What Women Want: What Every Man Needs to Know About SEX, Romance, Passion and Pleasure [Hardcover]

Stefan Bechtel (Author), Laurence Roy Stains (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2000

2,102 women invite you between these covers

These women want to share intimate secrets about their sex. Secrets that most mortal men never get to hear. You'll learn their real desires-- and exactly what it takes to woo, win, and please them, now and forever.

What Women Want is the most comprehensive, revealing, fascinating study of women and sex ever undertaken on behalf of men like you. Inside, Laurence Roy Stains and Stefan Bechtel-- the authors of Sex: A Man's Guide, a million-copy bestseller-- report in eloquent, manly language on their findings from interviews with more than 2,100 women.

These women let their hair down. They tell how often they fake orgasm and why. (You'll be surprised.) They talk about whether they are after your money, your soul, or both. They reveal what makes them hot and what turns them cold. And they confess that they like sex. They really do. And they really do like men. But they know better than to tell you that.

For the first time, under one cover, you have in your hands the indisputable truth about what women think about love, men, sex, and relationships. Read this book, and you'll have an unfair advantage in matters of love-- where all is fair-- and in the war of the sexes-- where victory occurs only when everybody wins.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Acknowledging fundamental differences between the sexes without falling into the trap of gender bashing or stereotyping, coauthors Bechtel and Stains take on the formidable task of guiding men through the seemingly endless contradictions that constitute what women want from men. Drawing primarily from the candid responses of more than 2,000 female interview subjects, they offer insight and practical advice fit for the romantic novice or pro on topics as diverse as ways to divvy the challenge of child care, differing communication styles (men's "report talk" vs. women's "rapport talk"), dealing with a mate who earns more, tips for spicing up the marriage bed (including remembering to "date" you wife), the 12 commandments of dating (showering and brushing teeth top the list) and suggestions for ending a relationship. Above all, they stress the importance romance holds for most women. The authors cover nearly every imaginable topic related to living with and loving women, and men seeking help in the more mechanical aspects of lovemaking won't be let down; entire chapters are devoted to foreplay, oral sex, fantasies, orgasms and accounts of "best sex ever." A lighthearted approach and straightforward style (topic-specific chapters, highlighted main points, humorous analysis and plenty of charts) make this manual perfectly suited for cover-to-cover reading or a quick perusal. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

What Women Want
What EVERY MAN Needs to Know About SEX, Romance, Passion, and Pleasure

On the heels of their million-copy best-selling Sex: A Man's Guide, Laurence Roy Stains and Stefan Bechtel have produced the most definitive and useful sexual-relationships guide ever for men. Of course, they had the help of 2,102 very candid women.

These two exceptional sex researchers convinced women to talk frankly about things they usually only talk about with one another. And then the authors translated, but only where necessary, into common, comprehensible language for guys. You'll hear women bare their souls and offer intimate, startlingly honest secrets of womankind. Such as:

* Secret tests women use on men-- and why
* Why you should never share your sexual past with your mate
* What most turns women on about their husbands and lovers
* Who's really more afraid of commitment
* What little tricks consistently bring women to orgasm
* Why women expect you to know what they're really thinking-- even when they say something completely different-- and why they get mad when you don't

What Women Want is honest, frank, and funny-- and essential for any man who cares about women, sex, and happiness.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Laurence Roy Stains and Stefan Bechtel have coauthored two previous books, Sex: A Man's Guide, with more than one million copies in print, and The Good Luck Book. The two also were founding editors of Men's Health Magazine.

Stains has written for the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, GQ, Money, Worth, USA Weekend, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine, and other publications. In 1980, as founding editor of the alternative-energy magazine, New Shelter, he hired an aspiring humorist named Dave Barry to write a monthly column. He lives with his family outside Philadelphia.

