Prude

In a culture obsessed with sex, the era of Dad’s Playboy is long gone. Today, endless free porn is a click away and full-frontal photos appear on sites as accessible as Twitter, yet many couples struggle with the underlying issues of pornography. Emily Southwood considered herself to be sexually liberal—until her fiancé landed a job filming porn for a network reality TV show and her whole world changed overnight. Once confident in her relationship, she suddenly felt jealous, insecure, and obsessively comparative to the porn stars her fiancé was around everyday. She was forced to confront feelings she didn’t even know she had: about the treatment of women in the porn industry, the hush-hush attitude toward women watching pornography, and the unrealistic expectations about sex that are often propagated by porn. Prude is a humorous memoir that explores why there is so little communication about porn in relationships. Southwood tells the story of her transformation from feeling sexually liberal-minded to realizing she had issues with porn and the industry her fiancé was a part of. She reveals her bizarre journey to conquer her discomfort around porn—and how she ends up finding herself (and ultimately fixing her relationship for good) along the way.