"A joy to read, and an important conversation about our right to pleasure: how we fake and perform, instead of value our actual sensations, cutting ourselves off from our own sexual enjoyment, which is our birthright. No one should deny themselves pleasure, nor the pleasure of this book, and its inevitable aftermath in their lives."―Julie Holland, author of Moody Bitches: The Truth About the Drugs You're Taking, the Sleep You're Missing, the Sex You're Not Having, and What's Really Making You Crazy

“With deep compassion, wry humor, and stunning erudition, Katherine Rowland pulls away multiple layers of confusion (or bad information) to arrive at essential truths about female, and human, sexuality. If I could force everyone to read this book, I would. All of us, especially men who are confused about their partners' sexual response, need it, and need it now. Rowland explains that for women (and, hopefully, men) sex is much more than a task to perform, a point of pride or shame, or a biological machine chugging to a climactic end. Rather, it is a portal to healing, growth, acceptance, and even the sublime. Rowland is too smart, and too well informed, to peddle (or offer) simple or canned answers about female sexuality. Leave that to the self-help gurus. Instead, she invites us to ask the right questions—about desire, response, intimacy, and love itself—and in the process reach more essential understandings. The Pleasure Gap is an astounding, urgently necessary book.” —Eric Berkowitz, author of Sex and Punishment: Four Hundred Years of Judging Desire and The Boundaries of Desire: A Century of Bad Laws, Good Sex, and Changing Identities

"In The Pleasure Gap, Katherine Rowland takes on a feminist issue that has not received the attention it deserves: the inequality between women and men in the fraught and intimate area of sexual pleasure. Well-written and deeply researched, this book illuminates a topic that has profound implications for women's personal happiness and well-being."―Elaine Tyler May, author of America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation

"In The Pleasure Gap, Katherine Rowland takes a candid and unflinching look at the factors that drive sexual desire deficits for cis, heterosexual women. Sweeping away the cobwebs of dusty explanations for women's 'loss of sexual drive,' Rowland uncovers the real reasons for the sexual pleasure void that so many women experience. As her sometimes-gutting, heartbreaking interviews with dozens of women show, it's not in their minds, it's not in their bodies-it's in the culture that compresses and oppresses their sexual expression. Many women will see themselves in these stories and find commonalities that connect and resonate. But Rowland doesn't stop her narrative at these revelations. She closes the deal with the reader by offering frank insights into ways to close the gap, with a welcome focus on how we can mute the voices of our society and listen to our own bodies and minds."―Emily Willingham, coauthor of The Informed Parent: A Science-Based Resource for Your Child's First Four Years

"Former Guernica publisher Rowland argues that the sexual revolution and women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and ’70s have “increased sexual quantity without improving sexual quality,” in her tasteful and open-minded debut. American culture treats female sexuality as complicated and mysterious, Rowland argues, without considering “the constellation of pressures and actual inequities” that often leave women feigning desire in order to maintain harmony in their relationships. She considers factors that constrain heterosexual cisgender women’s pursuit of pleasure, including a lack of definitive scientific knowledge about female sexuality; the physical and psychological effects of trauma; cultural messages that encourage women to embrace sex as a service to their partners; and the challenge of maintaining desire within long-term relationships. Exploring paths toward “sexual discovery, recovery, and healing,” Rowland delves into pharmacology and sex therapy as well as practices including BDSM, consensual nonmonogamy, and “sexological bodywork,” in which persistent sexual dysfunctions are treated with erotic massage. Though the book doesn’t offer a definitive path guaranteed to close the “pleasure gap,” Rowland skillfully synthesizes many different ideas and approaches, and encourages women to embrace a broader understanding of their own sexual desire as an ongoing process of self-discovery and self-assertion. Readers interested in feminism, women’s issues, and contemporary sexual mores will find this to be an edifying and comprehensive study."―Publisher's Weekly