Biography

Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, performer, and activist, and the editor of the hit book Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (one of Publishers' Weekly's Top 100 Books of 2009).Friedman is a popular speaker on campuses and at conferences across the U.S. and beyond. She has been a guest on BBC World Have Your Say, Democracy Now, To The Contrary, and numerous other radio and television shows, and her commentary has appeared in outlets including CNN, The Washington Post, The Nation, Jezebel, Feministing.com, The American Prospect, Bitch, AlterNet, and The Huffington Post. She is a SheSource expert, and was named one of 2009's Top 40 Progressive Leaders Under 40 by the New Leaders Council.Friedman is a founder and the Executive Director of Women, Action & the Media, a national organization working for gender justice in media. She is also a charter member of CounterQuo, a coalition dedicated to challenging the ways we respond to sexual violence.

In this empowering, accessible guide, Jaclyn Friedman—co-editor ofYes Means Yes—gives young women the tools to decipher the modern world’s confusing, hypersexualized, sometimes dangerous landscape so they can define their own sexual identity. Friedman decries the hypocrisy and mixed messages of our culture (we’re failures if we don’t act sexy, but we’re sluts if we actually pursue sex; we need to be protected from rapists lurking in bushes, but deserve “whatever we get” if we have a drink at a party and wear a skirt), and encourages readers to separate fear from fact, decode the damaging messages all around them, and discover a healthy personal sexuality.Educational and interactive,What You Really Really Wantincludes revealing quizzes, creative exercises, and reality-based advice about sex and sexuality today. With Friedman’s informed advice to guide them, readers will build new skills for safely expressing their sexuality with lovers and explore effective ways to talk about tricky issues with family and friends—and learn how to make the world a little safer for everyone else’s sexuality along the way.