 21st century activism what The Beauty Myth did for 1990s feminists... Wolf is exploring territory we haven't heard about since Germaine Greer in the 1970 (Viv Goskrup Independent on Sunday )

Worth respecting, even celebrating... there is [here] a very intriguing thesis about love... If you are one of those School of Cosmo feminists who has been arguing for decades that women should be more like men sexually... then Wolf's take is genuinely revolutionary (Sarah Vine The Times )

Part memoir, part cultural history and part scientific journey around women's sexuality, the best elements of which illuminate how little women generally know about their own anatomy... (Emma Brockes Guardian )

Book Description

Naomi Wolf is back, with a book that is as exciting, dramatic and controversial as The Beauty Myth

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and essential reading 3 Oct 2012
Format:Paperback
This is a well researched, well reasoned book about the vagina. Historically and sociologically interesting, backed up by excellent medical research and interviews with experts. Naomi takes us on her personal journey where she experiences a debilitating condition which starts to affect her nervous system and hence, her sex life.
I read this book in three days flat. Eminently readable, sometimes laugh aloud funny and sometimes just so enlightening I read bits of it out to my husband. Other parts are sadly touching and others, just sad, especially the history of sexual repression against women and Naomi's theories about the use of rape in war (It's not personal, it's just a tactic). Other bits confirmed what I already knew, like why I like sniffing my husband's neck so much. :D

Do note that this book has been written from a heterosexual POV and non hetero people might find that there's not much that might apply, but I can't say that for sure. Naomi makes that clear in the opening and much of the book is based on female and male interactions with each other which are chemically driven. Saying that, I think a lot applies to female gay couples and would certainly be of interest.
This is a book that I'd hand on to my kids to read when they're old enough... late teens/early 20's. In this world of instant hook ups, porn and the fairly poor view people hold of the beauty of female sexuality, it's important to slow down, read the data and change the way we do things.

If you're an interested, vaguely intelligent woman who likes a good read and who would like to connect with your body AND your male partner more than you are, then this is for you.
... Read more ›
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Naomi Wolf's new book embodies deep problems with pop science publishers and their relationship with the media: her work brings in the bucks, so Ecco Press (HarperCollins) publishes what they refer to in their marketing blurb as "rigorous science" without bothering to double-check her claims with any neuroscientists. The media largely takes Wolf's statements at face value, understandably assuming that no major publisher would gamble their reputation by putting this stuff into print without at least a cursory round of fact-checking. But the "science" in this book is largely misleading or just wrong.

To learn the details, Google for these articles:
- Neuroscientists take aim at Naomi Wolf's theory of the "conscious vagina"
- Naomi Wolf's "Vagina" is full of bad science about the brain
- Pride and Prejudice, by Zoë Heller (The New York Review of Books)
- Feminist Dopamine, Conscious Vaginas, and the Goddess Array
- Of Mice and Women: Animal Models of Desire, Dread, and Despair
- Upstairs, Downstairs; `Vagina: A New Biography,' by Naomi Wolf (The New York Times)

Wolf leapt to fame with her 1991 book The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women, which argued that culture's idea of female beauty is entirely socially constructed, primarily by men, in order to keep women down. Following publication, research by Devendra Singh and others confirm that both men and women from a broad spectrum of cultures (even those who don't have magazines or television) uniformly agree that they find women with a waist-to-hip ratio of between 0.6-0.8 the most attractive -- which makes sense biologically, given that a 0.
... Read more ›
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars That oceanic feeling...... 18 Nov 2012
By Louisa
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I had never heard of the 'oceanic feeling' before I read this book, but I knew, when I read it, exactly what it meant. The fact that this feeling is reported in a book that is essentially about sex, made a lightbulb turn on in my head – no wonder I had never come across it before, my vagina is the last place I would have looked for it. Naomi describes the oceanic feeling thus:

“[the woman] is in a state of a kind of perfection, in harmony with and in connection with the world……in that state of consciousness, the inner voices that say the woman is not good enough, not beautiful enough, not pleasing enough to others are stilled…..and the sense of….a universal or divine feminine can be accessed. Major creative insights, and powerful work, can emerge after an experience of transcendence of this kind.”

Naomi has written a beautiful Ode to the Vagina in this book which she started to research whilst trying to heal a blockage in her pelvic nerve, (which she had injured years before during a fall down a flight of stairs) where, she discovered there is a mass of neurons and pathways connecting the vagina to the brain. This connection is critically important to a woman’s well being and a creates an ‘oceanic feeling’ during and after (sometimes for a long time after) sex, where she experiences moments of expansion and connection to the sublime. Naomi herself, who lost that connection through her injuries and crucially regained it again after she was healed, charts exactly how systematic violence and repression (both physically and emotionally) towards the vagina can have profound effects on woman’s sexual, emotional and creative lives.
... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Vagina
Vagina is a brilliantly written feminist book about the history and reclaimation of women's sexuality. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Victoria Meissner
5.0 out of 5 stars A book every women should read
I love that this book has been written. A fascinating eyeopening brave and loving account of the vagina. Read more
Published 2 months ago by lady hush
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating 'unputdownable' read
Naomi Wolf's Vagina is a life changing self help book that has given me many 'lightbulb' moments. I have read excerpts from it to my boyfriend and he too is now reading it. Read more
Published 3 months ago by gingermonkey
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Theory, But Quite Long and Repetative
An interesting book about vagina and the effects on the female brain and creativity. It s a good read but at times very scientific and it goes on a bit which makes it quite... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Smoyle
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
A lot of science presented in an extremely accessible way.

Very readable, easy to correlate and understand. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Travellingchick
5.0 out of 5 stars A book worth reading
A great research work and great knowledge filled biography.Beyond doubt, Noami has been meticulus and bold in her views,Which are ground the realities. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Ryke
5.0 out of 5 stars Revelatory
Forget that '50 Shades' rubbish. This is the must read book for every woman who wants to improve her sexual health, well-being and experience. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Sweetness
2.0 out of 5 stars At times stating the obvious, at other times the thoughtful truth.
Wolfs book has a massive subject, the Vagina. She tries to cover so many bases including the power of the chemicals released by orgasm, the apparent damage not having a orgasm can... Read more
Published 7 months ago by JennyD
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book
This was the most insightful book I could have read about women! Think it is one of those 'must reads' for women to understand herself and for men to understand women. Read more
Published 7 months ago by S. Wilkie
4.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening and somewhat disappointing
I ordered the book as part of a research for my own book on how to be friends with our feminine sexuality. Read more
Published 8 months ago by EvaT
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