61 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't judge this one by its cover, October 1, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: How to Manage Your Dick: Redirect Sexual Energy and Discover Your More Spiritually Enlightened, Evolved Self (Paperback)
What a let down. I was genuinely intrigued by this book's title and back cover. Finally, I thought, some intelligent philosophical insight on life as a man that doesn't ignore that which most makes you a man. Insead, I encountered little more than a conservative, moralistic diatribe, mixed with some new age vernacular, and delivered in a profoundly arrogant and absolutist style. The book doesn't even really try to build an argument, but is a mere statement of the author's opinions clumsily presented as "fact." His "philosophy" is a scattered, incoherent grab-bag of a little Freud, a little Aristotle, a little Chi, a little Tao. Of course, O'Reilly is "brilliant" enough to see how it all ties together, and even to fill in the gaps that were missed by Freud and the others. In fairness, there are a few potentially interesting chapters on multi-dimensional reality and metacognition. But O'Reilly is so arrogant that he is incapable of making himself clear; he'd much rather impress you with his grandiose new age vocabulary. He also condemns virtually the entire field of psychology as an evil force because it has not unified behind his moral principles. O'Reilly's dick management conclusions? Masturbation is bad, and lusting after beautiful women makes you the moral equivalent of Ted Bundy. No kidding.
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30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
KEEPING THE LITTLE GENERAL IN LINE, December 21, 2001
This review is from: How to Manage Your Dick: Redirect Sexual Energy and Discover Your More Spiritually Enlightened, Evolved Self (Paperback)
When I first saw the title I didn't hold out much hope for it transcending the level of a book-length dirty joke, or that maybe it might actually contain a few bits of food for thought. Boy was I wrong.
The book isn't mere food for thought. It is absolutely profound on a topic that is more significant than almost any other. The title is unfortunate in one sense because it's not an easy book to leave lying on one's desk for others to "discover" and thumb through. I could even see it leading to a sexual harassment action in some office settings, a further indication of how incredibly sexually messed up we are as a people.
On the other hand, the title reflects the brutal honesty with which O'Reilly discusses "the elephant in the room that everyone denies." He writes, "Can anyone pretend that the world's chronic problems from murder and rape, pillage and war, assault and insult, graffiti and torture, child molesting and domestic abuse, are not in the main caused by men?" As an observer of events in Washington, I have seen presidents, statesmen and alleged pillars of the community brought to ruin by what we call the "zipper problem."
The book is not anti-man at all. In fact it celebrates male energy. But it does confront us men in a bold, wise, metaphysical, scientific, spiritual and often humorous way on how our favorite shillelagh affects our thinking about so much of the world
It's a tempting world out there. I have been around it a great deal and have seen how fragile are good intentions and how dangerous are the waters in which fidelity swims. I am convinced, for example, that every hotel in Asia is scientifically designed expressly for the purpose of getting traveling businessmen laid. I know the power of appetites and am no stranger to the cold sweats. Nor is anyone really.
I read the first chapter aloud to my 16-year-old son and he was amazed to find out someone is not afraid to write about the organ that dares not speak its name and to write about exactly what he spends a lot of time thinking about. He asked to borrow my copy, but he'll have to fight my secretary for it. She wants to read it WITH her husband. "Every woman is a dick manager," O'Reilly insists.
Me and my penis go back a long way and I have given serious thought to the spiritual importance of the sexual organs. I think the sexual act is, whether used for good or evil, a portal through which two peoples' spirits connect. It is the one human interaction that fully engages and unites like no other activity, both the physical and spiritual dimensions of two people.
While I scored decently on O'Reilly's Gandhi-Hitler Index and the Pecer Test, I experienced discomfort in recognizing a few things about myself of which I'm not terribly proud. On the whole, these and other opportunities the author presents for self-assessment are a valuable and sobering exercise for any man.
Sean O'Reilly is an amazing individual, one who combines the educational background to bring history's big thinkers appropriately into the fray, coupled with the perception to understand the enormity of the issue and the integrity to face it balls to the wall.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
useless, November 1, 2005
This review is from: How to Manage Your Dick: Redirect Sexual Energy and Discover Your More Spiritually Enlightened, Evolved Self (Paperback)
as other reviewers have noted, the author seems to have some very real conflicts with being a sexual human being. that seems reasonable enough, human sexuality is full of conflicts, but people expecting this book to help resolve theirs will be disappointed. it's like the author of some 1950s hygiene manual woke up, read a couple of pop-metaphysics books and spit this little tome out in a coffee-binge weekend. the author equates thinking about someone while masturbating to raping them. (to my 8th grade girlfriend, i apologize, i swear i had no idea!) he also displays a fascinating preoccupation with the acroynms D.I.C.K. and A.S.S. hmm, curious. . .
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