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What I've Learned About Sex : Leading Sex Educators, Therapists, and Researchers Share Their Secrets

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WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT SEX is a collection of one-liners from interviews with a variety of mental health professionals and sex experts. While I disagreed with several of the comments, they challenged my thinking. I also agreed with many of the statements, based on my own experience as a therapist and from my personal encounters as well.

These different viewpoints and perspectives reflect how our feelings and beliefs about sexuality change with age and experience. By their very diversity, we see again how people can be more open and more accepting as they mature, as well as how individual and unique each person's lovemap can be.

The comments are divided by chapter into groups such as communication, body, attraction, contraception, love, relationship, desire, pleasure, and masturbation, among others. I found those about love and falling in love the most thought provoking, and took issue the most on the section on communication. Many of the experts in this collection cautioned about sharing sexual secrets. I believe whether one finds this kind of confession repulsive, frightening, alarming, intimate, or erotic (or some combination) will depend on the participants and the specific contours of their individual lovemaps. I completely disagreed with, "You shouldn't tell men anything about other lovers before you had them. The jealous ones will get nasty. The non-jealous ones will think you are tacky." (page 7) Certainly, there are lots of other possible reactions, including enjoying hearing about your past! Your history offers lessons for both you and your partner. And who would want a lover who is both nasty and jealous?

In all, Haffner and Schwartz have put together a collection that can provide a beginning for self-exploration of your personal views and feelings on the many aspects of sexuality, as well as a vehicle for greater intimacy by discussing the topics with a partner or spouse.

Here are a few of the statements that I particularly liked pondering: "In some states, it's legal to buy a gun, but not a vibrator." "It is possible to have really great sex with a partner without having intercourse." "The major ingredient of desire is being desired." "One of the most vulnerable acts of one's life is to fall in love." "If you tell people what you like, they may just do it." "Sex improves with intimacy and age."

~~Joan Mazza, author of Dream Back Your Life; Dreaming Your Real Self; Who's Crazy Anyway; and Exploring Your Sexual Self (a guided journal).

If this is what the so-called experts know, then we all are in trouble. How sad that the complexities of human sexuality have been reduced to sound bites. And not very insigthful ones at that.

This is a great book to read with your partner. Sex educators, researchers, and therapists offer brief insights into "what they've learned about sex." The insights provided are often thought-provoking, and are guaranteed to generate interesting discussions when shared with friends. After reading this brief book, I bought several copies and gave them to friends.

Debra Haffner once again displays the clarity, the lucidity, and the limpidity of her writing, which apply even on the complex, sometimes murky subject of sex and sexuality. She has messages and new information for the adolescent innocent, and for the seasoned veteran of the interactions - sometimes wars - between the genders.

Forget the "Rules" - Here are the facts!! This is a clear, concise, fun-to-read book that will open your eyes about the real rules of sex - everything you need to know about sex and dating, marriage, affairs, what women and men really want, saying no, saying YES! Share it with your friends, read it in bed with a lover. You won't believe how much fun learning can be.