From Free Life, Issue 20, August 1994
ISSN: 0260 5112

In her 1974 essay "Philosophy: Who Needs It" Ayn Rand commented that every value human beings needs or wants has to be "discovered, learned and acquired - even the proper posture of his body". Anyone working in the psychological or physical studies or therapies knows this to be true, although the recognition of this truth is not a general or explicit one. Books and articles on sexual expertise and etiquette are frequently ridiculed or sneered at. But even love making does not really come naturally. The sexual potentialities of our bodies are not all obvious, and the subtleties of satisfying effectively the needs of a member (in both senses of the word) of the opposite sex are not instinctive. Moreover, since we live in a society that historically has been dominated by a strong tradition of religiously originated anti-sexuality, books and essays that awaken us to all the diversities and possibilities of sexual pleasures are all the more necessary.

Unfortunately, How to Make Love to a Man (Safely) is not a book that will assist anyone in actualising their sexual potential. In fact, it is really part of the age-long discourse of anti- sexuality, dressed up in its latest - "scientific" - disguise: AIDS education. There is virtually nothing in this book about sexuality, about discovering or broadening our sexuality and sexual skills and pleasures. The closest it gets to any real sexual advice is some jejune advice to women about arranging "seduction dinners" or undressing a man, or talking more openly about one's sexual preferences. A chapter entitled "Inside the Male Mind" is trivial and vacuous. The bulk of the book is spent spreading the now exploded fallacy that "we are all at risk" from AIDS, that it

is no longer something that happen[s] to 'others' - to homosexuals, or drug addicts, or people who had been given transfusions or infected blood. It could happen to any of us. (p.5)

Well, it can't and it hasn't. The work of Michael Fumento, Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, Susil Gupta, Dr. James LeFanu, Jad Adams and Professor Michael Stewart amongst others has utterly exposed the fraudulent nature of these claims, although the tax-financed propaganda of the Health Education (sic) Authority, the gay and AIDS lobbies, and the ranks of the "politically correct" strive hard to maintain the fraud. No amount of massaged and faked statistics, lies about Africa or South East Asia, or shouting about the case of the American "heterosexual" basket ball player Magic Johnson (in reality a promiscuous frequenter of gay bars) will change the truth.

The new discourse of anti-sexuality and social control does not want to rest upon outmoded religious or overtly moralistic formulations. It repackages itself like this book, it medicalises and scientises anti-sexuality: that "we live under the cloud of AIDS" is the excuse for the new creed of control, in which the new priesthood consists of counsellors, doctors, health educators, social workers and politicians. This book's goal is not sexual enlightenment but the peddling of the new gospel. We are all at risk, and "if you have multiple sexual partners, you are greatly at risk". (p.6) We are confronted with page after page of tedious instruction about condoms, discussing your partners' sexual histories, and, thrill of thrills, shopping for condoms. "To be entirely safe", we are told, fellatio must only be performed on a man wearing a condom, and cunnilingus only with a "shield of latex over your vaginal area to keep his tongue from coming into direct contact with your genitals". (pp.23, 24) To add insult to injury we are then told that this unappetising prescription "can feel very pleasurable for both of you". (p.53) Like heck! Some diminution of pleasure is admitted to occur with condoms, but "some men" we are told, "said that they had discovered increased pleasure through more imaginative foreplay. (p.55) Like trying to lick each other through latex, no doubt.

The author's view of "sexy sex for the nineties" is apparently "the ultimate condom trick", a woman putting a condom on her lover with her mouth. (p.75) What heights of eroticism and passion! AIDS paranoia is taken to such an extent that we are told that even regular couples should continue using condoms (since we can't be certain about their faithfulness), and non- condommed sex should only take place after both parties have had AIDS tests.

As if in a desperate attempt to provide some content in line with its title there is a brief chapter on "Sexy New Sex Techniques", but this comprises a brief description of the "Coital Alignment Technique"; "Non-Ejaculatory Multiple Orgasms" and how to achieve them; the alleged "U Spot"; and "Tantric Sex". But none of these is dealt with in real depth, and illustrations are needed but absent. The first sounds quite interesting, but hardly constitutes overpowering eroticism. The second sounds dubious and needs far more evidence to convince me of its feasibility. The third sounds feasible but again, hardly revolutionary. The fourth makes dramatic claims for which one would like to see more evidence. One would be more predisposed to accept the value of these suggested techniques if there were the slightest sign that the authors had actually tried them.

This is a book to be avoided. If you need to broaden your horizons, read such books as The Joy of Sex and The New Joy of Sex, The New Joy of Gay Sex (even if you're heterosexual), magazines like Skin Two or Fetish Times, or even the fantasy letters in sex magazines like Knave or Penthouse.

Chris R. Tame