Heart & Hands | Women's Sexual Passages | The Circle of Life

"I am very impressed with this work and find it not only medically accurate but visionary in scope. There is nothing else like it on the market."      --Christiane Northrup, M.D., author Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom
Women's Sexual Passages: Finding Pleasure and Intimacy at Every Stage of Life  by Elizabeth Davis About this book Excerpts Table of Contents Reviews Order

Segments of Women's Sexual Passages and comments by Elizabeth Davis have been featured in Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Marie Claire, Self, Glamour, National Enquirer, and Parenting magazines. 

If you have ever wondered: 

•	Why does sexual desire fluctuate at different times of the cycle?
•	How do pregnancy, birth and lactation impact sexuality?
•	How does history of sexual abuse affect desire?
•	Can the choice for celibacy be a positive one?
•	What exactly is the "love hormone," oxytocin?

Women's Sexual Passages, by Elizabeth Davis, has the answers you seek! 

And did you know that: 

•	The intensity of orgasm can be partially correlated to the estrogen peak of the cycle. One of the unique propensities of this hormone is to stimulate circulation in the pelvic area.
•	In monogamous couples, sexual rhythms tend to synchronize, with male testosterone surges matching female peaks of estrogen and progesterone.
•	Low levels of progesterone correlated to PMS may be caused by high levels of estrogen in our food and water. Estrogen-like substances used to fatten cattle and poultry are concentrated in eggs and dairy products. Synthetic xenoestrogens released from the breakdown of plastics and chemicals like dioxin pollute our water, contaminating our seafood and agricultural products.
•	Barring rupture of the membranes or history of premature labor, intercourse is desirable at the end of pregnancy because seminal fluid is extremely high in prostaglandins, which soften the cervix and may serve to trigger labor (to learn more, see The Sexuality of Pregnancy and Birth).
•	Testosterone levels soar in women during their forties, which partially explains why women at this age tend to be attracted to younger lovers.
•	Due to hormonal changes at menopause, activity in the right hemisphere of the brain -- the side associated with intuitive visionary experience -- increases dramatically.
•	As regards sex and aging, research has shown that in the majority of indigenous cultures, women past menopause were often the sexual initiators of young men.

EXCERPTS from Women's Sexual Passages

From the Author's Note: 
"Whenever a woman has a problem, I believe that she herself can find the answer, provided she is given adequate information and support. I firmly believe in women's strength and resourcefulness; I've witnessed these time and again. Women care about the continuation and continuity of life; they are intrigued by relationships, how things fit together. Women's Sexual Passages is an attempt to honor these attributes of women by presenting an overview of women's nature in which the sexual aspect is not separated from everything else." 

From Chapter One -- Women, Sex and Culture
Learn how differences between men and women affect communication and desire: 

"Apart from cultural influences, are there behavioral differences between the sexes that can be linked to basic biology? 

Yes--certain gender-specific characteristics reveal themselves in infancy, long before acculturation takes place. For example, most baby boys demonstrate a much stronger attraction to tangible objects than do girls who are more interested in the human face, in communication. Men see better in bright light and at a distance, but women literally see the big picture: we have wider peripheral vision due to extra rods and cones at the back of the retina. 

Beyond the unique aptitudes of each sex, research shows that the brains of men and women are actually structured differently. The cortex contains key control centers that govern behavior; in the male, functions are highly specialized according to hemisphere, but in the female, functions are diffused, replicated on left and right sides of the brain. An outstanding example regards the emotional centers, which in women are located in both hemispheres but in men are found on the right side only. Add to this the fact that men have verbal centers only in the left hemisphere, and we see a biological basis for the difficulty men have in expressing their feelings. 

Due to a thickening of the anterior commisure and the corpus callosum (the parts of the brain that connect the two hemispheres), women also show a much greater ability to switch back and forth between hemispheres. This may explain women's ability to handle several activities simultaneously, whereas males prefer to focus on one thing at a time. Women's approach to problem-solving is more diffused; we tend to encircle and consider a problem from a variety of angles before moving to the center for a solution. Men tend to break things down and categorize as they solve problems, adding up factors methodically, bricklayer style. This is why, when the sexes try to problem solve together, men are at a loss to understand why women bring in so many seemingly unrelated factors and can't get to the point, while women wonder why men must be so controlling and tight-lipped -- what's wrong with talking things through? Women tend by nature to expand, men, to contract. 

This leads to women's erotic predilections for foreplay, sensuality, talk before sex, whereas men generally prefer to get to the point." 

Reviews of Women's Sexual Passages

"A gold mine! It contains heart and soul and information ... never encountered before in any form. The more women (and men, for that matter) who read this, the more quickly our world will be healed."   --Isabella

"Elizabeth Davis...gets straight to the heart of what it means to have a rich, evolving sexuality throughout a lifetime." 
    --John Gray, Ph.D., author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are 
      from Venus

"Here is a practitioner who does not prescribe but describes, in terms that are both empowering and fascinating, the extraordinary inventiveness and variety of the human female in all her moods and phases." 
    --Germaine Greer, author, The Change, Sex and Destiny, 
      and The Female Eunuch

"Bright with blessings and reassurances, acknowledging women's issues that are universal yet shockingly under-discussed...a comprehensive classic in the making." 
    --Feminist Bookstore News

To Order

Women's Sexual Passages by Elizabeth Davis, Hunter House Publishers 
Find it on: Amazon