This book changed the way I think about sex. It offers a new framework to think about sex--less linear and more complex. It has helped me break down some walls I have put up. I think it can be especially mind-opening for women who have been sexually abused or who have issues with self-worth. There is a poem in the last chapter that moves me to tears each time I read it titled :"For a woman who fears she is too damaged to love again." I felt like the author must have had me in mind when she wrote it.

Gina Ogden is a compassionate and sincere woman who writes from her heart and experience as a woman and a psychologist who specializes in this arena. Her kindness and truthfulness is a relief from so many male driven edgy perspectives that read so cold. She gives you room to hit your own place and have permission to be and discover yourself within the array of information and it's opportunity. She is not tethered to the system but comes from it with basic information that became enhanced from the ISIS survey. Her language is understandable for women. She speaks in terms of facts, the survey lessons and visualizations for the reader to explore. Potentially enlightening for self actualization growth. Go for it.

I am a sex therapist and researcher. Many clients have never experienced the kinds of sexual experiences described by participants in the study presented in this book. It is heartening for them to know - women of all ages and orientations can have deeply meaningful, joyful, and pleasurable sex. Viewing sexuality from a perspective other than the traditional performance and dysfunction model allows anyone a tool to access and develop a new or different pathway to satisfying sex, however each person may define that. This book provides the brain science and qualitative research to back up the existence and virtues of whole person, spiritual, positive sexuality.

As a veteran college health and human sexuality instructor I've read and skimmed more than my fair share of self-help books and research texts on female sexuality over the past half-century. Very few of them would I recommend you read cover to cover. Gina Ogden's Heart and Soul of Sex (2006 Trumpter/Shambhala) is. Not only does it report the results of a first of its kind nationwide survey on Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality (ISIS) in a refreshingly readable welcoming fashion; the gentle tone and language she uses to weaves four decades of professional experience as a therapist with the stories of 3810 respondents (18% men), models the very gentleness and depth, which I for one, hope sexuality can be for all of us.
Part One reviews the physiological facts about sex and goes beyond performance oriented 'functioning, to describe Ogden's 'ISIS Wheel' of the multi-dimensional nature of human sexual response. Women's journeys to interconnect (or not) the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of sexuality are beautifully synthesized and narrated. At the center that Dr. Ogden labels 'healing, transformation, and magic,' she gives us litanies of how some women describe the indescribable: their experiences of ecstasy, union, wholeness, oneness, feelings of acceptance and love. ' Part Two 'Paths to the Heart and Soul of Sex' includes eight chapters of steps and strategies individuals or small groups could use to incorporate the ISIS discoveries into their own lives.
If ever there was a blueprint for sexual health through the ages this is it. As a reviewer it was difficult to find something to criticize or that was missing. More about the paths men take to unite sexuality and spirituality would've been nice; but that's another story and study that no accident, hasn't happened to date.

I ordered this book because i was signed up to attend the author' s workshop. I am a voracious reader but this book just didn't grab me. Perhaps it was the chatty tone. I couldn't get into it. I wanted something less "wifty". Then my dog got sick so I couldn't attend the workshop. (DOg swallowed a rawhide bone and had abdominal obstruction. Thankfully he's fine now!) I was hoping that at the workshop (in the book she writes a lot about the sharing circles she leads) I'd get into the material more. Oh well - life always seems to get in the way of great spirit-filled sexual experiences. At least that's been my experience as a busy mom and professional.