Customer Reviews

Sexual Intelligence: The Groundbreaking Study That Shows You How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Gain Greater Sexual Satisfaction

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As a counsellor, I have provided counselling services in virtually every aspect of human behaviour, including sexual issues. While this book makes interesting reading, it should be noted that sex is an individual affair. Twice a week may be fulfilling for one couple while once a month may be equally as fulfilling for others. Some want more, others less. Then, there are those who know how to please their partner and go to great lengths to do so, and others who are only concerned with pleasing themselves - period! In that case, the problem has nothing to do with "sexual intelligence" but inconsiderate, self-centredness.

The book failed to point out some relatively important issues. The key in all aspects of a relationship, not just sexual issues, lies not in a quiz or comparison with others but in open communication between the two partners, regardless of what one's sexual lifestyle may be. It is not simply a matter of what takes place in the bedroom that achieves fulfillment, but a matter of what else is going on the rest of the time, outside the bedroom. If a man is constantly being hen-pecked, nagged and mistrusted, he is not likely to be too anxious to please in the bedroom. Likewise, if a woman is playing second fiddle to a golf course, receives no help around the home (particularly if she, too, works outside the home) or she is made to feel like like sex is her "civic duty," do not expect her to warm up when the lights go out either!

As for the quiz, if you take it at all, I would take it with grain of salt. If you score low, you may feel like a failure when in fact you are not - that definitely is not going to boost one's self-esteem in the bedroom, and you may have some very valid reasons for answering the way you did. Some sexual dysfunctions stem from deep-rooted insecurities and abusive past experiences; for those individuals, the best help comes through professional counselling, not in a book. One question in the book, "How would you rate your current sex life compared to most other people's sex lives" is ludicrous. If one is not satisfied with their own sex life, they should be discussing the issue with their partner, not conducting a field survey with their friends, family and neighbours! We are talking sex here, not your favourite brand of herbal tea. If one cannot communicate openly with their partner, the problem goes far deeper than sexual intelligence.

In summary, the book contains insightful and useful information which may prove beneficial to the reader; however, the quiz leaves a lot to be desired. The book contains helpful facts, dispels myths and like anything else in life, any knowledge gained is a plus. Sex, like money, is a personal affair. Readers will need to weigh the pros and cons and make their own personal assessments on the value of the book.

Summary: This book aims to help you avoid self-sabotage in your sex life by being better educated about what works and what doesn't. Having a great sex life is all tied up with "what is going on in our minds." Change your beliefs and your sex life will improve as well. The book contains many helpful examples of problems that people have experienced, and has many useful exercises to help you rethink your own ideas. The book's survey methodology produces results that appear to be accurate, but do not reflect an appropriate sample. The book's sexual intelligence quiz seems to have a typo in it that makes accurate scoring of your overall answers impossible. That's okay, because the assumption behind the scoring is flawed as well. Read the book for the anecdotes and exercises and skip the rest.

Review: This book is based on questionnaires answered by about 500 people, most of whom were under 30. Although not based on a scientific sample, the book does provide some unexpected perspectives about young people. Half the women surveyed from 18-29 found sexual relations painful. A third of the men in the same age group had erectile dysfunctions. So there's room to improve. It also sounds like experience helps.

Overall, there's a problem with using questionnaires for anything as delicate as sexual relations. People do not tell it like it is. It's like asking people about their use of illegal drugs during doctor's visits. Few tell the whole story. The only way to get better results is to corroborate the story with a person's sex partners. So, undoubtedly there's a lot of under and over reporting in this, especially from young people.

The book has the same quiz in an appendix, which you can take. I think it would have been more appropriate to suggest that people take it before reading the book. The scoring scheme tells you to add your scores, add another number and then divide by 264. Doing that means that everyone fails the test, even if you put down all of the optimum answers. My guess is that you are supposed to divide by 2.64 or by 2.4, but I cannot tell. Perhaps the proof reading will improve on the second printing of this book (if there is one).

