Before reading this review of coffee table book “The Cosmo Kama Sutra,” please consider that this reviewer’s last romantic interest fell into the following categories: she’s a strict Catholic from a Puerto Rican-Sicilian family, a member of College Republicans at Princeton and, most importantly, the younger cousin of one of this reviewer’s closest friends whose family just happens to be in the Northern New Jersey construction business.
Cosa significa? It means, in order to keep the reviewer from betraying a certain gentlemanly image presented to said young lady, an image that has received additional endorsements of female Italian-American cousins who this reviewer has known since time immemorial, we shall try to maneuver our way through magenta-colored tome of “77 mind-blowing sex positions” using the most FCC-and-Italian-American-cousin-approved language as we possibly can.
First, one has to ask, is sex advice in Cosmopolitan Magazine really directed at today’s woman? Or is it just voyeuristic offerings for men who would like to believe women spend this much time fussing over how to set the mood? This is the doubt Cosmo raises for men as they secretly read it on the toilet in their girlfriends’ bathrooms. It’s also the doubt Cosmo’s only mildly titillating coffee-table book raises.
As a blushing conversation piece used to break the ice among early party arrivals, the book works. As a manual for more interesting lovemaking, however, it’s a questionable case.
Any editorial staffers writing a book instructing a path to male arousal by telling women, in chart form, to arrange only a few candles by your bed and “not an entire altar,” must be going to “Move Out of Your Mom’s House Today” seminars to meet their men. As the Italian-American cousins might say, what kind of out-of-touch jamoc are Cosmo editors dating?
Some of the text passed off as carnal enlightenment is really no-brainer stuff. As advice for those female readers entertaining men who have lived on their own (out of a dorm), when things naturally writhe and wriggle from one position to another, then you know he’s into your unique physique and enmeshed in your erotic moment. If it seems like it’s all about doing extra push-ups, Houston and Holly, we have a problem.
Like so many things when it comes to Cosmo and sex advice, this book makes exploration seem stilted, mechanical and somewhat distanced.
Silhouette illustrations of couples in described positions — couples rendered with no fleshy details, looking like figures from an EMT training manual — do well in showing the proper limb positioning of night moves. However, in following the diagrams, it’s hard to figure out how our rocket is supposed to dock in the space station and stay there.
Also, it couldn’t be confirmed at press time whether the Adobe Illustrator-created couples were in committed relationships or married.
From years of personal experience, I can tell you men are definitely aroused by visual cues. This reviewer’s Spanish bull stayed in the corral, sleeping through the reading of all 77 positions. One female silhouette even looked a little like Alicia Keys, a person who usually gets this reviewer’s bull snorting.
Several of the positions leave male soldiers in the middle of occupied Kashmir, standing in the line of gunfire.
For example, it has to be said that even for men whose anatomy rivals the Empire State Building, tilting the Seattle Space Needle back at a 180-degree angle can end up being more painful than pleasurable. While this positioning works toward stopping one’s male-mattress-protagonist from reaching a dramatic ending too soon, in stopping blood flow and thus depriving his mighty swordfish of water, things can quickly turn into him uttering, “Let’s just cuddle.”
One of the biggest jinxes, stopping the music midway through a disrobed jitterbug, can create embarrassment that opens to question the abilities of his swordfish. Fluidity is important in keeping it from turning into a guppy — this is something Cosmo’s book, unlike traditional Sutra, fails to instruct.
As far as female pleasure, some of the less conventional of the 77 positions are meant to achieve stimulation of the much-debated G-spot. Yet, Cosmo’s Kama gives no instruction on what to do when questing for this quarter-sized bump on the inside of her Holland Tunnel drags on like following Frodo through all three “Lord of the Rings” movies.
There are ways to get the carnal locomotive moving again. It’s done by simultaneously stimulating that other wonderful little spot this book pays no tribute to. Of all 77 positions, none discuss the strategic placement of the guy’s hips in relation to this place that works in maintaining a surge of electricity.
Which brings up a final point about the book. Yes, this is Kama Sutra and is intended for participants in tantric sex. But since it’s a hipped-up abridged version, where is the foreplay advice? Traditional Sutra versions, featuring illustrations of bearded middle-aged Indian men and not Bally’s Fitness instructors, give the reader an idea of how the entire body plays a role in creating heightened pleasure. The omission of fingers and other parts makes the American seeker of Kundalini feel like a lonely salesperson, trapped in a hotel room without On-Demand X-rated movies.
Worst of all, names used for the 77 positions are even more painful than the euphemistic language used by this reviewer to describe things one can supposedly see happen on children’s television shows in un-puritanical Europe. Passion Pretzel? Get Down on It? Randy Recliner?
Sweetheart, are we suddenly getting it on in front of a bachelorette party?
That’s really where this book belongs: next to Gino the Male Policeman Stripper’s gold g-string and handcuffs. It’s tasteful enough to complement Ikea furniture but in the age of Dan Savage, “Good Vibrations” and Bust Magazine, it’s not quite the manual for lighting flesh fireworks.
And Lisa, I had no intention of doing any of these things with your cousin.
Rating: C —
