Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
If the most recent sex surveys suggest Americans are conservative in bed, Bakos (Sexual Pleasures) describes a busy subculture-fueled by changing mores among the avant-garde, fear of disease and boredom and our historical sexual repression-pushing sexual boundaries. Researching her breezily anecdotal report, the author confesses, infrequently turned her on; indeed, her book is intriguing but troubling. Bakos begins with the mildly adventurous-those involved in anal sex and spanking-then moves on to S&M, both straight and gay, paid domination, fetishes, body piercing (which she sees as linked to S&M) and swing clubs. While her interviewees defend their practices, many seem to be working through traumatic childhood experiences. Bakos is skeptical of nonjudgmental therapists who can't condemn the cruelties of ``destructive consensual behaviors''; she thinks light kink is sexy, heavy kink is not. Those involved in heavy kink have trouble with intimacy, she notes; and these oft-geeky types do not resemble the fantasies purveyed on MTV. But be on guard: ``These are not expert conclusions'' but just the author's. For interested readers unmotivated to do their own surveys. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
As evidenced by its title, this purported exploration of various sexual subcultures is as much titillation as education. Bakos, Penthouse magazine's former "Dear Superlady of Sex," barely disguises her subjective stance as she interviews (chiefly heterosexual) men and women from around the country to learn about sexual behaviors arranged "in order of ascending kinkiness, beginning with behaviors common to many of us, such as anal sex, light spanking, and bondage, progressing through heavier forms of kink, such as the master-slave relationship and the sort of masochism that sends its practioners to the hospital, even the grave." Written in the breezy style of a magazine article, the book also includes cross-dressing, amateur adult videos, group sex, and body piercing, but ultimately this prurient, judgmental exercise offers little that can't better be found elsewhere.-James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Penthouse's former ``Superlady of Sex'' Bakos (Female Superior Position, p. 492) travels to midwestern bedrooms, California sex clubs, and New York S&M dungeons to report on America's kinky side. Bakos says that perversions are becoming more popular: If oral sex was kinky 20 years ago, then, she predicts, anal sex, playful ``tie and tease'' bondage, and spanking will be bedroom basics in the year 2000. Bakos's voyeuristic tour focuses mainly on S&M, though fetishes, cross-dressing, and other behaviors are also covered. The Scene, as S&M devotees refer to their life's passion, has no room for ``vanilla''--anyone who is not a ``heavy player.'' In the Scene, masters tie, torture, whip, brand, pierce, and humiliate slaves. Dominatrixes get paid handsomely for trussing businessmen with straps on their lunch hour. Rigid codes and rules, such as ``safe, sane, and consensual,'' dictate acceptable S&M behavior. Surprisingly, most people's idea of sex--involving penetration and orgasm--has little or nothing to do with S&M, in which participants remain physically removed from each other. Foot fetishists, swingers, and cross-dressers may only be able to sustain an erection in the presence of painted toes, other men's wives, or women's clothing, but their obsessions do lead to orgasmic release. While Bakos is a trustworthy guide as she interviews denizens of America's hidden sexual realms and she buttresses her findings with statistics (which she admits are inconclusive; interestingly the recent survey Sex in America, not reviewed, doesn't address S&M) and psychologists' opinions, her subjects eventually all sound unpleasant in the same way, and one kinky person seems more interesting than a roomful of them. In spite of Madonna's popularity and the current vogue for bondage fashion, S&M does not seem destined for the masses. Despite Bakos's thorough research, Kink neither titillates nor educates.
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