Description:
If anyone understands female masturbation, it's Joani Blank, founder of San Francisco's Good Vibrations, a woman-friendly sex-toy shop. Her previous books, Femalia and First Person Sexualestablished her as one of the top chroniclers of the next wave in the sexual evolution of women. I Am My Lover watches ...closely ... while twelve women get themselves off using fingers, dildos, vibrators, and their own imaginations; black and white photographs of the women taken by Annie Sprinkle, Michael Rosen, Phyllis Christopher and others provide us with images of our own to contemplate. Although Blank calls this "the last taboo," photos of women masturbating are commonplace in porn. The difference here is that these women don't seem to be doing this for anyone but themselves. Perhaps it's because, for the most part, they aren't the lacquered teenage breast-implantees one finds in the pages of various men's magazines. Or perhaps it's just that they look like they're having fun sometimes. Whatever, the photos certainly capture nuances of the act that may fascinate women who've never seen another woman masturbate (or have never done it themselves), or men curious about the workings of female sexuality minus the presence of a partner. The interesting facial expressions of the women easily hold their own against the ... ahem ... other body parts.
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