I may have learned a lot of helpful things about sex in this pictureless new edition of Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask by Dr. David Reuben, but what will stick with me is the fact that the length of a man’s hands are the same length usually of his manhood. Now there’s even more reason for me to appreciate the beauty...or perhaps ugliness...of their hands! Besides telling me how artistic and sensitive they tend to be, I’ll also supposedly be able to predict how their phalluses measure up. I asked a single guy on ICQ if it was true and he had no trouble telling me his was longer than his average-sized hand, but what do you expect?
The format is a series of questions and answers on sixteen sexual subjects, all of which I read with interest most of the time except for the chapters on abortion and sexual perversion (couldn’t stomach it). The information is fairly current since this is a completely new edition of the book he first had success with in 1969, thirty years earlier. However, as he points out, more strains of Sexually Transmitted Diseases come out every year besides the eighteen that he lists. He really should scare the bejeebers out of anyone who is promiscuous and reads that chapter on STDs!
Conversational and injecting friendly humor, Reuben gets his point across that the best way to have sex (making love is an old-fashioned term he never utters) is with one person you trust and love for the rest of your life. In the last chapter called September Sex, he warns that if you’re a man over sixty years of age, you either use your sexual organs in masturbation if need be or you’ll lose the ability to have an erection forever. Early in the book he had some funny things (for a woman at least) to say about an erection:
Well, there’s a sexual equivalent (to the King Midas story) called “Priapism” after Priapos, the Greek god of the penis and male sexuality. It’s a case of ‘You want an erection? I’ll give you a real erection!”
But when they get it, no one with priapism likes it very much.
Why not?
For a man, an erection is a problem to be solved (reminds me of how boys enjoyed their erector sets). You can’t live with it—it’s like all the blood in your body has been pumped into your penis and is bursting to get out. You need an ejaculation and fast! But with priapism, that doesn’t help. A man with priapism can have sex three times in a row and masturbate five times in succession, and the penis still stays hard as a rock and as tender as a toothache. Pp 20
Reuben goes on to answer what causes it, either a disease like leukemia or an urinary tract infection, but you can see that his style is descriptive and easy to read. There occasionally is a stupid question given him like if oral sex is okay for vegetarians, but on the whole the questions were ones I would have asked. The chapter on the male sexual organs were, obviously, the most fascinating to me as I learned about Peyronie’s Disease, the role of the testicles and testosterone, semen, the average length of a phallus, how to make it fatter and longer with different kinds of tricks and surgery, fractured penises, how to check for testicular cancer and a few pages on circumcision. Like on homosexuality, abortion and birth control, he simply gives us all the facts without moralizing. I do wonder at his claim that most American women prefer circumcised penises, though. That is changing everywhere except in wealthy, white society, I think (excluding the West Coast Wealthy, of course).
Conclusions
I think anyone could get something out of this book and enjoy it. From adolescents with all their questions about their change in life to senior citizens in their respective change of life and everything perverted or normal in between dealing with how to have sex the way we want it, this book covers it all. I not only appreciated the tip about a man’s hands, but also how therapeutic sex can be for a person especially whose older. Orgasms release many beneficial hormones to make you feel great (and keep you feeling great) and that will prevent and cure arthritis if you get them at least twice a week.
I’m afraid I can’t comment on how much better this edition is than the original, but it definitely seems up-to-date for 1999 (2000 when published, though) and should be a good source of information for dealing with impotence, frigidity, menopause, masturbation, aphrodisiacs, STDs and such. You may also be entertained by the lingo of prostitutes that “gives them a sense of togetherness and helps keep the customers in the dark.” There’s also explanation of homosexual terms, identification codes and anal sex. Personally that last one disgusted me to no end.
Reuben is a physician and surgeon with a specialty in psychiatry and has written many other popular books on sex and The Save-Your-Life Diet. Check him out…and men’s hands, too! They’re both to be admired for their length, the book going for 353 pages to be exact, an average penis (and man’s hand) about four inches in its resting state.
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