Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert (P.S.) [Paperback]

Grant Stoddard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 2007 | Series: P.S.

A twenty-two-year-old perennial virgin, Englishman Grant Stoddard didn't know what to do with his life in America—until he won an X-rated online contest, the prize being intercourse with an infamous married sex columnist. He consequently wound up delivering mail at Nerve.com but accidentally found his calling as a gonzo sex reporter who would try any and every lurid activity his crafty coworkers devised—from offering himself up as man-bait at a hard-core gay bar to attending an elite orgy, to being a hapless participant in a sexual home invasion—all the while wishing he could be safely tucked in bed.

Working Stiff is the humble, hilarious, and delightfully salacious fish-into-water story of a young man who followed his heart—and other organs—into places where few would dare to venture.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers of Grant Stoddard's popular Nerve.com column "I Did It for Science" won't be surprised that Stoddard opens his memoir with a description of himself, down on all fours, about to be anally penetrated by a latex replica of his own phallus. For three years, Stoddard's was the thinking pervert's go-to guy for behind-the-scenes reporting on everything from chin-mounted dildos to group sex. Now, in this consistently hilarious exploration of the life of an accidental sexpert, Stoddard combines adventures from his dot-com days with a portrait of the artist as a young virgin, growing up luckless and loveless in London. Stoddard would probably balk at the suggestion that he has a "typically English" sense of humor, but whatever he'd choose to call it, his self-deprecating style and wonderful appreciation of the absurd serves him well, whether he's describing his highly unusual university flatmate (an octogenarian named Mrs. Montague) or a more recent stint as a terrified extra in a pornographic movie. If the book has a weakness it's in the pacing: toward the end the narrative threatens to stall, and an over-long description of Stoddard's failed attempt to woo a visiting French teenager falls flat. Fortunately, though, these slightly uneven interludes don't significantly diminish the pleasures of this smart and appealing book. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When British expatriate Stoddard was hired as a columnist for Nerve.com, he agreed to participate in a series of sexual experiments and write about it for publication. In short order, the self-professed "sexual nonstarter" participated in a quasi-sexual food fight with two gay men, attended an upscale orgy, played bridge in the nude, and had sex on the subway. And although Stoddard's adventures are graphically described, they are also relayed with self--deprecating wit, a surprising sweetness, and an unceasing sense of amazement at his own unlikely career path. Born and raised in rowdy, working-class Essex, Stoddard was enamored with American people and culture and eventually followed a college friend to New Jersey when he was 21. With equal parts tenacity and naivete, he tackled visa problems, poverty, and loneliness to stake his claim in New York City. When he won a trivia contest--first prize was intercourse with a married sex columnist--his career was born. What is, perhaps, most amusing about Stoddard's unusual memoir is the squeamishness with which he approaches his raunchy escapades. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (January 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060876123
• ISBN-13: 978-0060876128
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,532,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write about a wide variety of things for print and online media. A typical characteristic of my work is that I take a participatory role in the articles I write. A sort of professional dilettante. This began in 2001 when I became a sex columnist for sex and culture website Nerve.com despite having only limited experience with either sex or writing. The column, "I Did it for Science" saw me participating - often under duress - in fringe sexual behavior and writing about my experiences in the form of a high school lab report.

I left Nerve in 2004. Though I broadened my writing beyond novel sex acts, I continued to work mainly in a first-person, subjective style. My writing has been published in New York Magazine, The Daily Beast, Men's Journal, NYT Blog, The Walrus, GQ, Glamour, Vice, Hemispheres, Women's Health and Men's Health where I'm also a contributing editor.

In 2007 Harper Perennial published Working Stiff; The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert; a memoir of my improbable tenure at Nerve.com.

Shortly after the book's publication, Paramount Vantage bought the motion picture rights to Working Stiff.
In 2008 I signed a scripted pilot deal with 20th Century Fox Television and January 2012 saw the release of Great in Bed: a sex-guide that I co-authored with Dr. Debby Herbenick of the Kinsey Institute.

