There are a number of excellent books on sex that are much thinner than this one. They don't release expanded and updated editions every two years, but they can clearly help you to be better in bed.
So why The Guide?
For starters, each of the lovers you have in life will want something different from you. Some will want you to touch them between their legs, others will want you to touch their soul. This book tries to help you with both.
The Guide encourages you to explore dimensions of sexuality that people usually aren't told about—from the emotional part of getting naked together to why a guy who takes his penis too seriously might have trouble pleasing his sweetheart. It covers subjects like hand jobs and heart throbs, kisses above and below the waist, friendship, and sex in Cyberspace.
But most important of all is the Goofy Foot Philosophy which says that it doesn't matter what you've got in your pants if there is nothing in your brain to connect it to.
Since this is a book about sex, it might be a good idea to include a definition of what sex is. But trying to define sex is a lot like trying to insert a diaphragm: just when you think you've got it in, the thing turns ninja on you. Here are a few of the issues that need to be addressed if you are trying to define "sex:"
—People think of intercourse as the ultimate sex act, the real thing, ipsum fuctum. But if intercourse is the ultimate act, then how come making out or holding hands is sometimes sweeter and more meaningful?
—Almost all sex acts can be painful, obnoxious, or boring unless you do them with someone who turns you on. Does this mean that the mental part of sex is more important than the physical part?
—Why does one couple find a particular sex act to be highly erotic while another couple finds the same act to be disgusting?
—A person has sex and an orgasm, but doesn't feel sexually excited. The next afternoon he or she catches the brief but intense gaze of a sexy stranger and nearly bursts with feeling. How can a brief glance take your breath away more than sex with a long-term lover?
—You are getting a physical exam. You are naked, and your genitals are being touched. Neither you nor the examiner is aware of any sexual excitement. However, if you were naked and being touched in this way after a romantic date, it might be incredibly sexual. How much do we rely
—How can a song, car, or piece of clothing be sexy?
Needless to say, we have given up on trying to pin a tail of definition on the big donkey of sex. It seems that any definition of sex needs to fit who you are as an individual as well as your particular situation. Instead of pretending to know what that might be, consider this:
Learning about sex and intimacy is a lifelong task. Even with years of experience, we still blow it on occasion. The best we can do in the pages that follow is to tell you what we wish we had known about sex twenty years ago. Do with it what you want.
In much of America we still try to equate morality with whether you keep your pants on. We also associate morality with religion. But the truth is, there are Christians, atheists and Jews who are moral people, and Christians, atheists and Jews who are immoral people. The same is true for people who are sexually active and for those who aren't. Morality, from this Guide's perspective, is respecting and caring for your fellow human beings. It has little to do with the way you enjoy your sexuality, unless what you do breaks a special trust or violates the rights of others.
Consider the books on sex that were written between 1830 and today. Some of these books gave a girl a psychiatric diagnosis if she masturbated or wanted to be on top, and the theories about boys could be contradictory and bizarre. Some of today's sex books make strange claims as well. Yet the writers of these books consider themselves to be paragons of reason and truth. So please be aware that books on sex don't often pass the test of time and this is a book on sex.
While there are plenty of sexual traditions, there are no Ten Commandments of Sex. Sex books are merely a reflection of the time and culture that spawn them. Sexual fashion will change many times between now and when you are a resident of the old folks' home.
The chapters on birth control and sex germs talk about everything from scruffy sex rodents to things you can do to make a rubber feel right. Hopefully, their perspective on sex will help you avoid things like unwanted pregnancies and an early funeral. In the meantime, it might be helpful to remember that just about anything in this world that's worth doing will kill you if you're stupid about it. Having sex can be far less risky than driving on the freeway or even driving across town. It just depends on how smart you are about sex and how badly you drive.
Back when your mother was in school, she couldn't sneak a camera phone between her legs during a lecture, snap a picture of her pre-mom crotch, and send it to one of your potential fathers with CU2NITE, Wet4U or IWSN ("I want sex now!").
Although today's technology might be more interesting than before the reasons why people have sex are pretty much the same. Love and infatuation still top the list, but satisfying animalistic passions and having fun are frequent motivators. People also have sex to make babies, to make money, or to help them feel more desirable and less lonely.
Sex with the same person can mean different things at different times. Early in a relationship, it might excite you and rev you up; later it might be a source of comfort and calm. In most relationships, there will be times when the sex is boring or when it makes you feel more distant than close.
For those of you who are younger: people sometimes refer to matters of the younger heart as puppy love and treat it with disrespect. That's silly. The most powerful feelings in life are often puppy love. Cherish them. As for having sex with your puppy love, far be it from this Guide to say yes or no. It might be wonderful, but then again, maybe not. Just be aware that there's usually more to a good carnal experience than the hydraulics of sticking hard into wet. For some people, what separates good sex from bad are intangibles like fun, friendship, love and caring.
