7 exciting books about porn, sex, and desire coming out in 2026

Exposed is about how extreme porn – depictions of incest, rape, and child abuse – has entered the mainstream. For many readers, this won't come as a surprise. Violence against women has become ubiquitous in modern porn, from strangulation (the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40, FYI) to the rise of ‘4 ft 6’ as a search category on major porn sites. If you're wondering, 4 ft 6 in is the average height of a ten-year-old girl.

In this harrowing book, McGlynn confronts ‘Big Porn’, worth $90 billion annually, exploring the real-life ramifications of extreme pornography, as well as casting the spotlight on those who profit from it. This book is not about banning porn – far from it. McGlynn argues that by regulating extreme content, we can “liberate women's desire”, paving the way for pornography that truly centres female pleasure. Read this book – then encourage your partner to read it too.

Can you enjoy sex if you hate your body? This question is at the heart of Emma-Louise Boynton's first book, as well as the genesis for her personal emancipation from diet culture, poor body image, and bad sex. Through the generous retelling of her own sexual awakening, from starting sex therapy to observing feminist porn sets, Boynton takes us on a pleasure cruise through the societal contradictions of female sexuality. She examines how women are conditioned to appear sexually desirable at all times, yet float above our bodies when the action finally starts. Even when we're divorced from our own pleasure, we still feel obligated to perform it. We make the right noises in the hopes of fast-forwarding out of unflattering sexual positions, indefinitely postponing our own sexual fulfilment.

Pleasure is largely a memoir, but I can't think of a single woman who won't read it and recognise anecdotes straight from the pages of her own life story.

Seeking Sexual Freedom opens with a definition of ‘Sankofa’, which feminist writer and activist Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah defines as, “looking to the past to learn from history and applying those insights to build a better future.” And in the follow-up to her crowd-pleasing debut, The Sex Lives of African Women, Sekyiamah does just that, exploring African traditions surrounding sex and gender and – in her words – “imbibing them with feminist energy”.

The book is split into two parts: the first examines ancient African rites and rituals around sexual pleasure, while the second focuses on personal and cultural journeys towards sexual freedom. Between these sections, there is an “interruption”, which explores how the “unholy trio of colonisation, racism, and patriarchy” disturbed the sexual freedoms of Africans, particularly women and queer people. This structure centralises the legacy of colonialisation, while allowing Sekyiamah's fearless exploration of African sexuality and desire to take centre-stage.

Most of what we know about women's sex lives in Greco-Roman antiquity is shaped by the creative whims of men. From their ancient male counterparts – see Ovid's The Art of Love (2 CE), not entirely dissimilar to Neil Strauss' The Game (2005) – to comparatively modern historians determined to question whether Sappho, the great lesbian poet, was actually a man. But as ancient historian Jean Menzies will tell you, in a suitably derisory tone, Sappho was all woman.

In Aphrodisia, named for the ancient Greek festivals dedicated to the goddess of love Aphrodite, Menzies joins a long line of academics examining the empty spaces left behind by ancient Greek and Roman authors, uncovering the forgotten stories of women's sexuality and desire, whether scrawled on the walls of a Pompeii brothel – “Farewell Victor, you fucked well” – or through the discovery of a 28,000-year-old dildo. You're in for a wild ride.