First time on sexshopers: test-driving a book about sex

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Text and photo: Lena and her members

Russian version

Most of my colleagues speak of “Sexual Intelligence” book with trepidation, and I understand why. There are no outdated concepts of sex on the pages, there are no impositions and poking around as it should be. The author teaches you to pay attention to your feelings, communicate with your partner and stop setting goals. This is what I always talk about and what I always strive for. The book is great at clearing out prejudices and showing you where to focus.

The book is not 100% about my case. There are many comparisons of “young” and “mature” sex. Descriptions of how it changes with age. Something is not close to me, but something I already apply and think: “I have sex like a forty-year-old?” I would like to remove all references to age, and then it would be much easier to perceive. Then, it seems to me, it would be possible to do without internal comparisons: no thinking if age lines coincide.

I find it difficult to read popular science literature. I would like to take a break for good old fiction. This did not happen here, because scientific facts are peppered with jokes, stories and dialogues. All stories are woven into a beautiful narrative, in order, cube by cube, forming the main thoughts. There is no fragmentation, confusion of text and leaps of thought. It is easy to read, and this is the key in books about sex. Sometimes it happens that you have to push through the thought process and chew a book like a dry loaf of bread without water, but here – a good old sandwich with butter: flew over in one evening and left behind a pleasant aftertaste of mental satiety.

I recommend reading it to everyone who wants to abandon stereotypes in sex, wants to learn to perceive any sexual influences as sex, wants to learn how to switch the brain and not cycle on orgasm.

Three quotes from the text.

“What really matters in sex cannot be measured. What matters is how people feel – and this is much more difficult to figure out, understand, evaluate or fix”.

“In principle, the thought of dividing the body into sexual and non-sexual zones confines any erotic experience, exaggerates the meaning of orgasm, and encourages people's fears of not conforming to the norm”.

“We need to accept ourselves – our bodies, our preferences, our past experiences, how we get (or don't get) an orgasm — in order to be able to believe that our partner accepts or even exalts us”.