Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Kindle Edition

I recently listened to “Becoming Cliterate” on Audible and it is hands down the best female sexual wellness book I have read (and I have read A LOT of books on the topic in the past 2 years). I love it so much I ordered the paperback just to have on my shelf just to appreciate. I love how Dr. Mintz normalizes so many things that most women assume are wrong with us. I especially love the 4 different plays - brilliant! I have been telling many women in my life that they need to read the book asap! I am amazed that I still have things to learn at 41 but what a fun topic to keep learning about! Thank you Dr. Mintz for your important work and this fabulous book❤️

This book is OK but has been over-hyped. I own several bks which are better. In my modest opinion the book is over-priced on all platforms. Soft-cover edition was issued in 2018 at $16.99.

This is an empowering and important book. Buy it for your daughters.

I'm trying to get all the facts right about sex (specifically, heterosexual sex in monogamous relationships) as I'm writing fiction on that topic. This is one of four books I consider essential. The others are Nagoski's Come as You Are, Kerner's She Comes First and Quilliam's Joy of Sex. (The latter is still entirely, and unfairly, attributed to Alex Comfort, the original author. Don't just read the cover.) These authors all have Ph. D. degrees in sex.Full disclosure: I'm mad at Mintz. She stopped talking to me when I proposed a minimal 3 to 1 (hers to his) orgasm gap as being more reasonable than simple equality. As she will be the first to tell you, men are simply not capable of women's multiple orgasms.

Until women—and men—become “Cliterate”, heterosexual pleasure will continue to be owned by men as it has been for millennia. Laurie Mintz’s Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters—And How to Get It identifies the first essential steps that women must take in order to achieve equity in pleasure and orgasm. Mintz identifies the essential problem: “”…most people in our culture define sex as intercourse….” The key for women who are tired of disappointing sex is “equal opportunity orgasms” and she encourages women to ask for what they want and walks them through the steps to rewrite the male-focused sexual script. As a Woman’s Studies professor, I know that many of my female students feel cheated by the male control of sex. Becoming Cliterate is based on Mintz’s decades of teaching college students and its sage, hands-on (!) advice will help women of all ages, and their partners, reconceptualize and actualize the benefits of shared pleasure and orgasm. There is also an essential chapter, “Cliteracy—For Him”, that helps men understand that most women don’t orgasm from thrusting alone and helps them see the advantages of shared pleasure opportunities. As one of my male student said, “Why didn’t someone tell me this in the Sixth Grade?”

I read “Becoming Cliterate” for self-improvement reasons. I’m a 44-year-old male. I quickly came to the realization that I was a very poor partner to every woman I’ve ever been with! I wish I had read this at the beginning of my sexual life.Several times throughout the book, Dr. Mintz referenced women saying something along the lines of “why didn’t I know about this sooner.” Those references coupled with the fact that I wish I had known about this sooner made me realize I should share this with my daughters. So, after getting feedback from the author herself, I gave the book to the older of the two (22 years old) and told her to pass it along to my younger daughter when she’s a bit older.The book was easy to read and understand, it was a quick read, and the information itself is extremely valuable.

I actually had the privilege of taking a class with Dr. Mintz at the University of Florida and I also watched her TEDxUF talk in person and I was honestly blown away. Her expertise in such an interesting area of research is just fascinating to read. You can tell she is truly passionate about what she researches and cares about educating the public about the orgasm gap and helping women take control of their own pleasure. An absolute pleasure to read. Highly reccomend.

Great to have the audio for "Becoming Cliterate", in addition to the book. This is one way to maximize one's cliteracy. I appreciated Dr. Mintz's history of attitudes towards the clitoris, in addition to sharing knowledge about clitoral stimulation techniques. Great resource anyone who has a clitoris or will have intimate encounters with someone who has a clitoris.

