By following a group of four contemporary girls - including her younger self - as they come of age in the seventies, Wolf shows how our culture tries to shape and confine women's desire. Embarking on a voyage of discovery, she illustrates how flawed and prescribed are the notions of what women want, and how these change through the ages - from Taoist techniques for giving women pleasure, to Victorian repression, and the so-called liberated nineties.

Drawing on scholarly texts, secret diaries, real life and fantasy, she demonstrates that female sexuality is wilder, more demanding and more powerful than our culture dares to accept.