Raising Your Sexual Self-Esteem

Rating:
Summary: Great book on the pyschological aspects of human sexuality
Review: I found this book to be one of the best and truthfully accurate books on the psychological aspects of human sexual behavior and sexual abuse. Everything she says is accurate and she does it in a non-judgemental way. She is an understanding experianced psychotherapist that has amazing insights. And she is honest and truthful of the ramifications of certain sexual behaviors which rubs some people the wrong way who believe that anything goes in regards to sex. There is information here in her book that is hard to find in other books.

Rating:
Summary: Useful book for understanding and improving your sex life
Review: This book explains the various causes of low sexual self-esteem, how this affects your sex life, and the choices you make about your sex life (promiscuity, unavailable or abusive partners, etc.). The book then goes on to offer solutions. How to accept your body and yourself, how to deal with sexual problems and low sexual self-esteem, how to make healthy and esteem-raising sexual choices, and so on.

This book serves as a very good introduction to sexual problems, because it covers a lot of ground and explains many different scenarios. I recommend anyone to read this book, since we all can benefit from a better understanding of our sexual selves.

The only gripe I have about this book is that it turns a little moralistic at times, maybe because of the author's own background. This becomes especially clear when the author writes about pornography, most of which is labeled as abusive, sado-masochistic and cruel.

Rating:
Summary: If You've Ever Doubted Yourself, Read This Book!
Review: This book is excellent! It is well thought-out, easy to read, straight-forward, nonjudgemental, intelligently written, and comprehensive.

Whether you specifically have low sexual self-esteem or not is immaterial. This book is very helpful because it addresses the core problem of low SEXUAL self-esteem, which is low PERSONAL self-esteem. The writer encourages meaningful analysis in the reader as to why we all have certain sexual preferences and dislikes which we might not have previously understood, and why we don't always stand up for our rights, either in a sexual or nonsexual situation.

This book goes way beyond sex. It delves into the experiences and traumas which formed or, more apropriately, have misshapen our childhood/adult personalities and gives the reader the ammunition to effectively deal with the the trauma (which works) instead of running away from or burying it (which doesn't work).

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: This book looks pretty good on the surface -- but only the surface. It might have some good tips for those with extremely low sexual self-esteem -- due to childhood sexual abuse -- but doesn't have specific remedies for those suffering from lowered esteem due to rape, date rape, coersion or just day to day pressures from media, society, and so on.

To make matters worse, Engel takes a critical stance of many alternative sexualities, most notably BDSM, saying that anyone who is into BDSM is acting out of low sexual self-esteem and is only hurting their esteem more by participating in these activities. She also argues that looking at pornographic material does nothing but degrade one's esteem, and that everyone is overweight is that way because of some kind of abuse they suffered in the past. To go even further, she argues that when children see their parents naked, at any time in their lives, it is a form of sexual abuse.

Perhaps this is the product of what happens when a therapist -- whose only exposure to a vast array of sexualities is among clients who are seeking treatment -- draws from her experiences to make generalizations about the general public. Some of her messages are good, but I found too many of them to potentially esteem-damaging to make use of this book.