Let’s face it, women are the Oral Sex. Here we have a sidesplitting spotlight on the all-important subject of amore—and as it turns out, women have a whole lot to say about love. This big book of badassery is like a heart-to-heart talk with two hundred of your best friends! Topics discussed include “love is fabulous,” “how friends are our other significant others,” “size really does matter,” “it’s good to get lost,” and “are men really necessary?” and cover jobs, blind dates, sex, personal ads, break ups, weddings, and the prerequisites for the perfect first kiss. Gossipy, giddy, and extremely good advice, this compendium of radical common sense features loquacious ladies of every stripe from movie stars to moms, literati, glitterati, psychologist, sexperts, and all around bad girls tellin’ it like it is.

      Growing up, girls are often taught to find a balance between confidence and modesty. Sure, you can accept a compliment, but don’t go looking for one. Suggesting that someone look at you would be entirely unacceptable—that girl would be seen as having an ego problem. But all this standard does is make girls question themselves and their own actions left and right. It makes us focus on not emphasizing our attributes when that’s really all we should be doing. We don’t question this growing up. When our mothers say not to wear that attention-grabbing outfit, or when they criticize us for making a scene, it seems normal and ordinary.

      Yet why, I now wonder, in a world where the wind can so easily be knocked out of a woman’s sails (whether deliberately and cruelly, or just by the sheer impersonal weight of accumulated experience), would we strive to diet down young girls’ egos? Wouldn’t it make more sense to shore them up to the size of Kim K’s celebrated booty, so that they’d still retain a little buoyancy (a modicum of oomph!) despite the inevitable deflationary effects of life?

      Happily, the parents of the outspoken badass women in this section seem to have been spectacularly enlightened…or, perhaps, merely spectacularly unsuccessful at inculcating the creed of mouse-like behavior in their daughters. These women never allowed knock-downs to their confidence—they were badass, and they knew it. For amplification of your own sassy attitude—or perhaps just your own amusement—read on.

       CHAPTER 1

      •

       Love Is All You Need. Really?

      If there’s one thing that’s been on the minds of all badass women for as long as we’ve been around, it’s love. And since wild women have been on the scene right from the very beginning, it’s safe to say that we’ve accumulated a veritable stockpile of wit and wisdom on the subject of amour—both good and bad. Whether the topic at hand is true love, lost love, scandalous love, or even (heaven forbid) unrequited love, we’ve always got a good story or an inspiring motto to share.

      What better way to celebrate our past, present, and future than with a book devoted to one of our favorite subjects? There are as many kinds of wild love out there as there are wild women, and that’s certainly something worth honoring. With this in mind, there’s much more to this book than your usual Valentine’s card sentiments (although there’s plenty of that for you true romantics to enjoy). In the chapter that follows, you’ll find reflections on everything from the joys of new love to the heartbreak of divorce, and from lust and sex to loving someone of the same gender. It’s all part of what makes us so wonderfully wild, and it’s all part of this book as well.

      So whether you’re in the middle of a lasting romance, starting something new, or even recovering from your last tangle with Cupid’s arrows, there’s a quote here that will speak to you. And with legends and life stories of some of the most famous amorous women included in each chapter, you’ll be inspired as well as entertained. Love has always been a part of our lives; keep embracing its wildness and add your own stories to those that have come before!

      Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us, but we can’t strike them all by ourselves.

      —Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

      If they substituted the word “Lust” for “Love” in the popular songs, it would come nearer the truth.

      —Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

      The young habitually mistake lust for love, they’re infested with idealism of all kinds.

      —Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

      Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

      —Maya Angelou, distinguished poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist

      Lust is what keeps you wanting to do it even when you have no desire to be with each other. Love is what makes you want to be with each other even when you have no desire to do it.

      —Judith Viorst, journalist and psychoanalytic researcher

      Lust is temporary, romance can be nice, but love is the most important thing of all. Because without love, lust and romance will always be short-lived.

      —Danielle Steel, bestselling author

      I have not changed; I am still the same girl I was fifty years ago and the same young woman I was in the seventies. I still lust for life, I am still ferociously independent, I still crave justice, and I still fall madly in love easily.

      —Isabel Allende, noted Chilean-American “magic realism” author

      You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.

      —Barbara De Angelis, author and transformational teacher

      Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable.

      —Dr. Joyce Brothers, psychologist and columnist

      Kiss me and you will see how important I am.

      —Sylvia Plath, renowned poet and fiction writer

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