Get the low down on gettin' down
A 700-plus page book provides how-to on the birds and the bees and everything in-between
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The ‘Guide’ is a sex-crazed
college student’s bible. It’s
also very useful in sex ed classes
across the nation. And there’s
pictures. |
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By Doris Dadayan
A&E Editor
Do it to me, touch me there. Oh, baby, baby. I need
you to blank blank my blank blank right now.
Oh yes, kids, it’s getting hot in here—a
damn good time to learn the naked truth about what
adults do behind closed doors. Thankfully, the over
700-page Guide to Getting it On—a bible full
of how-to’s for electrifying nights of passion;
enticing, exciting and enchanting things to do to,
and with, your significant other ; and, well, full-blown
instructions and illustrations on properly giving
a blow job—answers all that a curious mind
needs to know about sex.
All in the name of “revenge for eight years
in Catholic school,” Paul Joannides, the writer
of the Guide and publisher of Goofy Foot Press,
skillfully masters the art of explaining “Men’s
Underwear—The Fruit in Your Loom” and
the informative “Dirty Word Chapter”
in a diplomatic, objective way—with a curriculum
that has yet to be included in high school sex ed.
“I’m also a psychoanalyst. I wanted
to find a decent book on sex for a couple of young
adult patients. After looking and looking, I was
quite surprised at how bleak the offerings were,”
Joannides said. “There were plenty of books
that felt they could tell you the best ways to stick
‘a’ into ‘b,’ but nothing
that was fun and also made you really think about
sex.”
According to Joannides, the options were either
“the dry academic books which were, and still
are, guaranteed to put you to sleep in a page or
two—they usually assign these in college sex-ed
courses and charge students $65 to $110 each—or
there were the how-to books that thought they knew
all about sex,” he said. “For me, the
process of writing it became an eye-opener of just
how little I knew about sex, and just how little
I still know about sex.”
With chapters delicately titled “Kink in the
Animal Kingdom” and “Hand Jobs: Strokes
for Blokes,” Joannides puts an end to curious
subject matter that previously left some a little
hot and bothered. From nipple and ball stimulation
to multiple orgasms and sex toys, the author goes
above and beyond the call of duty—certainly
taking one for the team—and brings education
to a higher level, with history lessons, English
lessons and “geography of the glands.”
Joannides discusses everything from menstruation,
to the laws of sex, sexual dysfunction, as well
as the “Flat-Handed Doggy Dig.” He offers
helpful hints on masturbation, with how-to style
sections that involve everything from oral, anal
and vaginal, as well as illustrations to go along
with each piece of information—appropriate
for a time when a picture is truly worth 1,000 words.
In the chapter titled “The Importance of Getting
Naked,” Joannides advises a woman looking
to seduce a man to, “let him know that she
is not wearing any underwear, or reach into her
purse and pull out a pair of panties while saying,
“Oops, guess I forgot to put these on!”
Another section, titled “The Goofy Glossary,”
informs the uninformed of terms such as “Randy,”
an Australian term for horny, and “sweet death,”
which is a “literary term for intercourse.”
The author takes it a step further and provides
the reader with references for videos to watch,
numbers to call and websites to visit for further
information on subject matter in the book, as well
as reader comments, letters written to him regarding
certain problems and his responses.
“The one thing I learned about this book is
what you do with your pants on is far more important,
in terms of your ultimate sexual enjoyment, than
what you do when you’re home in bed,”
he said.
Guide has been used in many colleges as part of
their curriculum over time, and is the winner of
the Firecracker Alternative Book Award, American
Foundation for Gender & Genital Medicine and
the Ben Franklin Award, according to Joannides.
“I think that a lot of instructors realize
that the traditional, very expensive academic sex
ed books put students to sleep. And I discovered
that with the Guide, they get a great deal more
discussion from students,” he said.
“St. Joseph’s has used it the last couple
of terms, and it was a factor in their successful
basketball season,” he said. “Of course,
the coach, players, students and faculty might disagree.”
Some of the schools that are currently enjoying
the book are the University of Georgia, the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, the Texas Woman’s University,
Cal State Fullerton, Santa Barbara City College,
the University of North Carolina, Fairleigh Dickinson
University, Pomona College and the University of
Southern Florida, according to Joannides.
All in all, Guide is an informative, tastefully
written, quick and easy read for those who just
want to learn new and different ways to hit that
shit.
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