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"Female desire is flexible, and confusing. These 10 books might help you sort out your feelings about sexuality, or at the very least indulge in some sexy sex scenes.1. Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie MarohThe film adaptation of Maroh's passionate graphic novel received a ton of media attention for a lesbian sex scene that the New York Times called \"longer and more literal than anything you are likely to encounter outside of pornography,\" and that my friend Becca called terribly awkward and also super hot. Those descriptions together pretty much sum up what it feels like to be a teenage girl, falling in love and having passionate sex for the first time \u2014 especially when your infatuation crosses gender lines.\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\n2. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters\n\nThink Dickens, only gayer. IMO, Sarah Waters can do no wrong. Fingersmith is a sexy page-turner with a healthy dose of LGBT romance \u2014 plus it's set in a smoggy London overrun with sinister criminals. In Fingersmith, Sue and Maud find themselves drawn together during a con gone wrong. For more Waters and her trademark lesbian Victoriana, chase Fingersmith with Affinity and/or The Night Watch. 3. Just Kids by Patti SmithPatti Smith's National-Book-Award-winning memoir is a must-read for anyone striving to express her personal truth. This charming, honest book, which chronicles Smith's twenties in New York City and her on-and-off relationship with gay artist Robert Mapplethorpe, who later died of AIDS, documents a generation and provides a heartfelt look at a woman who was never afraid to be herself. 4. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides I read this as a teenager during that insanely stressful time when you're the only one who has seen your naked body and you're convinced that there's something wrong with it. Or at least I was. As a teenager Cal (short for Calliope) senses there's something different about him, and Middlesex follows him through that suspicion and into the discovery that he is, indeed, different. Experiencing Cal's life as it blossoms in unexpected ways will permanently change how you think of gender. There's a reason Middlesex won a Pulitzer. 5. Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia BlockFor anyone who's read this book, the title conjures up a montage of palm trees, L.A.'s pink-yellow sunshine, bleach blonde hair, and the electric pink of the cover. Weetzie Bat tackles issues like gay marriage and the AIDS epidemic with intelligence and honesty \u2014 these characters aren't tokens. In Weetzie's world (which she calls Shangri-L.A.), it doesn't matter who you love, as long as you love with everything you have.   6. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson Jeanette Winterson is the queen of sensual prose, and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is widely considered her best book. Every word is alive \u2014 you'll want to put her sentences in your mouth. The character Jeanette (the story is autobiographical, but technically a novel) comes out and comes of age, complicated by the fact that her family is extremely religious. How can she be gay and be one of God's chosen people? Her struggle to reconcile her sexuality with her beliefs will move and inspire you. 7. Rose of No Man's Land by Michelle TeaLiterature and love are probably the only two things that can inject glory into white trash nowhere towns and dead-end adolescences. Tenth-grade Trisha Driscoll is an alcoholic mall-rat with a chaotic home life; Rose is a fry cook who looks younger than her age. When two meet-cute(ish) at the mall (of course), Trisha blazes into her own sexual awakening. The New York Times puts it better than I can: \"With \"Rose of No Man's Land,\" Tea is trying to do for working-class teenage lesbians what S. E. Hinton's \"Rumble Fish\" and \"The Outsiders\" did for greasers and street-brawling tough guys in the 1970's and 80's: to let them be heard and felt.\" 8. Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreightOn the surface, Reconstructing Amelia, a thriller set in cutthroat world of New York City's private schools, might not seem like the best rec. for a person questioning their sexuality. But there's a lot more insight into teen sexuality here than the snappy plot suggests. What is the nature of Amelia's relationship with Dylan, and what does it have to do with Amelia's inexplicable suicide? Teenage longing is an emotional hornet's nest, and Amelia's torment is moving and accessible. I could not put this down.  \n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\n9. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison BechdelThe Bechdel test (a.k.a. my favorite test in the entire world and the only one that matters) measures gender bias in literature. Basically, if a work of fiction has at least two female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man, the book passes. A sad, sad number of books and movies fail. The test is named after Alison Bechdel, author of the groundbreaking comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For and the equally groundbreaking graphic memoir, Fun Home. Fun Home tells the story of Bechdel's sexual orientation and her father's struggle with his closeted homosexuality. Literary readers: comics are more than just funny. 10. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes\n\nNightwood, published in 1936, is famous for being one of the earliest novels to explore female homosexuality. Stifled by the birth of her son and trapped in a marriage to total d-bag, Robin Vote disavows family life and embarks on a relationship with Nora Flood (a thinly veiled substitute for Barnes herself). The two women move to Paris, where Robin begins to pick at the seams of their relationship until it falls apart. The prose is dense \u2014 T.S. Eliot claimed only a poetry lover could truly grasp the complexity of Barnes's writing \u2014 but it offers many rewards, including major bragging rights for finishing this highly respected classic. Note that the preface is by Jeanette Winterson, who considered Barnes an influence. Follow Julie on Twitter.Photo credit: GalleryStock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/a6143/books-if-youre-questioning-your-sexuality/>