This book is not about pornography. No writer likes that question--"What's your book about?" It's almost impossible to sum up a book in a few words. In Talk Dirty to Me, I discuss pornography, prostitution, orgasms, fantasies, and other things sexual, but the book is about why these things are significant. The result is a "philosophy"--an intimate, entirely personal philosophy about the role of sex in human life. I don't expect readers to agree or disagree with my ideas. (In fact, I hope I make most readers blush and complain at least once; that eternal elusiveness of explanation is part of what fascinates me about the subject.) My sexual philosophy is that of a bisexual woman of a certain generation and culture, and it can't encompass or explain much more than that. I consider myself "sex-positive," willing to celebrate the life-affirming nature of sex and to tolerate with cheer the enormous variations sex takes in human lives. Human beings will endlessly try to understand and explain sex to one another--and to themselves. That's what I've tried to do here.

--Sallie Tisdale

We live in a world in which almost every public image--every interaction--carries an element of sexual desire. And yet it is nearly impossible for us to talk openly and honestly about sex. Talk Dirty to Me is author Sallie Tisdale's frank, funny, and provocative invitation to the conversation we've been waiting for--but have been too afraid to start.

Sallie Tisdale shuns the dry style of academics and takes us on a journey through gender and desire, romance and pornography, prostitution and morality, fantasies and orgasm. She guides us through her field research of peep shows, XXX stores, and even the pornography collection of the British Library. Interweaving her own personal feelings, experiences, and revelations, she presents a brilliant, fascinating, and wholly original portrait of sex and sexuality in America, while encouraging us to explore and create our own "intimate philosophies."