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Arndt, Bettina ~ The Sex Diaries

When I selected this book I thought
After a couple of decades of naïveté, ignorance, heartbreak, frustration, an ‘is that all there is’ attitude towards sex and finally understanding what works for me, I’m voraciously curious about how others live – and don’t live — their personal lives.

50-word description
Therapist, media commentator and author Bettina Arndt advertised for couples to diarise their sexual lives for up to a year. Ninety-eight couples and individuals in relationships corresponded about the daily negotiations, power plays, battles and rare triumphs with their desire and satisfaction levels.

(Many more than) 150-word review
Allowing diarists to effectively own the book’s contents has inevitably placed focus on repetitive, time-worn problems in long-term relationships. Arndt’s suggested solutions to resolve desire and libido incompatibilities are simple but never easy and her subjects read predominantly as frustrated and confused men and bitter and angry women. The few women whose libidos out-grunt their partners’ and the couples who share satisfying sex lives are displayed proudly like endangered parrots – admired by those who appreciate their beauty but are targets to be shot down by a resentful adult population based on diarists’ convictions of the desire chasm between men and women.

Media commentary has honed in on Arndt’s suggestion that partners with the lowest sex drive — almost always intending women — ‘gift’ sex to their more highly-driven partners more often and, by having more sex, will realise it’s not so bad after all and garner enthusiasm. Exploration of consent issues and a discussion of rape versus obligation are sadly ignored. Why would – or should — a woman lie back and think of tomorrow’s schedule while her partner gets his fill in a half-hearted, barely-better-than-nothing way? ‘Should’ instead of ‘want’ advances neither gender’s sexual progress.

Arndt complements correspondents’ diary notes with interesting research into human sexuality, useful anatomy primers and extensive quotes from other works of a similar sphere. While the book at its onset takes a male-centric view of sexual frustration, Arndt is brave enough to call the bluffs of some women who blame busy lives and housework for low libidos but who admit they’d avoid sex if the house was sparkling. She also takes task with men who don’t learn that if one behaviour doesn’t work then trying it more frequently is self defeating, and shows that while monogamy is a societal expectation, affairs can have the side effect of invigorating desire.

I recommend the book to be read as a compilation of common relationship problems, and explored in conjunction with Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity for its analysis of human desire and heartening and occasionally radical exploration of maintaining satisfying relationships.

Then again, a million books can suggest change but nothing will occur unless everyone takes a stand against gender and sexual inequity in society. We have unprecedented permission to blossom and engage in fulfilling sexual lives but are defeated from the outset in myriad other ways. Women don’t hit their supposed sexual peaks in their late 30s-early 40s for physical reasons; it’s often because they’ve finally learned enough about their sexuality to know what works and the pending invisibility of middle age creeps up and accelerates the urge to screw without caring what others think. Remove every piece of advertising that objectifies women sexually and portrays men as simple dolts who don’t do housework. Kill off the alive-and-well double standard that sexually active and skilled men have experience but their female equivalents are sluts. Bin the women’s magazines that feature unusually beautiful women on the covers and that prey on and encourage physical insecurity within their pages. Throw out the adult movies with grossly unrepresentative and passive women and use the web for home-made videos with real people enjoying themselves. Continue teaching young people about sex education, health and pregnancy but allow them to learn about the lifelong pleasures of their bodies. Stop treating lesbian sex as less authentic as gay or heterosexual sex and drop the “she just hasn’t met the right man” ethos. Do something nice for a partner every day and engender the relationship triad of love, lust and like. Acknowledge and encourage the awesome power of a woman in sexual flight. Many men do not understand the female anatomy and pathways to orgasm and many women remain equally ignorant of their own bodies; women cannot expect men to find their way around if they do not themselves have the knowledge, confidence and freedom from judgement to know and say what they want. Be open to considering non-traditional arrangements such as polyamory to inject new interest and sexual charge to long-term relationships.

