Alicia M. Walker – författare

Why are BDSM practitioners so happy? It turns out, BDSM isn’t just about whips and chains.With engaging stories and a warm, conversational tone, Bound by BDSM: Unexpected Lessons for Building a Happier Life reveals how BDSM practitioners use clear boundaries, enthusiastic consent, open dialogue, and a strong community to create fulfilling relationships and build richer, more intentional lives. Drawing on research from the largest scientific study of BDSM ever conducted, Alicia Walker and Arielle Kuperberg demonstrate that the BDSM community’s approach to trust and vulnerability offers a valuable model for building intimacy and fostering authentic connections. BDSM also allows practitioners to exercise their creativity and break the mold - whether it comes to trying out new practices in the bedroom or bending ideas about gender.Whether you’re vanilla, kinky, or just here for the life advice, this book —packed with humor and insight—is a refreshingly open-minded guide to building stronger relationships, deeper intimacy, and a more intentional approach to connection.

Women are told they should be sex-positive, yet they are still policed for embracing desire on their own terms. Women who embrace their sexuality—who take charge of their desires without apology—are still met with scrutiny, judgment, and even shame. Conversations about female sexuality have evolved, yet outdated expectations persist, reinforcing the idea that “good” women don’t prioritize their own sexual pleasure.Meanwhile, purity culture is rebranding itself in the form of “body count” discourse, sex shaming on social media, and narratives that still tie female sexuality to morality.Wanton Women is a bold, necessary intervention in this conversation. It centers the voices of women who refuse to apologize for their desire, challenging cultural norms and redefining what it means to be a sexual woman today. These women push back against the idea that female sexuality should be constrained, sanitized, or policed. Their stories—complex, messy, unapologetic—offer a new way to think about sexual autonomy and pleasure. Weaving together case studies, cultural commentary, and sociological analysis, Wanton Women offers a fresh perspective on gender, desire, and the way sexual scripts shape women’s lives.

Using a sample collected from Ashley Madison, this book is the result of a yearlong inquiry into women’s extramarital experiences. Ultimately, these women reject the binary proposition of marriage that assumes that either we work on our marriages and remain monogamous within them, or we break up the relationship and take up other relationships. These women conceive of an alternate solution to a marriage that is not wholly working, where their own needs are ignored, unmet, and not prioritized. Thus, the women in this study are engaging in secret defiance of the expectations of marriage and primary partnerships. This book gives voice to women’s experiences and perceptions regarding their participation in infidelity, and glimpses into the interworkings of our most intimate relationships, and the ways women negotiate marriages that fall short of their expectations.

Using a sample collected from Ashley Madison, this book is the result of a yearlong inquiry into women’s extramarital experiences. Ultimately, these women reject the binary proposition of marriage that assumes that either we work on our marriages and remain monogamous within them, or we break up the relationship and take up other relationships. These women conceive of an alternate solution to a marriage that is not wholly working, where their own needs are ignored, unmet, and not prioritized. Thus, the women in this study are engaging in secret defiance of the expectations of marriage and primary partnerships. This book gives voice to women’s experiences and perceptions regarding their participation in infidelity, and glimpses into the interworkings of our most intimate relationships, and the ways women negotiate marriages that fall short of their expectations.

This book analyzes men’s experiences and perceptions regarding their participation in infidelity and offers a glimpse into the inner workings of their most intimate relationships, as well as the ways men negotiate marriages that fall short of their expectations.Using a sample collected from the online dating service Ashley Madison, this book finds that contrary to gendered social scripts, the men in this study described motivations for outside partnerships that were not rooted in the desire for sexual pleasure or variety. Rather, men described those relationships as an outlet to soothe their bruised egos, receive attention and validation from a romantic partner, and to fight their feelings of emasculation. These infidelities thus provide support and praise, and aid in the processing of complex emotions. This in-depth analysis provides a unique insight into men’s experiences of sexuality and masculinity, and will be of keen interest to those seeking to understand male infidelity from a sociological perspective, across gender studies, psychology, counselling, and beyond.