This book will definitely answer and address all of your questions on gender and sexuality. A great book filled with a lot of knowledge of yesterday and today's gender issues in sexuality.

The 288 pages of this book written by those in-the-know can really simplify our talks about sex, character and more with our children. The "Ten Talks" book offers parents what they need to speak with their children, confidently, about these important topics and their relationships with others. The information has been gathered from across the country and the methods have been time tested and proven. It's difficult for all of us to begin and carry on the discussions that we must have with our kids, even for those who speak easily to large groups. Our own "home-grown" group can be much more difficult to address. In addition to the topics of sex and character, this book provides advice on safety, peer pressure, ethics, meeting people on the Internet, and messages received from TV. It shows parents how to understand their own values and tells how to appropriately communicate them. The information is useful for any type of family. You'll learn how to get your kids to talk to you, which in itself is half the battle. Topics range from sex to honesty, respect, caring for others, sticking up for what you believe in, keeping promises, courage under pressure, and much, much more. A very valuable family resource. Add it to your parenting library.

At last someone wrote a how-to guide for parents on this subject. This is the one to use. But before you do, make sure you have a handle on your own values. You'll probably have to answer questions like, "WHY is something right or wrong, good or evil, moral or immoral?" "Because" isn't too good an answer. For that part of it, the best book for boneing up on character, morals, and ethics before you present yourself as expert to your kids is a book on just that subject titled "WEST POINT", by Norman Thomas Remick. Then use this excellent book, "TEN TALKS ..." to do your thing.

I found this book in the store after a friend recommended it to me. It's fantastic! I've never been a big fan of parenting books, but this one allows the parents to figure out themselves exactly what they want to say. No one person could give you personalized advice on how to pass along your values to your child, but these authors helped me clarify my own views in order to pass them along. My 12 year old and I are now on excellent ground for keeping communication open and positive.

I really enjoyed this book. Great for people in relationships, as some of the instruction books are either too technical or too geared at just the act. This is a great guide for setting the romantic tone, destressing, and reigniting the sensuous feelings that got you togther in the first place. It has a checklist of goodies to bring or get like candles, music, feathers, etc. This is a great resource if you have the passion in your relationship but other things, like work or school :) get in the way. What I like is that the author's focus on relaxing, no work talk, etc. I highly recommend this book for couples. The title should say great romantic sex weekend, b/c that's what we had. P.S. I recommend chocolate chips and candles at the very least ;) and have a great weekend

I'm only 18, but this book truly applies to all ages and all walks of life! Finally, an author who stresses foreplay and romance, not just sex. My cousin says Schwartz's son is the best lover she's ever experienced, so I know it must be genetic! The book was great; my fiance and I truly enjoyed each and EVERY detail.

Like many who've been married for decades, sex became a back-burner item. Stresses of work, kids, community and everyday life meant no time. We talked about missing our love life, but found little chance to do anything about it.

This book helped us put things into perspective. We took a long weekend. We got back in touch with each other. We put a lot of joy back into the relationship.

If you're in love, but not making love, get this book and follow its suggestions. You'll be glad you did.

Pepper's book is a splendid read for those looking to get into a peer relationship, but still have their toes dipped into the 'swimming' pool of the traditional, patriarichal relationship...for those seeking a partner for a peer relationship, the book is also a (re?)affirmation of life's possibilities amongst equals - something that the society at large seldom supports in this schism involved in the decline of the cartesian paradigm...

the book only gets 4 stars for it's tendency to have a slightly greater sculpt towards women who want out of a traditional marraige or relationship and are seeking other modes that include equality...from the men i know, there seem to be a good number that also are just as equally bored with a ho-hum wifey, or having to be the manly man syndrome, and are looking for an equal partner...

all and all, quite a good read...a step ahead of Deborah Tannen's book, "You Just Don't Understand", and a notch below Roger Fisher and Scott Brown's book, "Getting Together, Building Relationships as we Negotiate"...

The questions of power and equality must not be thrown out of the window in the name of marriage. I have thought this for many years.
Reading "Love Between Equals" helped me discover that I am not alone.
While stressing that it takes work to maintain a peer (sexual) relationship, Dr. Schwartz paints a picture of the lasting satisfaction that results when a couple actively rejects the dominant-submissive model.

I think "LOVE BETWEEN EQUALS" can give any two people who really desire to have a true sense of equality in their marriage or partnership - a GAUGE by which they can isolate the important issues in relationship and a way to measure how they are doing with these issues.

