Sexy, hedonistic, hilarious - Ann Summers parties are the ultimate girls' night in. Promising the perfect antidote to the toils of everyday life - sexual pleasure - they are the 'naughty but nice' version of the classic Tupperware(R) party.Ann Summers parties are incredibly popular, with around 4000 parties held in Britain every week. The basis is simple: to provide an all-female environment where women can buy sexy lingerie, erotic fashion, sex toys and other sex-related products. In many respects these parties enable women to transgress social taboos in the comfort of their own homes. But they are also a subtle means of constructing and enforcing heterosexual femininity.This book investigates what really goes on at these 'special' homosocial gatherings, where heterosexual women drink, laugh, shop, play party games and talk about sex. Storr develops a new analysis of the ways heterosexual women identify with and against each other - and of what this tells us about gender, sexuality and consumption in contemporary society. Drawing on both participant observation and in-depth interviews with party organizers, this fascinating and fun book is an indispensable guide to the politics of 'post-feminist' culture.

Bisexuality: A Critical Reader presents the essential primary texts on bisexuality from the last 100 years in an easy-to-read format. Exploring this often controversial concept from a range of perspectives, this book places bisexuality in its historical and cultural context and explores its many meanings and uses. Merl Storr's introductions give a straightforward overview of the texts included and sets them clearly in the context of debates on bisexuality.
This collection includes pieces by:
* Henry Havelock Ellis
* Sigmund Freud
* Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy and Clyde E. Martin
* and Hélèn Cixous.

This exciting collection of work introduces a major shift in debates on sexuality: a shift away from discourse, identity and signification, to a radical new conception of bodily materialism. Moving away from the established path known as queer theory, it suggests an alternative to Butler's matter/representation binary. It thus dares to ask how to think sexuality and sex outside the discursive and linguistic context that has come to dominate contemporary research in social sciences and humanities. Deleuze and Queer Theory is a provocative and often militant collection that explores a diverse range of themes including: the revisiting of the term 'queer'; a rethinking of the sex-gender distinction as being implied in Queer Theory; an exploration of queer temporalities; the non/re-reading of the homosexual body/desire and the becoming-queer of the Deleuze/Guattari philosophy. It will be essential reading for anyone interested not just in Deleuze's and Guattari's philosophy, but also in the fields of sexuality, gender and feminist theory.

This exciting collection of work introduces a major shift in debates on sexuality: a shift away from discourse, identity and signification, to a radical new conception of bodily materialism. Moving away from the established path known as queer theory, it suggests an alternative to Butler's matter/representation binary. It thus dares to ask how to think sexuality and sex outside the discursive and linguistic context that has come to dominate contemporary research in social sciences and humanities. Deleuze and Queer Theory is a provocative and often militant collection that explores a diverse range of themes including: the revisiting of the term 'queer'; a rethinking of the sex-gender distinction as being implied in Queer Theory; an exploration of queer temporalities; the non/re-reading of the homosexual body/desire and the becoming-queer of the Deleuze/Guattari philosophy. It will be essential reading for anyone interested not just in Deleuze's and Guattari's philosophy, but also in the fields of sexuality, gender and feminist theory.

Sexy, hedonistic, hilarious - Ann Summers parties are the ultimate girls' night in. Promising the perfect antidote to the toils of everyday life - sexual pleasure - they are the 'naughty but nice' version of the classic Tupperware(r) party. Ann Summers parties are incredibly popular, with around 4000 parties held in Britain every week. The basis is simple: to provide an all-female environment where women can buy sexy lingerie, erotic fashion, sex toys and other sex-related products. In many respects these parties enable women to transgress social taboos in the comfort of their own homes. But they are also a subtle means of constructing and enforcing heterosexual femininity. This book investigates what really goes on at these 'special' homosocial gatherings, where heterosexual women drink, laugh, shop, play party games and talk about sex. Storr develops a new analysis of the ways heterosexual women identify with and against each other - and of what this tells us about gender, sexuality and consumption in contemporary society. Drawing on both participant observation and in-depth interviews with party organizers, this fascinating and fun book is an indispensable guide to the politics of 'post-feminist' culture.