Ultimate Guide to Orgasm for Women
When the first edition of this work, When the Earth Moves: Women and Orgasm, appeared in 1998, author Mikaya Heart received numerous letters from grateful women who’d used her advice to improve their sex lives. In this major revamp, she consolidates that information and adds helpful sidebars and anatomical illustrations. The result is a guidebook that’s likely to fill her mailbox yet again.
Heart is a speaker, life coach, and author of a memoir, My Sweet Wild Dance. She offers workshops based on the art of being fully alive, and leads shamanic journeys, and her writing reflects this type of work—her tone is that of an encouraging, knowledgeable guide who is accustomed to traversing a sometimes-challenging landscape.
Some similar books in the genre coach readers into sexual fulfillment through toys and playful games, with authors sounding like spunky cheerleaders. Although Heart does cover sex toys, she’s far more focused on helping women to shift their perspectives about sex at a fundamental level.
“For many of us, [sex] can be deeply transformative and healing, bringing us to the realization that we are much more than physical bodies confined by the limits of flesh and blood,” she writes. “No matter what our sexual or spiritual orientation may be, we can use sex as the doorway to profound personal awakening.”
Heart includes the experiences of twenty-six women and three men to illustrate her points, and the blend of her focused, passionate insight and real-life examples works beautifully. She covers topics such as: asking for what you need, why some women have difficulty climaxing, fake orgasms, masturbation, the power of fantasy, and orgasm as an emotional release.
By diving so deeply into the types of issues that plague many women, Heart is able to show readers that they’re not alone if they have trouble getting pleasure, and for those that don’t, the author brings them to another level. By gaining an understanding of their emotional lives, personal histories, and belief systems, women can better know what works, what doesn’t, and why. Heart is an exceptional guide, and this comprehensive exploration of female sexuality is likely to become a well-used map to discovering new mountaintops in a familiar land.
Reviewed by
Elizabeth Millard
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
