Saturday, February 11, 2012

She Comes First by Ian Kerner

She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman by Ian Kerner

She Comes First is a manual for men on how to provide sexual pleasure to a woman. The premise of the book is the fact that female orgasms are clitoral orgasms. He goes on to say that the best clitoral orgasms are achieved with cunnilingus and that, because of differences in male and female sexual response, it is best for heterosexual couples if the female orgasm precedes the male orgasm.

The author has a Ph.D. from the American Academy of Clinical Sexologists. Being an English major from Brandeis University, he has chosen to use the structure of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style to organize the information presented. The first section, "The Elements of Sexual Style," outlines female sexual anatomy and response. To make his case for the clitoral orgasm, he argues that the clitoris is much more than the glans, or love button, and that it has 18 parts, most of which are internal and not visible. Line dawings by Naomi Pitcairn are helpful throughout the text in illustrating anatomy and positions.

In the second section, "Rules of Usage," Kerner outlines the basic steps of cunnilingus from foreplay, through "coreplay" to "moreplay." This is basically an instruction manual on how to perform cunnilingus, broken into short chapters with a Let's Review section at the end of each.

The third and last section is called "Putting It All Together" and it provides routines, from beginner to advanced that the student can use. There is even a blank Routine Template you can photocopy and fill in with your own variations. The image of a young playboy keeping completed templates with women's names at the top, filed alphabetically in a ring binder came to mind when I saw this.

While I liked this book I felt that the format actually detracted from the presentation. Strunk and White's book may have been a revelation to some young college freshmen learning to write, but their methodology, does not always translate well to other disciplines. what saves the book is the author's enthusiasm for his subject and the knowledge he brings to it. If you have a clueless man in your life, this book may help him discover one of the greatest joys in life.

2 comments:

Sextant said...

Found your excellent review over at Goodreads and checked out your blog. Very interesting, your reading is different and quite eclectic. I need to delve into your blog a bit more.

I just finished She Come First last night and wrote a review at Goodreads myself. Can't seem to build the courage to copy it to my blog.

Anyhow, I liked your review and noticed it was recent. I am not sure how this one escaped my attention since 2004.

I loved this book but would have liked a lot more philosophy on the subject plus a look into the shared biochemistry of the act and a little less Hup, two, three, four. It reminded me of my days in basic training. I think we are all smart enough to develop our own routine and don't need a flow chart, flick 5 counts, parade rest, about face... Comes off a bit to procedural for my liking...and I wrote a lot of detailed procedures in my engineering job.

I, like you, am 63 and retired out of engineering position last year. I enjoyed engineering, but enjoy retirement much more. I was in test engineering, right next to the shipping dock and must confess that I got sick and tired of the continual sense that unless I work another 18 hour day the sky will start falling. I miss the people, miss the technical end of the work, but I don't miss the sense of continual crisis.

Well again, great review and I am going to sniff about your blog...seems to be some interesting fragrances floating about.

Orion said...

thank you for the wonderful response. I am an engineering librarian so I like engineers. Many people of my heritage are from Pittsburgh. My grandfathers were Pennsylvania coal miners. I hope you enjoy my other reviews.