THE
PRACTICAL
SEDUCTRESS
How I Learned to Take My Hat and Run
A memoir by Sue Camaione
Sue Camaione’s memoir, The Practical Seductress, exposes the dangerous path to sexual equality. Filled with humor and learned wisdom, Sue exposes the double standard of desire and turns it into a “practical” how-to approach while navigating treacherous and unpredictable paths. It’s an inspiring tale of resilience that defies social norms in a world where men seek adventure, and women find shame—all in the pursuit of pleasure.
About The Practical Seductress
The virgin-whore dichotomy has doggedly persisted through generations. Today, the #MeToo movement, the loss of reproductive rights, and misogyny is the same tale of young women struggling to navigate sexual freedom and female joy. The Practical Seductress exposes gender double standards that defined the 1970s and ’80s.
In this sexually charged memoir, Sue Camaione sets off on a rebellious course to make her way as a young woman determined to live on her own terms despite societal mores. She flees upstate New York to embark upon romantic adventures across the country. She discovers orgasmic joy in the Rocky Mountains, falls in love in Tucson, struggles with open marriage in San Diego, and explores forbidden intimacy in the arms of a Chilean graduate student in Boston.
Full of a precocious curiosity about sexuality, Sue questions her religious education, challenges her school dress code, sets herself on a quest to lose her virginity, encounters challenges that at times leave her broke, sick, and homeless. These experiences with men, places, and friendships transform her.
The Practical Seductress is uniquely unapologetic in its advocacy for women fully owning their sexuality and the right to express themselves freely. This is a story of desire and survival, of navigating treacherous and unpredictable paths, and of defying social norms to find redemption.
For Readers Who Liked . . .
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and Unfinished Revolution by Nona Willis Arnowitz
The Women’s Room by Marilyn French
The Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
What Other Writers Are Saying About Sue
Sue Camaione is brutally candid and funny in describing her journey. She fiercely fights gender bigotry as she seeks to pursue a fulfilling and sensually satisfying life.
Chris Palmer, author of Finding Meaning and Success: Living a Fulfilled and Productive Life
Sue’s story left me alternately laughing and wincing with recognition at memories of the sexual revolution of the 1970s. Coming of age during that era, we were so incredibly naïve and hopeful that the gender double standard could be overcome by our passionate pursuit of equality. Young women today would be wise to learn from this book that our rights as women cannot be taken for granted.
Laurie Morin, author of Shero’s Journey
A quick read packed with emotional candor and wit, and all about sexual desire? Yes, please! In The Practical Seductress, Camaione inhabits a space between hilarity and heartbreak, and weaves between pain and sharp humor, while staying grounded and focused on desire.
Amy L. Freeman, essayist, The Washington Post, HuffPost, Parents.com
Candid, brave, and honest, The Practical Seductress should be required reading, if for no other reason than to help so many males… like me better understand and assist in overcoming the sexual double standards that continue to exist.
Rob Jolles, Bestselling author of How to Change Minds, and Why People Don’t Believe You
Check out my other writing while you wait for The Practical Seductress
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