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The Pleasure Plan

One Woman's Search for Sexual Healing

Published by Health Communications Inc EB
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

Based on popular essays in New York Times’ Modern Love and Salon, as well as an Off-Broadway one-person play, The Pleasure Plan is a sexual healing odyssey, a manifesto for women to claim pleasure as a priority, and a love story all at once.

Fifty percent of adult women have some form of sexual dysfunction at some point of their lives, preventing them from enjoying vibrant, soul-satisfying sex. Such was the case with Laura Zam, who suffered the blame, shame, and embarrassment of feeling bedroom broken.

For her, delving between the sheets meant physical pain, zero desire, and emotional scars from being molested in her early years. However, in her late forties, after meeting and marrying the love of her life, Zam was determined to finally fix her sensual self.

This is her brave and bawdy plan to triage her flaccid romantic life, stepping into a void where intimacy, self-love, and playfulness could be experienced--the full monty of Eros that had been missing from her existence.

The Pleasure Plan is what happened when she decided to challenge her hopelessness. In partnership with her initially reluctant husband, she visited 15 healers and tried 30 pleasure-enhancing methods: from dilators and dildos, to hypnosis and hosting a sex brunch, to cleansing chakras, to making love to her husband in front of a geriatric Tantric goddess.

Packed with humor, heart, and a healthy dose of prescriptive advice, this book chronicles Zam’s insight as she confronts many issues—from mismatched libidos to female erection enlightenment. Throughout this journey, she and her husband grow as individuals and as a couple, both in and out of the bedroom.

Fearlessly honest and full of inspiration, Zam peels back the layers—or covers—and exposes her foibles, insecurities, and eventual wisdom as she excavates past traumas, accepts and embraces her worth, and claims her right to be completely alive.

Today, Laura works as a sexuality educator, wellness coach, and speaker helping other women who suffer from sexual dysfunction, the effects of trauma, or those who would simply like more pleasure (of all kinds) in their lives. She also consults with health care providers so they may better assist their clients in achieving sexual well-being.

While The Pleasure Plan is Zam’s personal narrative, it demystifies pervasive taboos, encouraging women to make pleasure a priority, while teaching them how to claim (or reclaim) the power of their sexual selves. It also shows men how they can support their partners in this #Metoo era.

Healthy, sultry intimacy is a right; it is time for women to learn—through glorious trial and error—how to embrace the sensual side of themselves. . . exuberantly and unabashedly.

About The Author

Laura Zam is a Sexuality Educator, Certified Trauma Professional, wellness trainer, award-winning solo performer, HuffPost blogger, TEDx speaker, and workshop leader, whose work focuses on sexual healing. Her writing appears in The New York Times (Modern Love), Salon, HuffPost, SheKnows, NextTribe, the Forward, in international journals, and in five book anthologies. Her solo pieces have been performed in New York at The International Fringe Festival, The Public Theatre, the United Solo Festival (Off-Broadway), and others. National venues include The Kennedy Center, The National Theatre, and the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well theaters, conferences, schools, libraries, and universities across the U.S. and abroad. Laura has been awarded numerous grants, including a Tennessee William's Fellowship and five Artist grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She has also taught at a number of universities including Brown University and UC Berkeley.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Health Communications Inc EB (May 5, 2020)
  • Length: 304 pages
  • ISBN13: 9780757323515

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Raves and Reviews

"Zam is funny, smart, and one hell of an educator. I commend her for sharing her own experience and writing a book about pleasure for women. All women need a Pleasure Plan.”

Betty Dodson, PhD, sexologist, Netflix Sex Educator, bestselling author of Sex for One

“Laura Zam’s work is passionate, witty, psychologically astute, and filled with wisdom and good healing karma."

Susan Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Unhooked and Five Men Who Broke My Heart

“In each of us, there is a quiet, bright voice, insisting on a life of pleasure and aliveness. This is the voice Laura uses to write this book — along with some wicked humor."

LiYana Silver, coach and author of Feminine Genius: The Provocative Path to Waking Up and Turning On the Wisdom of Being a Woman

“Laura’s healing is beautifully woven together in this memoir using humor and wit. So many people need to read this book to increase sex education, awareness, and hope for more pleasure in their life.”

Rachel S. Rubin, MD, urologist, sexual medicine specialist, national health advocate

“Reading The Pleasure Plan feels like going on the ride with Zam and exiting the off-ramp wiser, much more hopeful, and, above all, more human.”

Rosalyn Dischiavo, author of The Deep Yes, The Lost Art of True Receiving, founder of Institute for Sexuality Education & Enlightenment

"An empowering journey helping women navigate their bodies, their bedrooms, and their health. Gorgeously told.”

Nina Lorez Collins, author of What Would Virginia Woolf Do, founder of The Woolfer

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