Product Description

Drawing on the results of her unique national sex survey—and on decades of clinical practice as a sex therapist—Gina Ogden offers a revolutionary exploration of women's sexual experience. The best sex, say thousands of women, doesn't just happen in the body. It is multidimensional, connecting body, mind, heart, and soul. In The Heart and Soul of Sex, Ogden coaches readers to fully realize the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of sex, making what she calls the "ISIS Connection."

Throughout the book are firsthand stories of survey respondents, offering examples of how ordinary women—from ages eighteen to eighty-six and from many backgrounds—have found their own way to sexual expression that is deeply satisfying and even life-changing. The Heart and Soul of Sex takes the reader on a journey beyond the usual emphasis on performance, including practical exercises that can be done alone or with a partner. Ogden shows us that we can be much more than we've been told—not just fun and exciting but deeply healing, magical, and transformative.

Click here to read an interview with Gina Ogden on Oprah.com.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #185363 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-11
• Released on: 2006-07-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This book was shaped by the results of a landmark sex survey called Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality (ISIS) that researcher and sex therapist Ogden undertook in 1997. Instead of focusing on the mechanics of sex, the ISIS survey asked the mostly female respondents how they experienced sex and what sex meant in their lives. Ogden (Women Who Love Sex) writes, "In some ways, the language of spiritual experience comes closest to expressing the fullness of our sexual response, for it is the language of connection and ecstasy." In Ogden's view, sex is (or should be) about more than physical sensation. She cites recent laboratory findings that show multiple areas of women's brains lighting up when they bring themselves to orgasm, including the areas connected with religious ecstasy and spiritual experience. The results of the survey bear Ogden out, as 47% of women say "they've experienced God during sexual ecstasy"; 67% say "sex needs to be spiritual to be satisfying." In this provocative, important book, Ogden functions as a gentle, persistent guide in mapping out paths—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual—that women can take to locate their sexual "center," where healing, ecstasy and transformation occur. There are also chapters on the chakras, tantric sex and creating ceremony for sacred lovemaking. (July 18)
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Review
“This is a glorious book. Gina Ogden speaks directly to the heart of sexuality in a way that women all over the world will recognize. To read this book is to remember and reawaken to the melody of the life force that both created and sustains our bodies and lives. May this book soar—and take us all with it!”—Christiane Northrup, M.D., author Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and Mother-Daughter Wisdom

“Dr. Ogden’s work guides you to become that person you have always wanted to be in relation to your body, your soul, and your entire life. Part guidebook, part group therapy, and—best of all—part girlfriend-support for those who want more out of their lives. As a sex educator I can assure you many are looking for a tool to help themselves and Gina Ogden has delivered just that.”—L. Lou Paget, author of How to Be a Great Lover and The Great Lover Playbook

“Gina Ogden redefines female sexuality, letting us discover and design our own brand of sexual pleasure. Her research pronounces a holistic, non-performance-based model for women, cracking open old beliefs, unearthing fresh emotions, and carving out the paths for healing and awakening our sexual spirits.”—Patti Britton, Ph.D., President of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists and author of The Art of Sex Coaching

“This affirming, well-written, and useful book invites us to free ourselves from a performance-focus in sex by exploring powerful and empowering connections of body, mind, heart, and spirit. Here are fresh understandings, helpful tools and resources, compassionate insights, and, throughout, the voices of women.”—Judy Norsigian and Wendy Sanford, cofounders of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective and coauthors of Our Bodies, Ourselves

“Gina Ogden demolishes the notion that sexuality and spirituality are polar opposites. She also shows how we can move beyond the degradation of women and sex in popular culture to meet our deep human yearning for caring connection."—Riane Eisler, author of Sacred Pleasure, The Chalice and the Blade, and The Power of Partnership

About the Author
Gina Ogden, PhD, has had a distinguished career as a marriage and family therapist, sex therapist, teacher, researcher, and author. She is the author of several books, including Women Who Love Sex and The Heart and Soul of Sex, and has been a featured guest on numerous radio and television programs including Oprah. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

compassionate perspective
Gina Ogden is a compassionate and sincere woman who writes from her heart and experience as a woman and a psychologist who specializes in this arena. Her kindness and truthfulness is a relief from so many male driven edgy perspectives that read so cold. She gives you room to hit your own place and have permission to be and discover yourself within the array of information and it's opportunity. She is not tethered to the system but comes from it with basic information that became enhanced from the ISIS survey. Her language is understandable for women. She speaks in terms of facts, the survey lessons and visualizations for the reader to explore. Potentially enlightening for self actualization growth. Go for it.

scientific reasons for hope and good sex!
I am a sex therapist and researcher. Many clients have never experienced the kinds of sexual experiences described by participants in the study presented in this book. It is heartening for them to know - women of all ages and orientations can have deeply meaningful, joyful, and pleasurable sex. Viewing sexuality from a perspective other than the traditional performance and dysfunction model allows anyone a tool to access and develop a new or different pathway to satisfying sex, however each person may define that. This book provides the brain science and qualitative research to back up the existence and virtues of whole person, spiritual, positive sexuality.

About time! (Body) Heart & Soul of Sex combined.
As a veteran college health and human sexuality instructor I've read and skimmed more than my fair share of self-help books and research texts on female sexuality over the past half-century. Very few of them would I recommend you read cover to cover. Gina Ogden's Heart and Soul of Sex (2006 Trumpter/Shambhala) is. Not only does it report the results of a first of its kind nationwide survey on Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality (ISIS) in a refreshingly readable welcoming fashion; the gentle tone and language she uses to weaves four decades of professional experience as a therapist with the stories of 3810 respondents (18% men), models the very gentleness and depth, which I for one, hope sexuality can be for all of us.
Part One reviews the physiological facts about sex and goes beyond performance oriented 'functioning, to describe Ogden's 'ISIS Wheel' of the multi-dimensional nature of human sexual response. Women's journeys to interconnect (or not) the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of sexuality are beautifully synthesized and narrated. At the center that Dr. Ogden labels 'healing, transformation, and magic,' she gives us litanies of how some women describe the indescribable: their experiences of ecstasy, union, wholeness, oneness, feelings of acceptance and love. ' Part Two 'Paths to the Heart and Soul of Sex' includes eight chapters of steps and strategies individuals or small groups could use to incorporate the ISIS discoveries into their own lives.
If ever there was a blueprint for sexual health through the ages this is it. As a reviewer it was difficult to find something to criticize or that was missing. More about the paths men take to unite sexuality and spirituality would've been nice; but that's another story and study that no accident, hasn't happened to date.