badinfluencegirl

you know how sometimes you have opinions about things before you see them? before you read them or feel them or smell them or whatever? you already know.

you’ve got the reputation and the little snigger behind your hand all ready to go and then you’re totally blown away in the other direction instead?

yeah so that’s what happened with this book.

i was excited to get to review it, i mean WHAT a compliment right? but at the same time i’ve tended to find some of the articles about sex in cosmopolitan magazine to be ever so slightly too… hrm… polite? i do understand, there’s an audience common denominator involved after all.

but still, i made assumptions about what this book would be like. i didn’t know that i had done that until i was shocked to find them smitten. this book arrives at my door and my client says ‘what’s that?’ and since she knows about my toy review hobby i said “it’s cosmo’s guide to red hot sex” all casual-like and she jumps off the reformer [pilates equipment, go with me here] and falls into this book for fifteen minutes.

i am not exaggerating.

this woman was gone for fifteen minutes into a book i hadn’t even opened yet. you can imagine that i was curious. so my boyfriend and i take it on vacation with us and flip through it and giggle at the stories and just generally really enjoy it.

both of us learned things (which surprised me, i was thinking i was getting all knowledgeable you know) and anything that we chose to try was at least worth the trying of it. more than that he enjoyed the lushness of the print and the pictures as much as i did and he found the suggestions relevant and useful.

this is good. if you want someone to read a sex book it helps if they find it attractive right? and then i showed it to three more people. a virgin, a celibate who is afraid of sex after lots of it and a woman who doesn’t know a lot about sex but is curious and open. not one of them had a bad word to say about it and all of them were lost in it for long minutes and two of them plan to buy it immediately.

i could tell you about the sections and i could tell you about the short magazine style articles that allow you to skim for something to try or drop in and read for an hour and i could mention the well organized progression from preplay through foreplay and right through to the post coital glow (or round two) or maybe even that the illustrations for sexual positions actually make SENSE and look possible by humans. i will comment in passing that i don’t need to be told that i’m about to read a ‘super sex secret’ all the time. i get what’s happening here, i don’t need to be spoon fed too.

it might help if i touched on the blurbs from real people and the emphasis on turning on your mind as much as on turning on your body (or bodies as the case may be) and cheered for the emphasis on learning to self pleasure. maybe if i mentioned the guide to finding your multiples or the article telling him how to tell if you’re satisfied or the lush and satisfying visual layout….

or even that i agreed with the vast majority of things i read that i knew already and i’ve been studying sex pretty seriously for some years now. this stuff is solid information packed into a fun and easy to digest package with gorgeous fonts, colours and pictures.

i could tell you all that and then mention that they touch on pretty much all kinds of heterosexual sex and tell you to explore or run away as suits your heart and your brain and your gut. you could picture my naughty smile as i recall some of the things the book inspired in my lover or his wicked look when he thinks about what it inspired in me.

but i don’t need to do that; i just need to tell you that at $24.95 it’s a steal.

and if that’s not clear enough? i give this book a nine point five out of ten and it loses the point five for being a bit smug about how cool it is. even though it is, in fact, just about as cool as it thinks it is.