The other problem with the quiz is that the values appear to be fitted to the correlation of sexual satisfaction that went with the original respondents. I found that although I would rate my sexual satisfaction very high, my answers were often at odds with the scoring here. Is the purpose to think like others who have sexual satisfaction . . . or to experience sexual satisfaction? I suspect that the quiz would have worked better for readers if the book had suggested that people experiment with different approaches rather than simply score their answers. Indirectly, that's what the exercises at the end of each chapter are encouraging. I thought those exercises were very well done. They put you into a situation that you may find awkward where different behavior would be beneficial, and encourage you to think about what your response should be. By addressing these issues by yourself, you may feel more comfortable being open about them when they occur for real.

The book's main message is one that most will endorse. Find out more about sex, understand your own desires, listen and respond to the needs of your partner, share your needs, and avoid behavior that will have negative consquences (whether it is not being careful with birth control and sexually-tranmitted disease risk, or not hurting someone physically or emotionally).

The book points out that there is little intergenerational discussion of sex, that many people are not willing to discuss their desires with their partners, and most are even more uncomfortable asking about their partner's needs.

The best sections are on how individual desires are shaped. These materials occur in chapters 6-10. If you agree that there isn't much communication, you can probably skip over the earlier chapters and hit these first. I also thought that the chapters on handling inappropriate sexual attraction and avoiding infidelity were well done.

After you finish discussing this book with your partner and making the appropriate accommodations to each other, I suggest that you take on that other taboo area that needs more discussion in a similar manner -- money. I suspect that for most married or committed couples that expanding communication about money and sex will improve the relationships more than just dealing with one or the other. I also recommend Relationship Rescue and The Relationship Rescue Workbook for those who want to work on relationships in all their dimensions.

Open up to give more . . . and you will be the beneficiary as well!

This book has a lot that distinguishes it from the many books on sex that are available. First, it is a serious scholarly study, not just someone giving their opinions about sex. It has a really nice balance; it's well researched, but does not read like a dry, scientific textbook. On the contrary, the authors combine highly readable stories from their research interviews that are both funny and moving, with up to date research findings from their own project and current research on sex. Theoretically, it also strikes a nice balance, suggesting the problems with sexual repression on one hand and the "anything goes" sexual freedom approach on the other. Their sexual intelligence test is fun to take and revealing. I really enjoyed reading this book. It's helped me to think about sex in a new way.

Finally, a book that studies sexuality seriously. Several topics are covered such as myths on sex, sex education and consequences related to sex... Like many reviewers have underlined it, everything is in our mind. The way we are related to sex is conditionned by our own view on sex which has been influenced by our parents, friends, media, religion and so on. Sexual education play a great part in our life. Problem is we don't know how to deal with it when it comes to educate our own children. Most won't. That is an important issue. Sexual intelligence is your capability to understand your sexual needs, desires and to adapt accordingly, with the consequences in mind. How to deal with infidelity, sexual dysfunctions, fantaisies? We have first to free ourselves from painful past sexual experiences then to act smartly when matters comes to sex : education, be communicative, accept your sexual desires, let them come and go and don't be a slave anymore of your desires. Sometimes fantaisies are just fantaisies. This book covers many interesting subjects and could be a good sex education book if summarized.

It's all in your head! That's right - sexual satisfaction is not about doing the right things in bed, it's about thinking the right things. This book offers a new perspective on sexuality. Instead of saying that we need to do it more - or less, they are saying that we need to do it smarter. They have a test that you can take to see how you score, and more importantly, you can fix the areas where you need improvement. So, Conrad and Milburn tell you not only what might be off in your Sex IQ, they tell you how to improve it!....

This book feels more like a scholastic thesis that was dragged out to the length of a novel. It is not engaging at all. I really feel like the writers, who are PHD, according to the jacket, totally missed the mark on their audience.

It starts off describing a bunch of problems. If you are expecting advice on dealing with those problems, you're going to be waiting awhile. You'll have to keep reading, keep reading, keep reading more of the same stuff. Waiting until you are utterly depressed by all the problems you keep reading about and now, are you half way through the book? Okay, now we'll begin to discuss dealing with those problems, but wait, we are going to repeat ourselves and explain the problems again.