As you get older, your expectations about sex may change. For instance, if you just turned 17, getting laid in and of itself can be a huge thing. But by the time you turn 34, you'll have more experience under your belt. By then you might want your sex life to take you some place different than when you were younger. Perhaps you will be searching for different qualities in a partner as well. Hopefully, you will want sex to be special no matter what your age.
Sex can be as emotionally powerful as you want to make it. But good luck if you are trying to have sex without it becoming emotional.
The emotions that accompany sexual relationships can be magical, enchanting and wonderful. Then again they can be really awful. A cherished relationship can fizzle and go flat, leaving you empty and hollow. Or it can cause you so much heartache that you might wish you were dead. The tears can pour from a place so deep that you'll wonder if they will ever stop.
Fortunately, lovemaking can be a way of working through fears and crises, as well as a place for growth, forgiveness, fun and friendship. If you make it a priority and keep working at it, sex can help you be fully present, honest, and emotionally naked and alive with yourself and your partner.
Most of us make assumptions about the sex lives of other people. For example, consider Tim, a quiet, college-aged computer geek, and Jake, a wellliked 27-year-old shortstop on his company's baseball team. Tim is bicepchallenged while Jake looks like he just leapt from the pages of Men's Health. Yet Tim the geek has a creative and fulfilling sex life with his girlfriend, while Jake the god is a virgin. Jake lives in fear that someone will discover that his sex life consists of one-handed surfing in cyberspace.
This book is just as much for Tim and his girlfriend as it is for Jake and Rosie. It makes no assumptions except that you are curious about sex and might want to enjoy it even more.
This book has no charts or graphs. If you are the type who's bamboozled by such things, consider the following: how do you graph the value of a loving glance or heartfelt hug? Yet try to enjoy sex in a relationship without them. Rather than assuming which graph is best for you, this Guide tries to accommodate a full range of sexual tastes and beliefs, be they conservative, eclectic, or kinky. Are any of us just one or the other?
This book also avoids the latest in popular surveys, such as one recently done by the BBC. This study found that the top seven traits women find most important in a male partner are humor, intelligence, honesty, kindness, values, communication skills and dependability. That sounds well and fine, until you realize that things like "loves me," "shares my interests," "exciting sex partner," and "acceptable to parents and friends" were not on the list of desirable characteristics that women could check. And while the attractiveness of a partner's teeth came in 16th out of 23 on the BBC study, do you honestly believe that teeth would have been ranked that low if the study had been funded by a huge company that makes dental products?
Most people would probably agree that sex is best when it's honest, caring and fun. The same should be true for books on sex. Hopefully, you will find The Guide's attempt at explaining love and sex to be honest and true, and with a colossal amount of respect for anyone who reads it.
Dear Paul,
In my intro psych class, they wanted us to take a detailed survey about sex. My boyfriend and I really like sex, but I didn't feel comfortable doing the survey and left most of it blank. Does this mean I'm weird?
Athena from Mt. Holyoke
Dear Athena,
My own suspicion about sex surveys was born two days before I took my first intro-to-anything class in college. Perhaps some background will help. I had spent my first 18 years in a small town that didn't have a lot of stop lights or two-story buildings. It did, however, have a large number of bars and churches, and girls who if they didn't get knocked-up by the end of high school feared a life of loneliness and isolation.
So I had spent the totality of my life in the nape of America's red neck, and suddenly found myself as a freshman at UC Berkeley, where there were Krishnas instead of cows, and "weed" was no longer the hallmark of poor pasture management.
Back then, I had no idea that the nice, neanderthal-looking guy who lived upstairs in my dorm would become a founder of Apple computer, or that I would someday write a book on sex that people like yourself would have on their shelves.
What I did know is that I had to show up at the student health center to take a physical exam. That's when I became one of hundreds of guys in their boxers or briefs, waiting in a mile-long line to pee on command. But first, we got to stand in front of a row of doctors who pulled our briefs down and reported what they saw to the young nursing students who were sitting next to them with charts in hand. Not being ones to take it on faith, the young nursing students looked up and checked as well.
When I got back to the dorm there was a thick survey sitting on my desk. It wanted to know about my personal sexual habits. Being barely a man and just two days in the big city, I wasn't ready to confess "how many times masturbated during the past week." What I did know is that no matter how far from home you are and no matter how fast of a lane you have fallen into, what's personal is personal, and nobody has a right to take that from you.
So, like you, I left the survey blank.
As I think back over the sex survey from my first few days in college, I am reminded of how complex and personal sex is for some of us, as it seems to be for you. At the same time, I appreciate that your best friend might be posting clips of herself having sex on the Internet. And what about all of the people who post the most intimate details of their private lives on their blogs?
Are you "weird?" Perhaps. But I'm not so sure how many of us aren't.
