Drive By Book Reccomendations

[wolffyluna]

I read a lot of library books when I was back in Expunged, and some of them were pretty good.

Revolting Prostitutes by Juno Mac and Molly Smith

This is a book about sex workers rights. It's main focus is on different legal frameworks sex work happens in, and what affects they have on the lives of se workers. It is refreshingly materialist. One of the big things this book pushes against is how a lot of discussions about sex work focus on sex work as a symbol, and so it is either Patriarchy Incarnate We Need To Save Disgusting Fallen Women From or The Most Empowering Job In The World, and there is very little room for 'what affect will this policy have on people, and who will be affected the most?' It was very informative (and also fairly often horrifying), and I appreciate how... down to Earth? the authors are. They're willing to look at the practicalities and complexities of a situation, the "managers often suck but there are also reasons to work for them" and "people often take up sex work not just for the money but the flexibility, so 'going and getting a minimum wage job' is not a replacement."

Queer Sex by Juno Roche

This book is mostly made up of interviews with trans people about sex and romance, and the ways being trans affects that. The interviews cover a wide range of topics, from "and here is how I met my spouse" to "here is how my sex life changed before and after I transitioned" to "here is what I expected from bottom surgery and here is what actually happened." The interviews are interesting and informative, and Juno Roche is a good interviewer.

Though this recommendation is made more tentative by the frame Juno Roche uses. Sandwiching each interview is monologue from Juno about how she feels about herself and sex and romance, and what she learned from each interview. The monologues are very... confessional, the sort of thing you'd expect to read from a personal journal, and I kept having moments of "...are you sure you want me, a rando, to know that about you?" So whether you would like this book really depends on how much you can tolerate public "Dear Diary, I am starting to realise I have rock bottom self esteem..."

Practical Meditation by Giovanni Dienstmann

This is another one where the recommendation is tentative, because the reason I read it is also the reason I am unqualified to recommend it.

It's a book about how to meditate, aimed at beginners. The first section of the book is about why one would want to meditate and general advice for beginners, and the last section is for people who are no longer beginners but want to continue improving. The largest and middle section is instructions for how to do different kinds of meditation. Each kind of meditation also has a sidebar about what sensory channel it works through, what skill it aims to build, what tradition it comes from, and also what other similar techniques are. The instructions are easy to follow and well laid out. One of the big green flags is that the author gives cautions, as well. For example for some techniques he gives warnings like "don't do this one if you have issues with dissociation" or "don't do this one if you have photosensitivity issues" or "you can do this one on your own, but if you have confusing or distressing experiences, talk to a teacher"

Comments

[lb_lee]

I've heard good things about Revolting Prostitutes! (IIRC, it was recced in a comic we read that Biff enjoyed called SFSX, which was about sex work in dystopia.) I should check it out; I'm trying to learn more about sex work stuff!