Everything on this list is something I have actually read/used and actually endorse, by the way. I’ve tried to group things into categories based on the topics I talk about most often.
FYI: most book links are affiliate links. I am an affiliate with Bookshop, and you can find all my recommendations in my shop here. If there’s a resource that isn’t on here and you think it should be, let me know!
Sex Books
- Becoming Cliterate (Dr Laurie Mintz)
- Come As You Are (Emily Nagoski, PhD)
- Doing It! (Hannah Witton)
- Enjoy Sex: How, When and IF You Want To (Meg-John Barker & Justin Hancock)
- Girl Sex 101 (Allison Moon)
- The Monster Under the Bed: Sex, Depression, and the Conversations We Aren’t Having (Jo Ellen Notte)
- Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent (Katherine Angel)
- V: An Empowering Celebration of the Vulva and Vagina (Florence Schechter)
- What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety (Jaclyn Friedman)
- The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women (Tristan Taormino)
- Rethinking Sex (Christine Emba)
- Solo Sex: All You Need to Know About Masturbation (Jenny Block)
- The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Men (Bill Brent)
Sex Online Resources
- What Consent Looks Like from helpingsurvivors.org: An excellent primer on understanding and practicing good sexual consent.
- What’s My Body Doing? A web-series about sex, sexuality and relationships from a pleasure-focused and research-informed point of view.
- The Dildorks: Kate Sloan and Bex Caputo‘s weekly podcast of “dorky discourse on sex, dating and masturbating.”
- Sex Gets Real: Dawn Serra’s wonderful podcast on all things sex has now finished, but the backlog is well worth exploring. Dawn also runs workshops, events, and offers private coaching (I’ve worked with her in the past and she’s brilliant.)
- Scarleteen: Billed as “Sex Education for the Real World,” Scarleteen is ostensibly aimed at teenagers and young adults but conveys information all of us need. Puberty, recognising abuse, pregnancy and parenting, sexual politics, and gender identity are just some of the topics covered.
- Rewriting The Rules: Writer, therapist and activist-academic Meg-John Barker’s site, covering sex, gender, relationships and more.
- Bish UK: “A guide to sex, love and you for everyone over 14.”
- Dr Nerdlove: Advice column on sex, dating and relationships aimed primarily at straight men, and a breath of fresh air in a world of incel culture and pickup artists.
- Queeries by B-Vibe: Journalist and certified sex educator Bobby Box answers all those burning questions that were “a little too gay for sex ed.”
Kink & BDSM Books
- 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do (Kate Sloan)
- The New Bottoming Book (Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy)
- The New Topping Book (Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy)
- Playing Well With Others (Mollena Williams-Haas & Lee Harrington)
- Shibari You Can Use & More Shibari You Can Use (Lee Harrington)
- Showing You the Ropes & Back on the Ropes (Two Knotty Boys)
- Thinking Kink (Catherine Scott)
- 50 Shades of Kink: An Introduction to BDSM (Tristan Taormino)
- The S&M Feminist (Clarisse Thorne)
- The Ultimate Guide to Kink (Tristan Taormino)
Kink & BDSM Online Resources
- Fetlife: The Facebook of kink (has a lot of issues, so proceed with caution, but still the best place to find events and keep in touch with your local community.)
- Loving BDSM Podcast: A hilarious, heartwarming, and informative BDSM podcast with a 24/7 D/s slant. They also have a Youtube channel and a blog!
- Crash Restraint: A hub of rope bondage resources and tutorials.
Polyamory & Consensual Non-Monogamy Books
- Polysecure and Polywise (both Jessica Fern)
- The Ethical Slut (Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy)
- Rewriting the Rules (Meg-John Barker)
- Ready for Polyamory (Laura Boyle)
- Open (Rachel Krantz)
- Opening Up (Tristan Taormino)
- The Smart Girl’s Guide to Polyamory (Dedeker Winston)
Polyamory & Consensual Non-Monogamy Online Resources
- Polyamory.com Forum: Ask your polyam questions, share your journey and benefit from others’ experiences and wisdom.
- r/Polyamory on Reddit: An active forum with thousands of users navigating the nitty-gritty of polyamory. (A lot of the content is quite 101 level.)
- Polyamory Weekly Podcast: Host Minx explores “responsible non-monogamy from a pansexual, kink-friendly point of view.” No new episodes since late 2021, but an enormous backlog with 15 years of mosty-evergreen content to explore.
- Life on the Swingset: A long-running podcast on “all aspects of ethical non-monogamy.” Some clear focus on swinging but also polyamory, open relationships, and other forms of consensual non-monogamy.
- Fabswingers: A huge swinger dating and hook-up site with membership mainly, though not exclusively, in the UK. You can sign up as a single or as a couple.
- Kasidie: A swinger dating and hook-up site with a primarily North American user-base. I found it useless from a UK user perspective but US and Canadian swingers swear by it.
- Facebook: There are hundreds of polyamory and non-monogamy groups on Facebook including international, national, and local groups. They vary wildly in quality and can be quite dogmatic, so tread carefully.
Sexuality & Science, History and Culture Books
- Turned On: Science, Sex, and Robots (Kate Devlin)
- The Myth of Sex Addiction (David J Ley)
- Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure (Lynn Comella)
- Sex and Social Media (Katrin Tiidenberg & Emily van der Nagel)
- Future Sex (Emily Witt)
- The Curious History of Dating: From Jane Austen to Tinder (Nichi Hodgson)
- Sex with Shakespeare (Jillian Keenan)
- Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy (Hallie Lieberman)
- Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All (Jaclyn Friedman)
Feminism Books
- 50 Shades of Feminism (ed. Lisa Appignanesi, Susie Orbach, Rachel Holmes)
- Bad Feminist (Roxane Gay)
- Men Explain Things To Me and Other Essays (Rebecca Solnit)
- Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power & a World Without Rape (Jaclyn Friedman)
- Full Frontal Feminism (Jessica Valenti)
- The Purity Myth (Jessica Valenti)
Bisexuality Books
- Bi Any Other Name (ed. Lorraine Hutchins & Lani Kaahumanu)
- Purple Prose: Bisexuality in Britain (ed. Kate Harrad)
- Bisexual Men Exist (Vaneet Mehta)
- Bi: The Hidden Culture, History and Science of Bisexuality (Dr Julia Shaw)
- Bi the Way: The Bisexual Guide to Life (Lois Shearing)
- Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much (Jen Winston)
Sex-Positive Memoirs
- How a Bad Girl Fell in Love (Girl On The Net)
- My Life on the Swingset (Cooper S Beckett)
- True Lust (Tristan Taormino)