Mastering your Man
by Eleanor HarvieRob Brydon pointed out in the series The Trip that silence at the dinner table usually means that the food is good. I passed around Mastering Your Man From Head to Head, a new book about how to pleasure your man, over breakfast, and the silence was profound. I have learnt that this is the best way of canvassing reader response. In this case, Rob Brydon would have been wrong – it was the book that we were all utterly absorbed by. In fact this review has been devilishly hard to write because it’s so compelling that every time I dip into it I wake up twenty minutes later having been utterly transported.
So what’s so good about it? It’s a genuinely fresh take on the sex manual. Jordan Larousse and Samantha Sade have redressed the unsatisfying slogan that men are the sexually stupid counterparts to female complexity:
We encourage you to view the male body, and thus the male sexual experience, as something both broad and full of nuance.
Bravo: women will want the book; men will want them to have the book. These are sex tips we don’t hear all the time.
They’ve included all the kinds of information that you want to know; penis facts, the truth about circumcision, ‘how to suck cock’, the ‘age-old art of finger-to-frenulum action’, ‘sexy secret spots of the cock’. And the book is chocka with well-presented statistics, examples from real people about their best and worst experiences, and nice advice like ‘get turned on by turning him on.’ The diagrams are simply wonderful, somewhere between pop art and medical book, and in the pictorial ‘twist to break seal’ vein. Not to mention that the book is full of puns and innuendo (which is really what punning is about anyway), trivia that is actually interesting (‘testify’ comes from the Latin ‘testis’ because in ancient Rome a man would grab his balls when taking an oath), and the insightful interjections of Dr. Dick (Dr. Richard Wagner). Did you know that your gag reflex is least active in the morning? There’s another reason to read this excellent book at breakfast. But only if you’re having it in bed.
Mastering Your Man From Head to Head by Jordan Larousse and Samantha Sade, Quiver Books, ISBN 1592334369, £12.99. Originally appeared in Erotic Review issue 116.