If they take the various issues presented and discuss them fully and fairly, they will know what is working about equality in their relationship and which areas need work. It is not for those with namb-pamby relationship (just foolin around stuff) or those where one person dominates and wants to continue dominating - the risk of becoming equal may be too threatening.

It is not a how-to book. It does not have to be. It doesn't tell you how to achieve equality. What it does teach you to do, as I said before, is to think about what equality really looks like and how to check your relationship out.

If you want to do something about it, you will probably need other help. But this book will give you a handle on what it is you need to do and it should be thoroughly digested and discussed, before deciding what your next steps are on the way to having that sense of equality. I would be glad to discuss what I wrote with anyone.

WARNING: THIS BOOK MAY BE DANGEROUS TO LOUSY RELATIONSHIPS!

Dinner time and road trips are fun with this book. The questions lead to great conversations that I may not have had with my chldren otherwise. The questions for parents can sometimes be tough, which is probably why my oldest loves to ask them. It is geared for children of a junior high school age or older, yet my four year old enjoys playing as well. If you have a tough time getting more than one or two word responses when talking to your children - this book is for you. Not only will it help you to get to know children's thoughts a feelings a little better they get to know you better too.

My 10-year old son and I LOVE this book. He is eager to answer the great and varied questions. You really find out things you DID NOT know about your child before. And my son loves to ask me the questions for parents. This is a MUST HAVE book for parents eager to communicate more fully with their children. I'm buying this for Christmas for my friends who have children.

My brother-in-law pulled this book out after a family dinner, with three generations present: grandparents, two sets of parents, two kids (teen through college-age) and a friend. We passed the book around several times with each person picking anyone at the table to ask a question to.

It proved to be a highly entertaining evening, ranging from the hilarious to the historic to true confessions.

In this day when our culture seems to have lost the art of conversation, this book would be an excellent way to revive meaningful interaction within families. I recommend this book, but be careful, you might be asked an embarrassing question or two!

If this is what the so-called experts know, then we all are in trouble. How sad that the complexities of human sexuality have been reduced to sound bites. And not very insigthful ones at that.

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT SEX is a collection of one-liners from interviews with a variety of mental health professionals and sex experts. While I disagreed with several of the comments, they challenged my thinking. I also agreed with many of the statements, based on my own experience as a therapist and from my personal encounters as well.

These different viewpoints and perspectives reflect how our feelings and beliefs about sexuality change with age and experience. By their very diversity, we see again how people can be more open and more accepting as they mature, as well as how individual and unique each person's lovemap can be.

The comments are divided by chapter into groups such as communication, body, attraction, contraception, love, relationship, desire, pleasure, and masturbation, among others. I found those about love and falling in love the most thought provoking, and took issue the most on the section on communication. Many of the experts in this collection cautioned about sharing sexual secrets. I believe whether one finds this kind of confession repulsive, frightening, alarming, intimate, or erotic (or some combination) will depend on the participants and the specific contours of their individual lovemaps. I completely disagreed with, "You shouldn't tell men anything about other lovers before you had them. The jealous ones will get nasty. The non-jealous ones will think you are tacky." (page 7) Certainly, there are lots of other possible reactions, including enjoying hearing about your past! Your history offers lessons for both you and your partner. And who would want a lover who is both nasty and jealous?

In all, Haffner and Schwartz have put together a collection that can provide a beginning for self-exploration of your personal views and feelings on the many aspects of sexuality, as well as a vehicle for greater intimacy by discussing the topics with a partner or spouse.

Here are a few of the statements that I particularly liked pondering: "In some states, it's legal to buy a gun, but not a vibrator." "It is possible to have really great sex with a partner without having intercourse." "The major ingredient of desire is being desired." "One of the most vulnerable acts of one's life is to fall in love." "If you tell people what you like, they may just do it." "Sex improves with intimacy and age."

~~Joan Mazza, author of Dream Back Your Life; Dreaming Your Real Self; Who's Crazy Anyway; and Exploring Your Sexual Self (a guided journal).

This is a great book to read with your partner. Sex educators, researchers, and therapists offer brief insights into "what they've learned about sex." The insights provided are often thought-provoking, and are guaranteed to generate interesting discussions when shared with friends. After reading this brief book, I bought several copies and gave them to friends.

I have read the book--well, the tests several times. I share it with friends and we all find the tests amusingly clever ways to peer inside our relationships. This book and presenting the tests is so much fun. Test is a bad word but not in this case. W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L!!!