All in all, the answers they give to every problem seems to be the same; talk to your partner and deal with it. Just accept whatever it is you have. How do you accept things? Well, you have to figure that out on your own! Don't expect any clear tips on that from this book. Being aware of problems is apparently supposed to make you suddenly accept everything. Yeah, didn't work for me! I'm already fairly educated and knew of almost every problem discussed in the book. I wanted advice, tips and strategies for building confidence and how to accept myself. I know talking to your partner is crucial, but they didn't bother offering any tips on how to bring things up without chickening out or getting embarrassed.

The writers seemed very arrogant to me. Very self righteous and extremely biased. The book was not very open minded to other people's view points. If you don't think sex is a good thing? Think masturbation is not good? Find pornography degrading to women? Well then you are wrong and just not intelligent by their standards. The answer to being more sexually intelligent? Accept these things. How do you do that? Oh well, this book doesn't really help you there.

OK, I NOTICED THAT ONE REVIEWER SAID THUS:

The book has...(a)...quiz in an appendix...The scoring scheme tells you to add your scores, add another number (118) and then divide by 264. Doing that means that everyone fails the test, even if you put down all of the optimum answers. My guess is that you are supposed to divide by 2.64 or by 2.4, but I cannot tell.

ACTUALLY, YOU MISSED A VITAL POINT: IT SAYS TO ADD 100 AFTER THE DIVIDING BY 264.

Perhaps the proof reading will improve on the second printing of this book (if there is one)

PERHAPS IT WAS READER ERROR?

Dr. Conrad and Dr. Milburn have teamed up to create a book that maps and defines sexual intelligence as they perceive it, creating a test to measure that intelligence. The chapters each deal with core issues that the test tackles; gender identity, sexual fantasies, communication, infidelity, and so forth. Combining snippets of accounts from real people within their studies with examples of healthy and unhealthy methods of dealing with each of these areas, the authors then wrap up each chapter with an excercise scenario and questions to consider.

This book sticks mostly to the emotional/relationship side of sex, and is not a particularly informative work for those looking for more information about sex or sexual issues. It's focus is working toward healthy, rather than unhealthy, relationships. So if readers are seeking a more basic guide to sex and sexual issues, this probably isn't the best text to start with. It will be much more helpful as a support text.

Having said this, I'm not certain I feel this book offers much in the way of material that hasn't been addressed many times before. The stigma of gender type, the sexual confusion caused by both religion and the media, the lack of parental education and support. Such issues have been covered before in greater depth and detail. This book touches on the issues, but really doesn't offer much in a practical way of how to solve the issues other than the excercises at the end of the chapter. In terms of healing from sexual abuse or other serious issues from childhood, there just isn't much more than an acknowledgement that these traumas exist and affect how people engage in sexual behavior.

Outside the real accounts by interviewees, I just didn't see much new information at all. Promoting healthy sexuality is a positive thing, but this book felt bland and fairly ineffective and bringing home any new points or providing any really inspiring insights. I'm afraid I found the test to be the least inspiring part of the document. So many questions had answers that didn't apply across a broad audience and made assumptions about the test taker. Questions such as:"In the past, when I've been tempted to cheat . . ." offer four choices a) "I agonized over cheating, knowing how my partner would feel. b) didn't really give any thought to how my partner would feel. c) I would never cheat on my partner because it would be a sin d) I thought about my parner but assumed he or she would accept it if they found out." Of course, 'A' is the "intelligent" answer according to the test. But the question leaves little room for personal ethics or moral code. Answer 'C' sounds like a fundamentalist answer and is considered "less intelligent" in terms of the test, it doesn't really address personal ethics.

I honestly wonder at the validity of the test and would hope that many readers are not taking their "grade" overly seriously. Sexual intelligence is fine, but I don't believe the test truly defines it. In the end, I'd have to say this is a fine reading addition to skim through for the chapter excercises and getting a general idea of sexual relationship issues and real accounts, but it shouldn't be depended on to define your sexual life.