I'm currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia, though I'm often found back in New York or elsewhere.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Immigrant Makes Out, May 31, 2007

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert (P.S.) (Paperback)

It is the classic story. A young man with no hopes in his own land comes to America's friendly shores, unknown but with an intent to make something of himself. Partially by pluck and partially by luck, he finds just the niche that no one else has filled, or could have filled, and by working hard, he gains all the fame and fortune he never could have anticipated. There is a variation, however, in Grant Stoddard's case. His memoir _Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert_ (Harper Perennial) tells how the immigrant, a wallflower in his own land, came to be a renowned writer about sexual topics and an appointed sexual experimenter in his adopted country. It is a hopeful, funny story, not the least of whose attractions is Stoddard's love for America, and for New York City in particular. We have the land of opportunity, but Stoddard has had opportunities of which the rest of the world's wallflowers would be glad for just a fraction.

Stoddard grew up in the working-class Essex village of Corringham. From university, he followed his one girlfriend to America, and fell in love with the country and out of love with the girl. He won a contest with the prize of sex with Nerve writer Lisa Carver, and from this got hired into customer service at Nerve, and then was invited to write about experiments in kink. Stoddard would be assigned the experiment and would write up his lab report, and Nerve would feature his column "I Did It for Science." It was a brilliant idea. For three years, Stoddard did odd sexual things, sometimes things the readers suggested. He made out with a guy. He went to clothing-optional bridge lessons. He sploshed (that's throwing food at a naked person). He dressed as a woman. He went to an orgy. He tried Aneros, the ergonomically-designed prostate massager. He went to Leather Camp. He was an extra in a porn film. He was the recipient of penetrative, restrictive, dominating, or otherwise freaky sex. His lab reports were hilarious, the reflections of a shy fellow confronting some of the strangest things that people do for fun.

The column was popular, and he was popular. "PR reps for hundreds of pleasure-enhancing creams, pills, hardware, software, and products began calling my work phone at an astonishing rate." (When he eventually cleans out his desk at Nerve, the inventory is hilarious.) He was quickly asked to be a guest on a late-night chat show and billed as a sexpert only one year after thinking himself "a sexual nonstarter". "The idea of Grant Stoddard the sexpert seemed absolutely surreal to me, and positively ludicrous to anyone I'd slept with." Nonetheless, for the duration of the column "girls who were fans of the column were making it extremely easy for me to have sex with them." _Working Stiff_ is not a collection of Stoddard's columns; it contains only one, as an example, but many of the pages are devoted to descriptions of what he had to go through to make his experiments happen. Other pages have to do with his non-experimental love affairs. It was a sexual initiation like no one else has ever had, and his recollections are sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but also tender at times. He is a nice guy and genuinely amused by his good fortune and strange adventures. He is also genuinely grateful. "If an anglophile," he writes near the beginning of the book, "is a lover of all things English and a Francophile is an admirer of the French, I think it's odd that there's no snappy equivalent for people like me: people who are enamored with the people and culture of these United States." One expects enthusiasm in a book by a sexpert, but not necessarily for our country. America has gotten bigger tributes than this book, but none so heartfelt. It is an appealing part of a fine comic memoir of one of the strangest coming-of-age stories ever.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars smashing fun, April 15, 2007

By 

CL "hendecam" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert (P.S.) (Paperback)

From the opening of the book, you know you're in for a real treat with this one. I don't want to give too much away, but imagine being a young, heterosexual male in the strange position of literally "f*cking yourself" ... all in a day's work of course.

Stoddard's book details the time he spent as a sex columnist for [...]. The book goes beyond the columns, however, and shows how this young lad from England came to the city of all cities (NYC!!!) and kind of randomly ended up becoming a sexual guinea pig. Some of the situations young Stoddard finds himself in are just amazingly bizarre - and entertaining of course.

For such a young author, this book is especially impressive. I am sure Stoddard has much more up his sleeve for future literary projects.

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, if inconsistent, September 7, 2009

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Avid Reader (Villa Park, IL) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert (P.S.) (Paperback)

Enjoyable and entertaining, but overall superficial fluff. His writing - while engaging - is all over the place and disconnected. It's also unclear what is fact and what is slightly obscured fact: for instance, he says repeatedly that he's never had a one night stand, but then relates a story of sleeping with a woman only once, and never hearing from her again. Likewise, his pre-Nerve sexual history is inconsistently told.