The main point of any such review is – or should be – to advise (or warn) the potential buyer, based upon one’s own reading experience, starting with the ‘target’ readership of the book. There we go."Becoming cliterate" will be of interest, and (perhaps more important) of practical use to you only if you (i) are a woman, and (ii) you are not satisfied ‘enough’ with the pleasure you derive from having sex with male partners. The book is unlikely to be of much benefit to women who only engage in lesbian sex, since those are usually well aware of their genitalia, just as they are of those of their female partners. That the author gives almost as much importance to lesbian sex as to heterosexual practices is more revealing of a ‘post-feminist’ bias than it reflects any real or perceived need for lesbians to ‘improve’ their pleasure. Lesbians know where and how to seek it; most of them certainly (and rather obviously) succeed, and they look no further. This book will hardly tell them anything they don’t already do.Thus, the book is primarily focused on women’s ‘inability’ to experience orgasm, or the ‘unreliability’ with which they attain it in ‘normal’ sex i.e. during heterosexual (vaginal) intercourse (the author chooses to say next to nothing about anal sex). The author directly addresses her woman reader (which makes for slightly odd – but bearable – reading if you happen to be a man). Her ‘straightforward’ way of speaking, which some may think verges on the vulgar, may not be to everybody’s taste; regardless of the author’s credentials, this is not an academic book!Mintz does a fairly good job at describing the key parts of the vulva and their clear or likely function as pleasure ‘sites’. She also dwells on properly naming things. Some of it is welcome, like the persistent and revealing public confusion between ‘vagina’ and ‘vulva’; but much of what she insists on is overly lengthy. Her tour of the vulva might have benefited from more detail, and it is all second-hand, based – as she openly admits – on popular rather than trustworthy medical literature. However, this is needed as too many women cannot name or even clearly identify those intimate body parts...The author’s “the clit is everything” post-Hite belief finds its expression in advice regarding how to ‘touch’ yourself, with emphasis on variations and variants, and how to involve a partner in similar explorations. Her message that, in this matter as in others, clear communication is paramount, can only be good to take, as is her insistence that ‘sex’ or ‘love-making’ is inclusive of everything that makes either or both parties feel good, throwing away the die-hard distinction between ‘foreplay’ (a mere appetizer, at best a tasty starter), and the main (inter)course (the really fulfilling part). A shame, really, that so many people should have to be ‘taught’ this.The book includes a chapter that is aimed at male partners. This merely recaps the take-away message of the book: ‘mind the clit’ (and its surroundings), and ‘your’ woman will reach the coveted Big One each and every time, with your ‘big’ help or not – and never mind if you ‘come first’, or if you don’t at all. ‘Equality’, in Mintz’s sense, gets heavily shifted to the female side – a healthy revenge, perhaps, from the historical man-only or man-first bias.Some women will remain a tad frustrated that the contribution of good old intercourse to ‘peak (female) pleasure’ is so radically downplayed. If reading the book is useful to women who do not, or rarely, achieve orgasm during intercourse (without additional stimulation), or who might more generally benefit from some good sex education, the book has little value to anyone who seeks insights into understanding women’s sexual pleasure in general, and orgasm in particular. Statistics based on questionnaires are not likely to be very reliable, but it is certainly the case that (consistently with their anatomy) most women do not reach orgasm through sustained penetration alone. Even if this is the case for as much as 70% of women, this still leaves a very large number of women who DO often enough experience a purely 'vaginal' orgasm. Moreover, those women are often heard saying that what they experience as orgasm in such circumstances is both qualitatively and quantitatively different from what they derive from direct clitoral stimulation (where the latter is, by and large, what Mintz seeks to promote). Many even contrast the ‘global’, overwhelming and longer-lasting effects of ‘penetrative orgasm’ with the more ‘local’, acute, lightning and mentally less-affecting ‘feel’ of clitoral orgasm (as in everything of course, some will beg to differ).The anatomy and psycho-physiology of women remains enigmatic (what about those – documented, if rare – orgasms triggered by anal penetration alone, despite the lack of any obvious anatomical structures that would support their existence, or even their possibility?). It is one of the drawbacks of this educational book that, driven by its militant claims, it fails to draw attention to these fascinating issues that some women, like their partners, may think DO matter.

Brilliant read. Super interesting and illuminating.This book details our culture’s flawed way of thinking about sex, especially when it comes to women’s orgasms. We’ve been conditioned by porn, movies, books, mainstream media etc to believe that the only way for a woman to orgasm with a male partner is through penetration alone and lots of thrusting of his penis. This is the most reliable way for a man to orgasm, after all. But it’s been proven that only a small minority of women orgasm this way! So why does society continue to perpetuate this myth? And herein lies the issue and why the orgasm gap is so large.The most reliable way for women to orgasm is through stimulation of their clitoris. (Any men reading this review, please re-read that last sentence!) Yes, penetration feels great, and often penetration plus clitoral stimulation feels really great, but penetration alone is not likely to lead to a female orgasm. Many women fake it because we’ve been made to feel like we’re odd/broken in some way because we don’t orgasm through penetration. WE’RE NOT. It’s totally normal.This book highlights the myths and misunderstandings that have shaped our thinking about sex today and then educates and makes suggestions as to how we can change this outdated and incorrect view.One of the facts that blew my mind was that we call the whole of the female genitals a vagina. This is scientifically incorrect. The outside bits are called a vulva. The inside bits are the vagina. The author makes some interesting points about why this matters, especially because the vulva includes the clitoris. I shall never use the wrong word again.I also loved learning that the clitoris has no other function than pleasure. That’s right, it’s purely there for a woman’s entertainment and orgasm!The author also argues that clitoral stimulation (when a woman is more likely to orgasm) is often lumped in ‘foreplay’ and that penetration (when a man is more likely to orgasm) is considered the main event of heterosexual intercourse. This definition needs to change. For a woman, what is called ‘foreplay’ is the main event, it’s not the warm up or the least important part.This book also tackles one-night stands (why men generally orgasm and women rarely do on a hook up and how to change that), masturbation (with some practical, hands-on advice…), how to communicate about sex to tell partners what you like, sex education and more.Becoming Cliterate is not just for women, it’s also for men and there’s a dedicated section. This enlightening book is a must-read for those who think it’s time we change our perspective on sex because orgasm equality does matter. Men are having at least three times more orgasms than women – it’s time we caught up ladies!

Brilliant book, What an eye opener! I have recommended it to all my friends. Well written and informative, can't believe I have only just discovered this information so late in my life!

Fantastic insights for those in the know and those who want to know!I learn't stuff and was just checking it out before giving it to my teenage daughter.Well worth the read

So we'll written and informative