If you've ever felt that you are defective, dirty, or bad in any way because of your sex life (or lack thereof) then you owe it to yourself to read this book. Rachel Hills explores the numerous unspoken assumptions we have in the Western world about sex and what people "should" be doing. Through personal interviews and hard facts, she reveals that pretty much everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, social status, gender identity, age, etc. thinks that they're falling short of some imagined ideal. For me, this was a life-changing and incredibly validating book.The center of her argument is that our culture attaches an enormous amount of meaning to sex and that a person's sex life serves as a proxy for how attractive, interesting or valuable a person is in the rest of their life. Or, as Rachel Hills puts it, "There is a sense that sex is uniquely revealing: that if someone has a certain type of sex, they must be a certain corresponding type of person." Her interviews include people from the United States, Australia and the U.K. who all feel that their sex lives don't match with who they are, or how they think of themselves.Hills argues that sex doesn't deserve nearly this much weight and emphasis and that the reality is that sex isn't nearly as life-affirming as most people believe without question. I don't think Amazon will let me post a link to it, but if you're still not sure about buying the book, watch her TED talk entitled "Is Sex Necessary?". Search for that on YouTube and you'll find it. In that 9 minutes, she expertly lays out much of her argument.In the end, the message of the book is hopeful and inclusive. You are not broken and you never were. It doesn't matter if you're a virgin at 25 or 35. That doesn't mean you're unattractive or unlovable....it just is. Another book which I feel is a good companion is Sara Eckel's It's Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You're Single. Her emphasis is on romantic relationships, not sex, but there is quite a bit of overlap, particularly regarding the pressure to be "coupled up" by a certain age.