Then, and only then, will a book start making a difference.

bettina arndt ~ the sex diaries

Found in
Home library non-fiction A

Read
Apr 09

Links
Bettina Arndt web site
Frankston Library catalogue link

Rating
Worthwhile

This is book 22 of the project.

Asimov, Isaac (edited by Carl Freedman) ~ Conversations with Isaac Asimov

When I selected this book I thought
Isaac Asimov was difficult to drag from his typewriter for family holidays, let alone be tied down for an interview, and this volume pulls together interviews from 1968 to 1990. Topics focus on science fiction with wads of technology, science, life and human behaviour thrown in for good measure.

50-word description
I grabbed the book because it’s simpler than deciding between Asimov’s prodigious output in science fiction and other fields of study: I tried but couldn’t locate his book of bawdy limericks. Also, there are few non-fiction titles in the ‘A’ section. If you have an ‘A’ surname you’re unlikely to feature in any non-fiction section — sorry.

150-word review
I must confess I left this book neglected in my library bag (yeah, I’m a nerd). Someone please wipe the egg from my face because I was hooked on his self-deprecating daring in the first interview at a science fiction forum in 1968:

“Dr Franklin and Mr Pohl, everybody, everybody. As is usual I come unprepared, which doesn’t matter, because I am always unprepared. No one can tell the difference. Right?”

Throughout the interviews, Asimov illuminate his theories and visions of science fiction, the restricting flaws of unimaginative scientists and his dreams of space travel and habitation of planets beyond Earth. Freedman includes essays of rare visits to Asimov’s home to build the profile of the man behind an almost-500 book bibliography.

There is some duplication, as the editor notes, but the sensible route was chosen to publish interviews in their entirety and risk some overlap or – to look positively – show the subtle differences in questions and Asimov’s responses at different times.

Asimov was sometimes pessimistic (or just decades too early in his prophecy) about the end of human life on our planet but has proven correct in most of his opinions and predictions. If there was one person who could be revived every 20 years to study and discuss the state of humanity, I’d vote for him.

isaac asimov (edited by carl freeman) ~ conversations with isaac asimov

Found in
Non-fiction A

Read
Mar 09

Links
Isaac Asimov FAQ
Frankston Library catalogue link

Rating
Fascinating

This is book 21 of the project.

Atwood, Margaret ~ Negotiating with the Dead

When I selected this book I thought
Here’s a shameful confession: until April last year I had never read a book by Margaret Atwood. I picked up The Handmaid’s Tale after a recommendation by SSS and have been making up for lost time furiously by gulping down her fiction, poetry and non-fiction (Margaret turns 70 this year; she might only have another 20 years of writing left!)

50-word description
Negotiating with the Dead expands on the six-part Empson Lectures delivered by Atwood at Cambridge University in 2000. Her lectures focus on writing and being a writer and the book delves into unravelling writers’ motivations and the relationships between writer, reader and subject.

150-word review
The book opens with Atwood’s enthusiastic acceptance in 1998 to present the 2000 Empson Lectures and escalating doubt and writer’s block as the months and weeks fly past. She deconstructs why we write what motivates us to feed the often undefinable compulsion to create something literary out of nothing but a blank page and an urge.

Quotes and examinations of poetry, fables and novels introduce and usefully expand on the questions raised in the six chapters on the definition of a writer, the two-faced role of hands-off observer and keen-eyed documenter, art for art’s sake or financial success, the inevitable meeting with social and moral responsibilities, the relationship of writer, reader and book, and writing’s role alongside the ticking clock of mortality.

By no means is the book prescriptive or instructive — and Atwood often throws more challenges than she answers with the sly wit imbued in many of her fictional characters — and that’s the main charm of this intriguing book.

margaret atwood ~ negotiating with the dead

Found in
Non-fiction A

Read
Jan 09

Links:
Author’s official reference site
Frankston Library catalogue

Rating
Fascinating

This is book 15 of the project.