Talk Dirty to Me is a frank, funny, and provocative journey through gender and desire. It ranges from romance and pornography, prostitution and morality, to fantasies and orgasm. Sallie Tisdale guides us through her research of peep shows, sex shops, and even the pornography collection of the British Library. Along with descriptions of her personal experiences, she presents a brilliant, fascinating, and wholly original portrait of contemporary sex and sexual identity.
"I wrote Talk Dirty To Me almost twenty years ago. I was in my thirties, and I still found sex bewildering - to be precise, I found my own anxieties and shyness about sex bewildering." - Sallie Tisdale
Sallie Tisdale challenges commonly held assumptions about almost everything related to sexuality. Talk Dirty to Me investigates the role of sex in human life: from discussing how gender is now something partly born, partly borrowed, and partly built; to exploring how children are sexualised in fashion, music, and advertising while condemnation of paedophilia reaches fever pitch.
"I don't worry much about sex anymore. It just is, there - sometimes forward, sometimes over in a corner. There's mine, and there's yours, and I don't worry too much about yours. Sex is just being human." - Sallie Tisdale
Talk Dirty to Me encompasses a wide range of references: American and Japanese pornography, James Joyce's infamous love letters, interviews with prostitutes proud of their skills and earning power, cultural writing from Roland Barthes to Susie Bright, Freud, Adam and Eve, to the findings of sex researchers such as Masters and Johnson.
Sallie Tisdale invites her readers to have an open conversation about sex while challenging traditional feminist attitudes towards sexual politics.


A personal philosophy of human sexuality - now expanded and revised. Talk Dirty to Me is a frank, funny, and provocative journey through gender and desire. It ranges from romance and pornography, prostitution and morality, to fantasies and orgasm. Sallie Tisdale guides us through her research of peep shows, sex shops, and even the pornography collection of the British Library. Along with descriptions of her personal experiences, she presents a brilliant, fascinating, and wholly original portrait of contemporary sex and sexual identity. Sallie Tisdale challenges commonly held assumptions about almost everything related to sexuality. Talk Dirty to Me investigates the role of sex in human life: from discussing how gender is now something partly born, partly borrowed, and partly built; to exploring how children are sexualised in fashion, music, and advertising while condemnation of paedophilia reaches fever pitch. Talk Dirty to Me encompasses a wide range of references: American and Japanese pornography, James Joyce's infamous love letters, interviews with prostitutes proud of their skills and earning power, cultural writing from Roland Barthes to Susie Bright, Freud, Adam and Eve to the findings of sex researchers such as Masters and Johnson. Sallie Tisdale invites her readers to have an open conversation about sex while challenging traditional feminist attitudes towards sexual politics.