You gotta’ admire a girl who lets herself be photographed for her book jacket cover in white bra and granny panties and a pair of men’s tube socks, the kind you buy at the dollar store—posed as the lady in the clam shell from Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.”
Sexy in a little dress and heels, Kristin Schaal, actress and comedian, and Rich Bloomquist, writer for “The Daily Show,” signed copies of their new book The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex (Chronicle Books) at a launch party at Spin NYC last night. As afionados of the New York tabloids know, Spin is the table tennis lounge owned by Susan Sarandon and Jonathan Bricklin, the much younger man reputed to be her new lover, after Tim Robbins. No celeb sightings last night, but the room was packed with good-looking men—unusual for book parties where women typically outnumber men.
Vodka and tonic in hand--because Manhattan book parties are funded by the vodka industry--I chatted up Kristin who said that, yes, she and Rich are lovers and that, no, their parents were not thrilled with the book concept initially but have come around.
Best sex advice she ever gave?
“Telling women to masturbate. It seems obvious, but apparently it isn’t. Many women don’t masturbate. How can you know what pleases you if you don’t?”
As I noted a few months ago, there is a new trend in sex books: Stand-up comedians as authors. Some of the books are funnier than others. None of them are the go-to books for the latest sex techniques, research and games. (That would be my books, of course, and other Quiver Books titles.) But these books do have a valid place on the bookshelf: to poke fun at our sexual behaviors, insecurities and obsessions.
A few highlights:
· “Our Life with the Bonobos” has a funny bit on the three months they spent “living among the Bonobos, studying them, photographing them and being sexually intimidated by them.”
· The Masturbation Day fantasy involving Sarah Palin, a mountain of buzzing vibrators, and Rush Limbaugh, who has a small cock.
· “Can’t Make It To The Dildo Store?”—on how to use everything from a cactus to a bowling pin as a sex toy.
The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex is the funniest sex book I ever read—and it has a positive message too: Masturbate. The sex life you save will be your own.
Kristen is right when she says we must keep telling women to diddle themselves. It is our mission. Over coffee at Starbucks, I had a discussion with a 22 year old woman, recent college grad. Never masturbated. Doesn’t believe in it.
So brave Kristin in your granny pants, hand curved suggestively around crotch: fight on, sex warrior.
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