Although I haven't yet purchased this book I did read the reviews and couldn't resist this response. Bob in the cellar also has no life! Books and other collections of literature are written for all to gain from intellectually without viciously destroying anothers opinion or advice! From reading the other reviews I believe that this book will be useful since I'm not perfect, at least I don't think so! I will be buying the book. Get a life Bob! dpont@socal.rr.com

This is a book that I really enjoyed reading. The tests were fun and thought provoking. Ginger and I do belong together according to many of these tests. Thanks. This little lightsided reading should be required reading before getting married along with C.S.Lewis' "The Four Loves."

The author is glib and self-satisfied in telling the over-60 set that their old-fashioned mores about sex are... well, old-fashioned. If you have not been living in a cave for the last 20 years, all of the "pragmatism" in this book will sound like advice from the Mom in an after-school special. While I was not very chaste before marriage, I agree with the domestic abuse therapist on many points, especially where he intimates that it is this kind of book that allows unfaithful/abusive partners to justify their behavior. Most importantly, what Schwartz could learn from younger women who probably know a lot more about sex than she does, is that her advice confuses sex for a single person with sex for a committed person. She wants all her repressed married couples to adopt mores of the sexually open-minded 90's. Bad Advice. Nothing wrong with a little experimentation if you're single. When you are committed, it's a whole different situation and I don't think the same rules apply.

It seems that from the time we are very young we start to develop ideas of what love, marriage and relationships should be like. Generally, it is not that we actually see those relationships but through the influence of media, family and friends we are taught that the ideal relationship contains certain particular traits and anything less is not good enough.

Schwartz looks at twenty-five myths about relationships and how they keep you from achieving a happy and contented relationship. Some of the myths she challenges are holy grails of what relationships "should" be. For example, that your lover or mate should also be your best friend.
I don't agree with everything she says but she has compelling arguments for her positions and encourages us to challenge our preconceptions to see if they fit for us.

Not a deep book filled with psychological studies and analysis by any means, it is filled with practical advice and new ways to look at relationships. A recommended read for anyone with a history of relationship problems, entering into a new relationship or just questioning the values that they grew up with.

Dr. Schwartz does a great job of picking out 25 ideas about relationships and presenting informed views of why they may not necessarily be right for everyone. For example, we are taught in movies, our friends, and possibly even our parents that we will always know who "the one" is when we see them, or to date only people who you think are marriage potential when you want to get serious. She describes the "instant love" feeling as mostly a hormonal reaction to a quality you might see in the "one" that you desire and appreciate...and also cites that if you date people you know you won't marry, you would loosen up, be more relaxed, and learn something about yourself you never would have otherwise with a person who only fits your "type".

I was quite surprised when I read the view by Dr. Wilcox on how men will beat up on women who don't show pleasure during sex. I know a number of counselors (because my mother works with people in the field), and every one of them has said that abuse is rarely if ever about sex, it is more about power and control. It was not Dr. Schwarz's entire point in this book to say that women must like porn because they get aroused, she merely offers womens responses to XXX videos as a different viewpoint and relationship possibility, the same as she does with the other points she cites. I can personally vouch that I and my girlfriend love erotica, both in book and film form, and often use it as a way to enhance our healthy sex life. And I don't expect my partner to act as porn actresses do and feel pleasure every time, and if she doesn't I don't become violent...instead it gives us more an opportunity to talk and touch and cuddle. We're both intelligent enough to know that XXX movies are fantasy based and used for imagery and not as guidelines or instruction aids.

I recommend this book to anyone who feels like something is "missing" from their relationship...it gives a good reassurance that they are not alone in their feelings and that human emotions are as varied as individuals...and it is not wrong to feel in the way she describes, and possibly not even wrong to act on the feelings if you choose to...but again, this is only a viewpoint book, not advice-giving or instruction (much like XXX films are viewpoints on fantasy sex).

This sociological study explores a marriage without a dominating partner where both spouses are best friends. True love. The main flaw is that it doesn't delve into how these people found each other. Beyond that it focuses on power sharing which comes down to sharing the household chores and working less hours for the husband. The question is, how many people out there can afford to work part time to in a quality relationship and still earn a full time income? It seems that peer marriage is an upper class phenomenon, but the author takes this bias for granted, nver mind that only 2% or so can and do engage in an arrangement of the type discussed in the book. This book would have been much more relevant if it analysed equality and friendship as it manifests itself in working and blue collar families who have to worry about bills and daycare and are not facing a danger of becoming an advertising executive at the peak of their career.