Sex After…

The bestselling author of The Secret Lives of Wives offers a refreshingly honest look at how to enjoy a long, satisfying sex life no matter what life throws at you.

Hooking up, marriage, childbirth, infidelity, divorce, menopause, widowhood—women's lives have many stages, changes, and challenges. A prevailing question on women's minds as they age is, "How do I handle the shifts in my sexuality caused by these transitions?"

In Sex After…, veteran journalist and New York Times bestselling author Iris Krasnow tackles this question head-on. Krasnow traveled the country, interviewing over 150 women, from waitresses to CEOs, ages twenty to eighty-eight. Here she shares their varied stories—raw, titillating, and, most importantly, real. Their confessions are bolstered by Krasnow's in-depth research and reporting, as well as commentary from experts ranging from oncologists, gynecologists, and sex therapists to a Rabbi and the still-feisty Dr. Ruth Westheimer. This rich chorus of voices joins together in an unprecedented and all-encompassing exploration of each phase of intimacy and sexuality and of how life's passages affect a woman's mind, body, and soul.

We meet a young wife whose husband lost a leg in Afghanistan; women re-jiggering their relationships after pregnancy, mastectomies, and hysterectomies; and those dealing with husbands with prostate cancer or a penchant for Viagra. We are also thrust into the sagas of post-college random sex and dating after divorce and widowhood—in an era when STDs in older populations are on the rise. And there are testimonies from long-married grandmothers—a sunset period of life that can turn out to be very sexy, through adjusted expectations and the introduction of new toys and new routines.

In her trademark conversational style, Krasnow leaves no stone unturned when it comes to sex and intimacy, from hooking up in the twenties to hooking up in senior communities—and everything in between.

A well-crafted balance of inspirational (and juicy) anecdotes and prescriptive medical information, this is the book that offers every woman secrets and strategies that will help her feel sexy and fully alive throughout the female growth cycle.