Sexuality, periods, beauty: 4 books to feel Powerful

At Puissant, we want to make our blog and our newsletters a space of resources to dismantle taboos and learn to leave each other alone. This involves writing articles, popularizing concepts, but also recommending books, podcasts, shows to go even deeper and reveal your personal power . Today, we invite you to discover some of the essentials of our library . Help yourself to a good tea, browse our shelves, grab a book and settle into your favorite chair. 🫖

Sexpowerment by Camille Emmanuelle

🔎 What it's about

This essay is a declaration of love (and humor) to a liberated and positive sexuality .

With her clear-cut position, the author supports the idea that sex liberates women and that it participates in their emancipation from social, family and religious injunctions.

✒️ A word about the author

A graduate of the Institute of Political Studies in Grenoble and of in-depth studies in political science, Camille Emmanuelle is an author and freelancer specializing in questions of sexuality.

She has also trained as a sex therapist , which has fueled her reflections on sexuality and its codes.

Among her publications, the author has also written a book aimed at a teenage audience that deals with the first kiss.

💘 Why we love

An ultra pleasant and accessible read that brings an optimistic and joyful view of a subject that is not at first sight. 🤸‍♀️

The author reconciles femininity and feminism through various uninhibited chronicles.

This is one of our first favorites. 💖 With the following book, they even inspired the values ​​and messages that we want to bring to all women with Powerful.

I Cum Like I Am by Emily Nagoski

🔎 What it's about

Je Jouis Comme Je Suis presents female pleasure from every angle with the aim of showing its diversity.

The book brings together a decade of research and intimate stories to popularize female sexuality. 👩‍🔬

The first conclusion of this research is that each woman has her own sexuality , like her DNA or her fingerprints. She can explore it and learn to embrace it away from conditioning. The second is that sex is always related to a particular context that influences it.

It explores subjects still too little treated in the media such as the different types of sexuality, the mismatch between lubrication and excitement or the impact of stress on libido .

✒️ A word about the author

A graduate of Indiana University in psychology, Emilie Nagoski is a sex education and violence prevention professional . She describes her mission as " teach women to live with confidence and joy in their bodies ”. ☀️

Her second book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Cycle of Stress, is for women who feel overwhelmed and exhausted by all they have to do, but worry that they're not doing "enough." We love his educational work as well as his Coco blue hair. 💙

💘 Why we love

This book is a real bible to reconcile with your sexuality , but more broadly with your body and your mind . Having the benevolent gaze of a sexologist who has compiled years of research and reflection for us in an accessible, practical and digestible book is super precious.

It's easy to navigate through the book, go back to the exercises or re-read it to go even further in our own journey towards self-love.

The Evolution of Beauty by Kari Molvar

🔎 What it's about

From our relationship to body-related injunctions and our definition of beauty yesterday and today. 💄

Throughout the pages, we first explore the emancipation of the canons of beauty in the early 1900s with a zoom on the history of the Gibson Girls. We then put on our private detective parka to investigate the origins of modern injunctions of thinness and youth before doing an overview of what beauty is today .

“Today, it is no longer a question of conforming to any ideal, but of telling your own story through your appearance. »

✒️ A word about the author

Kari Molvar is a freelance journalist who has made wellness and beauty her favorite subjects.

Originally from Rhode Island in the US, she studied art history and architecture at Brown University and was an editor at Allure and SELF, among other publications. 📰

Her work has appeared in Vogue, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal , and she's the founder of Rutine Matters, a site inspired by simple beauty rituals.

💘 Why we love

Released in 2022, this book brings a fresh and current reflection on our way of experiencing beauty on a daily basis . It allows us to take a step back to deconstruct what we have integrated as aesthetic standards over the years and thus get out of the harmful stereotypes that lock us up. 💪

By opening the conversation on gender, desire, shapes, the natural body , the author invites us to reclaim a personal definition of what beauty is to rediscover pleasure and fun.

Although translated into French, the book remains rather focused on American references. To complete it, we strongly recommend Beauté Fatale by Mona Chollet , which refocuses these sociological questions on the experience of European and French women.

This is my Blood by Estelle Thiébaut

🔎 What it's about

Of Englishmen who land, of ragagnas, of menstruation, etc., in a word , of menstruation . The book dissects the natural and yet oh so taboo phenomenon that punctuates our lives for a good half of our lives. 🩸

Starting from her personal experience, the author takes on the role of ethnologist, doctor, psychologist, but also sociologist. She offers us a fabulous overview of the subject , ranging from menopause to different customs around the world.

✒️ A word about the author

Élise Thiébaut is both an essayist and a journalist committed to the feminist cause . Through her essays, stories and fictions that are both personal and highly documented, she questions the place given to women in society.

An eco-feminist, she wrote the biography of a pioneer of this movement, Françoise d'Eaubonne, and worked with a midwife, Camille Tallet, on the little-known history of the vulva . A real powerful girl! 🔥

 

💘 Why we love

Menstruation is a subject as common and banal as it is taboo. The proof, the brands of hygienic protections hardly dare to present a red liquid to illustrate the blood in their advertising spots. Sometimes feared, sometimes perceived as impure, menstruation is the symbol of a creative power that destabilizes .

This book educates, questions and allows us to break away from preconceived ideas about the rules . It offers us the opportunity to come to terms with this monthly phenomenon shared by half of the world's population. 🥰

You are ready to spend a most empowering summer with our few book recommendations to feel powerful. To go further and receive our advice and our cultural favorites every week , subscribe to our newsletter.