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Pathways to Pleasure: A Woman’s Guide to Orgasm
by R.W. Birch and C.L. Ruberg
In Pathways to Pleasure Birch and Ruberg provide a wide variety of resources for the woman who is uninformed about her sexuality. The authors begin by briefly exploring the historical-social reasons women may be dealing with difficulties in sexual pleasure and orgasm. This is done with examples most women can relate to and without undue politicizing of the issues.
The next chapters offer a primer on sexual response cycle with technical terms explained in easy to understand language. Birch and Ruberg go on to create three categories for non-orgasmic and inconsistently orgasmic women: those who have not even tried, those who try but still wonder, and women who orgasm occasionally. Each group is offered several possible explanations for the etiology of their orgasmic difficulties. There are suggestions of multiple pathways to enhance sexual pleasure and the opportunity to orgasm from fantasizing to the use of vibrators. The roles partners may take in assisting women in achieving orgasm are discussed, but the focus remains on the woman being in control of her pleasure and orgasm. Exercises are included at several points to help women and their partners to assess their attitudes, beliefs and experiences. The final half of the book is devoted to special topics and resources.
The authors are to be commended on their inclusiveness. There is a brief chapter for women with disabilities and articles included addressing sexuality and pregnancy and sexuality and menopause. Birch and Ruberg do not differentiate techniques or approaches for lesbian women. They acknowledge same sex partners in the introduction and explain their use of the male pronoun for partner as based on the predominance of heterosexuality in the culture. Women with same sex partners may prefer a resource that explicitly focuses on lesbian experiences. The resources included vary from an extensive self-survey to lists of sex-education videos.
Pathways to Pleasure would be helpful to any clinician dealing with relationship issues given the large number of resources included. This is an excellent bibliotherapy offering for clients with little exposure to basic sexual information. As with all bibliotherapy offerings, the clinician should review the work prior to recommending it to a particular client. This is particularly noteworthy with this work, based on the sexual content covered and the necessity of being sensitive to the values and beliefs of individual clients.
Pathways to Pleasure has 223 pages and was published this year by PEC Publishing. Jayne Speicher-Bocija, Ph.D. is a Division 42 Young Professional Member. Her address is 236 West 2nd Ave., Columbus, OH 4320, jbocija@columbus.rr.com.