Flick: A History of Female Pleasure by Dr. Kate Lister — a lively, funny, and illuminating journey through the long and often surprising history of women enjoying sex.
From the host of the award-winning podcast Betwixt the Sheets comes a rousing history of female pleasure: sex with themselves, sex with each other, and occasionally sex with men as well. Dr. Kate Lister takes readers on a witty, scholarly, and thoroughly entertaining tour from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day, revealing how women’s sexuality has been controlled, pathologised, celebrated, and reshaped across the centuries.
Meet the women who, quite literally, came before us. Explore shifting attitudes toward masturbation, orgasm, frigidity, oral sex, sexual fluidity, and desire itself — from raunchy medieval poets to Victorian sex panics and beyond. Lister dismantles the persistent myth that women have historically been expected to “lie back and think of England,” showing instead a rich and often rebellious tradition of female pleasure.
Warm, sharp, and packed with fascinating stories, Flick is both a history lesson and a battle cry. Perfect for readers of Mary Roach, Angela Saini, and anyone curious about the real history of women’s bodies and desires.
