My Secret Garden

Description

First published in 1973, My Secret Garden ignited a firestorm of reactions across the nation—from outrage to enthusiastic give a boost to. Collected from detailed personal interviews with hundreds of women from diverse backgrounds, this book presents a bracingly honest account of women’s inner sexual fantasy lives. In its time, this book shattered taboos and opened up a conversation about the landscape of feminine desire in a way that was unprecedented.

Today, My Secret Garden remains probably the most iconic works of feminist literature of our time—and is still relevant to millions of women right through the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nancy Friday is a New York Times bestselling creator and journalist who established her early career writing for high-profile publications in England, France, and the US. Her first book, My Secret Garden, was an iconic bestseller, offering an honest and illuminating look at the landscape of female sexuality. It was published in 1973, and since then, Nancy Friday has continued to write on themes including female sexuality, mother-daughter relationships, beauty, fetishism, and romantic relationships. She has been featured as a guest on Oprah, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, Politically Wrong, and NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

ABOUT THE SERIES

More than any other feminist creator, Nancy Friday returned time and again to the topic of female sexuality. Her Female Sexuality Collection includes her most important works: The Power of Beauty, Jealousy, My Secret Garden, Forbidden Flowers, and Women on Top.

This book caused somewhat a ruckus when it was released 25 years ago because it directly quotes the sexual fantasies of dozens of women, ranging from the “very common” rape fantasy to lesbian affairs to unusually explicit scenarios that are unmentionable here. Whilst creator Nancy Friday maintains that My Secret Garden served to free millions of women from sexual oppression, there’s still a need today to get rid of the guilt that millions more still feel relating to fantasizing, having orgasms, and making one’s sexual wishes be known. “How could it be, you might ask,” she writes, “that women today, at the turn of the century, would still think they were the only Bad Girls with erotic thoughts? What kind of prison is this that that women impose on themselves?”

My Secret Garden has the prurient appeal that made it probably the most passed-around books in high school study halls (it boasts chapters titled “Insatiability” and “The Thrill of the Forbidden”), but its premise, underneath the tales of lusty longings, is a serious one. Friday, also creator of My Mother, My Self and Women on Top, is appalled at how parents, especially mothers, instill in their children a deep fear of sexual pleasure, and she advises how to do away with this stultifying force. Whilst Friday can get a little histrionic at times (“Women’s lust … could bring down not only individuals, but society itself”), that doesn’t make this book any less enthralling. –Erica Jorgensen
First published in 1973, My Secret Garden ignited a firestorm of reactions across the nation—from outrage to enthusiastic give a boost to. Collected from detailed personal interviews with hundreds of women from diverse backgrounds, this book presents a bracingly honest account of women’s inner sexual fantasy lives. In its time, this book shattered taboos and opened up a conversation about the landscape of feminine desire in a way that was unprecedented.

Today, My Secret Garden remains probably the most iconic works of feminist literature of our time—and is still relevant to millions of women right through the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nancy Friday is a New York Times bestselling creator and journalist who established her early career writing for high-profile publications in England, France, and the US. Her first book, My Secret Garden, was an iconic bestseller, offering an honest and illuminating look at the landscape of female sexuality. It was published in 1973, and since then, Nancy Friday has continued to write on themes including female sexuality, mother-daughter relationships, beauty, fetishism, and romantic relationships. She has been featured as a guest on Oprah, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, Politically Wrong, and NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

ABOUT THE SERIES

More than any other feminist creator, Nancy Friday returned time and again to the topic of female sexuality. Her Female Sexuality Collection includes her most important works: The Power of Beauty, Jealousy, My Secret Garden, Forbidden Flowers, and Women on Top.