Writing
Gender is central to who we are. My books are about the personal and social aspects of gender,
and how we might navigate gender with a greater sense of internal freedom.
Hard to Get:
Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom
HARD TO GET is a powerful and intimate examination of the sex and love lives of the most liberated women in history—twenty-something American women who have had more opportunities, more positive role models, and more information than any previous generation. Drawing from her years of experience as a researcher and a psychotherapist, Leslie C. Bell takes us directly into the lives of young women who struggle to negotiate the complexities of sexual desire and pleasure, and to make sense of their historically unique but contradictory constellation of opportunities and challenges.
In candid interviews, Bell’s subjects reveal that, despite having more choices than ever, they face great uncertainty about desire, sexuality, and relationships. The author illustrates how the new freedoms and mixed messages that characterize their early adulthood, together with the absence of useful training in getting what they want, contribute to a contemporary paradox: sexual freedom paired with unsatisfying sex and relationships. Ground-breaking and highly readable, HARD TO GET offers fascinating insights into the many ways that sex, love, and satisfying relationships prove surprisingly elusive for these young women as they navigate the new emotional landscape of the twenty-first century.
“Hard to Get shows us why, in the 21st Century, sex is easy but relationships are not. Every 20-something woman who is having sex, but feels that something is amiss, should read this book.”
—Meg Jay, Ph.D., author of The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now
“Female sexuality provides endless fascination; but how do actual young women find happiness in sex and love? Leslie Bell gives us an up-close look at twenty-something women at a cultural moment when they have more freedom than ever before, but their desires – sexual and relational – continue to confound. Bell navigates this complex terrain with compassion, keen insight, and an eye to social change.”
—Daphne de Marneffe, PhD, author of Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life
Gender, Sex, & Sexualities:
Psychological Perspectives
Edited by Nancy K. Dess, Jeanne Marecek, and Leslie C. Bell, Gender, Sex, and Sexualities offers both students and scholars the tools they need to consider and approach such questions as: how do children come to embrace (or repudiate) gendered activities and identities; how do people experience intimacy, desire, and sexual arousal; and what strategies can psychologists use to de-center their own points of view and effectively contribute to a decolonial psychology?
"This capacious, comprehensive book will be useful for everyone from the curious undergraduate to the specialized advanced scholar. Leading scholars and researchers from throughout the world guide the reader through the newest empirical research and the most complex theory, from genetics, neuroscience, and biology, to cognitive and developmental psychology, psychoanalysis, and social psychology."
—Nancy J. Chodorow, psychoanalyst, sociologist, and author of The Reproduction of Mothering, Individualizing Gender and Sexuality
"Nancy Dess, Jeanne Marecek, and Leslie Bell have curated a brilliant, accessible and lively text on Gender, Sex, and Sexualities that works like a feminist GPS, guiding novice and experienced readers through contemporary transnational work on gender/sexuality research, theory practice, and activisms...Dess, Marecek, and Bell help us imagine how we make sense, and make trouble, about gender at the radical intersections."
—Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology, Women's Studies, American Studies and Urban Education, The Graduate Center, CUNY
In addition to authorship, I also consult as a source for a variety of media outlets, including:
You may contact me regarding these books or media inquiries here.