Bechtel has been married to his wife, Kay, for eighteen years and is the father of two above-average children, Adam and Lilly. He is the author of The Practical Encyclopedia of Sex and Health, which has more than one million copies in print and has been translated into Chinese, Korean, and Polish. He is also coauthor of Katherine, It's Time, a non-fiction novel. His articles have appeared in Esquire, Reader's Digest, American Way, the Washington Post, and other publications.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; 1st edition (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579540937
• ISBN-13: 978-1579540937
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,234,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guys this is the code book!, April 5, 2000

By 

T. Jarrod (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Women Want: What Every Man Needs to Know About SEX, Romance, Passion and Pleasure (Hardcover)

This book is awesome. It's written by guys FOR guys but it interviews over 2,000 women. From the chapters on dating and companionship to the chapters on sex and intimacy, there are thousands of tidbits in here that make you sit up and pay attention. In some ways the book illustrates that men and women really DO see things diffently -- we all knew that but didn't really know what to do about it, with this book, now we do! If women speak a "foreign" language then this book is the code book that makes it all clear. Hey one of the best tips is that women want someone who pays attention more than they want a CEO...easy enough to handle!

77 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Flawed but Still Interesting, August 30, 2004

By 

Chris O'Malley (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Women Want: What Every Man Needs to Know About Sex, Romance, Passion, and Pleasure (Mass Market Paperback)

This book has the noblest of intentions, and I cannot fault either its authors or the women they interviewed for trying to help men understand women better. Unfortunately, a better title for it would be "What Some Women Want Men To Think They Want", because the book's approach to answering its title question is flawed. It assumes that women say what they mean, especially when they are told that their responses will be read by an audience they hope to influence for their own ends. And it assumes that women themselves know just what they want, which few of us, male or female, actually do (when I mentioned this book to a female friend, she asked me to let her know what women wanted when I was through reading it, because she and all her female friends had no idea).

That is not to say that the book is devoid of helpful advice, because there is some good stuff here, particularly that given in the "Can She Ex?lain It" sections. Kate Fillion's contribution, for example, which pointed out the impossible standard women today are called upon to meet, was fascinating and eye-opening. But in general the quality of advice in "What Women Want" varies widely; the emphasis on respect and communication can only help men in marriages or other committed relationships, but the advice on how to meet and court women is useless in the extreme and could well be read as advice for men on how NOT to get a date (though celibate guys can use it to make female friends who will see them as one of the girls).

There is a further flaw that must be mentioned: it is clear that the authors do not understand men, for this book assumes that all men are the same and want the same things. Even as it attempts to convince men of the complexity of women, it ignores the fact that men are no less varied, which diminishes its value for much of its intended audience. The "guy-talk" tone is often irritating, and never helpful.

The greatest value of "What Women Want" does not lie in its advice but in its very failure to accomplish what it set out to do, and with a little digging we can see just why it all went so wrong. There is no doubt but that the women interviewed in this study thought they were answering the questions honestly, just as there is also no doubt that the behavior of women in the real world frequently does not match those answers. Part of the reason for this is, I believe, our society. America is the wealthiest nation in world history, and we are all, men and women alike, told by the mass media that our lives should be perfect and that there is something very wrong with us when they are not. Fantasy, not reality, dominates gender relations in America today, and this leads to unrealistic expectations about the behavior of our partners, even as the fantasy of perfection cripples our ability to communicate (if Leonardo DeCaprio and Jude Law don't have to have intimate talks with their lovers, why should we?). The comments in this book are a prime example: men must be perfect, like the heroes in romance novels (correctly called female porn by the authors), or they will be discarded and ridiculed. Many women, like many men, judge potential partners based on how well they match up to criteria developed in sexual fantasy, not reality, and so real partners will never measure up. And because society tells us daily that the "customer is always right", it makes sense that the women interviewed in "What Women Want" seem to feel that they bear no responsibility for their own happiness, as according to this book it is always men who must compromise, but never women.

Ultimately, then, "What Women Want" is largely a collection of demands and complaints made by members of a culture whose 50% divorce rate makes any comment by its members on gender relations suspect. It is also a very human and American book, because the often unrealistic demands made by women here are mirrored by the equally unrealistic demands so often made by men, and which, with the same sort of interviews, would no doubt come forth just as passionately and be just as pointless.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Code Book, Indeed, January 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: What Women Want: What Every Man Needs to Know About SEX, Romance, Passion and Pleasure (Hardcover)

My fiance's mother bought this for him for his birthday (what a great lady!), and we both read it eagerly. I can honestly say the authors have done a good job. For us personally, the book is good for helping us talk about stuff--not only for him to find out what I would like, but for me to learn what he likes and doesn't. I've written a few books myself, and this one is well-researched and well-written. Want to know what women want from men? It's all right here--they hit the nail on the head.