Kerry Cohen

For everyone who was that girl. For everyone who knew that girl. For everyone who wondered who that girl was. Kerry Cohen is eleven years old when she recognizes the power of her body in the leer of a grown man. Her parents are recently divorced and it doesn't take long before their lassitude and Kerry's desire to stand out--to be memorable in some way--combine to lead her down a path she knows she shouldn't take. Kerry wanted attention. She wanted love. But not really understanding what love was, not really knowing how to get it, she reached for sex instead. Loose Girl is Kerry Cohen's captivating memoir about her descent into promiscuity and how she gradually found her way toward real intimacy. The story of addiction -- not just to sex, but to male attention -- Loose Girl is also the story of a young girl who came to believe that boys and men could give her life meaning. It didn't matter who he was. It was their movement that mattered, their being together. And for a while, that was enough. From the early rush of exploration to the day she learned to quiet the desperation and allow herself to love and be loved, Kerry's story is never less than riveting. In rich and immediate detail, Loose Girl re-creates what it feels like to be in that desperate moment, when a girl tries to control a boy by handing over her body, when the touch of that boy seems to offer proof of something, but ultimately delivers little more than emptiness. Kerry Cohen's journey from that hopeless place to her current confident and fulfilled existence is a cautionary tale and a revelation for girls young and old. The unforgettable memoir of one young woman who desperately wanted to matter, Loose Girl will speak to countless others with its compassion, understanding, and love.

A Memoir of Promiscuity

Loose Girl

a memoir of promiscuity

Loose girl

Psychologist and bestselling author redefines love and sex addiction, looking at a spectrum, and offering a new approach for healing. There are more than one thousand Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) groups in the United States, but love and sex addition is relatively new in the world of psychology and self-help. Psychologist and bestselling memoirist Kerry Cohen can testify that it is a real problem, one that she sees in her practice, and one that deserves a new self-help approach. Love and sex addiction is shrouded in secrecy and shame; it's not yet listed in the DSM--nor is its treatment included in most training programs for counselors. This leaves countless people who are addicts--or somewhere on the spectrum--with few resources. This includes the many who have recurring issues with relationships and intimacy but may not know they fall on the love and sex addiction spectrum. Cohen knows the process personally and professionally; her guide helps readers to determine where they are on the spectrum--and how to get the help they need to have loving, fulfilling relationships.

Breaking the Spell of Sex and Love Addiction

Crazy for You

Bestselling memoirist and psychotherapist Kerry Cohen (Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity) explores complicated female friendships in Girl Trouble. Beginning with her relationship with her sister Tyler Cohen, who illustrates the memoir, Kerry examines the many ways female friendships can affect a girl's life. From bullying and failed friendships to competition and painful break ups, Girl Trouble brings forth a story of how one girl learned to navigate the many difficulties of feminine friendships. Girls and women everywhere will relate to the confusion, the hurt feelings, and they will also learn along with Kerry how to make better choices over the years.

An Illustrated Memoir

Girl Trouble

breaking the silence on teenage girls and promiscuity

Dirty little secrets

Baring the Truth in Your Memoir When you write a memoir or personal essay, you dare to reveal the truths of your experience: about yourself, and about others in your life. How do you expose long-guarded secrets and discuss bad behavior? How do you gracefully portray your family members, friends, spouses, exes, and children without damaging your relationships? How do you balance your respect for others with your desire to tell the truth? In The Truth of Memoir, best-selling memoirist Kerry Cohen provides insight and guidelines for depicting the characters who appear in your work with honesty and compassion. You'll learn how to choose which details to include and which secrets to tell, how to render the people in your life artfully and fully on the page, and what reactions you can expect from those you include in your work--as well as from readers and the media. Featuring over twenty candid essays from memoirists sharing their experiences and advice, as well as exercises for writing about others in your memoirs and essays, The Truth of Memoir will give you the courage and confidence to write your story--and all of its requisite characters--with truth and grace. "Kerry Cohen's The Truth of Memoir is a smart, soulful, psychologically astute guide to first-person writing. She reveals everything you want to know--but were afraid to ask--about telling your life story." --Susan Shapiro, author of eight books including Only As Good as Your Word, and co-author of The Bosnia List

How to Write about Yourself and Others with Honesty, Emotion, and Integrity

The Truth of Memoir

Constellation of Boys explores the teenage life of Kayla through her relationships with a succession of boys and men. The daughter of a single mother who has her own issues with men, Kayla looks back at her boy-crazy adolescence boy by boy—from early crushes on her older brother’s friends when she is just ten to live-in boyfriends in her later adolescent years.

Constellation of Boys

They have sex too early and for the wrong reasons. They get STDs. They get pregnant too young. They have "friends with benefits" but with no benefit to themselves. They don't get called. They get dumped. They hate themselves for being unlovable for being needy. They are loose girls they are everywhere and they need our help. In the provocative hit memoir Loose Girl, Kerry Cohen explored her own promiscuity with brutal candor and stunning clarity. Dirty Little Secrets is the eye-opening follow-up readers have been clamoring for, a riveting look at today's adolescent girls who use sex as a means to prove their worth. Cohen lays bare the hard truths about this dangerous life that reveals itself in girls you wouldn't expect and in ways you might not see-and that can seriously damage and hurt these girls. Featuring stories from self-admitted loose girls across the country, Dirty Little Secrets is an unforgettable wake-up call for our culture, ourselves, and our vulnerable daughters. "Very few people can write about teen girls' sexual promiscuity with the candor, empathy, and intelligence Kerry Cohen does...I think any girl who reads this will recognize at least one girl she knows-and that girl may be looking back at her in the mirror." -Rosalind Wiseman, new york times bestselling author of QUEEN BEES AND WANNABES and BOYS, GIRLS, AND OTHER HAZARDOUS MATERIALS "As compassionate as it is enlightening, Kerry Cohen's Dirty Little Secrets argues for female safety and desire, and provides a road map for authentically healthy, vital sexuality." -Jennifer Baumgardner, author of Look Both Ways, F 'Em, and Manifesta "A must-read, for it sheds light on the truth behind the secrets and lies teens tell themselves... Women of all ages can relate and benefit from this book-I can't recommend it enough. Dirty Little Secrets is urgently needed." -Amber Smith, model and star of Dr. Drew Pinsky's Celebrity Rehab and Celebrity Sex Rehab "Kerry Cohen has 'been there'-and it shows in her empathy, her insight, and her remarkable ability to draw out the truth...Dirty Little Secrets busts the myths, breaks down walls, and takes us where we need to go to understand the private lives of so many young women today." -Hugo Schwyzer, PhD, Pasadena City College, Coauthor, Beauty, Disrupted: the Carré Otis Story

Kerry Cohen

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