Customer Reviews

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

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This is an entertaining book. It is well written and quite funny. Ultimately u end up looking up his articles on nerve.com as they don't publish his articles in the book, rather he provides (sometimes quite deep) insight into the back story of his adventures. A good way to read it is by reading his sex articles as u hit them in the book.

WORKING STIFF is a fantastic read! Stoddard's provocative account of the various assignments he was sent to report on had me laughing, cringing, and often gasping in disbelief. Even though I've never experienced most of the adventures the author had to try, I still found that I could identify with him on so many different levels. If you have ever been in a situation, and found yourself asking "how did I possibly get myself into this?" you will really appreciate WORKING STIFF. It is cleaver, humorous, and an absolute page turner. I can not wait to see what he will come out with next.

"... virginal, desperate, bucktoothed, acne-ridden, problem-haired, and prone to wearing his heart on his sleeve ..." - Grant Stoddard, self-described

In July 1998, the 21-year old nerdish, awkward, and sexually unawakened Brit, Grant Stoddard, arrived in the United States in the self-delusional, romantic pursuit of an otherwise platonic female friend. Eighteen months and multiple temporary visas later, the economic viability of Stoddard's continuing residence in America was pretty much moribund. Then, after winning a contest that awarded him a coital coupling with a prominent former prostitute and sexual performance artist then currently engaged as a bi-weekly columnist for Nerve.com, Grant eventually became employed by the same website to have bizarre sex with strangers and write about it in his own column entitled "I Did It for Science". Thus, over a period of three years, as related by the author:

"... I'd just about exhausted every conceivable sexual kink and proclivity known to man."

Indeed, going to orgies, sex parties, porn sets, and BDSM retreats only scratched the surface of Stoddard's experience-based writing assignments, which ultimately totaled thirty. WORKING STIFF is Grant's narrative summary of his life beginning as a student at London's Thames Valley University up to the last installment, with the emphasis on his time writing for Nerve.

Despite the book's superficial appeal to casual prurient interest, it's never "sexy" and only erratically raunchy and/or humorous. Since the author readily admits that his forays into twisted sex mostly left him with a diminished feeling of self-worth, WORKING STIFF is more a mundane illustration of what one will do for grocery money. (What this infers about the non-sexual daily grind endured by any of us is perhaps grist for a whole separate volume by a learned psychologist.) Grant himself comes across, at least to this reader, as a likeably harmless chap with an engaging talent for self-depreciation but, well, somewhat pathetic. (No offense intended!)

Mind you, WORKING STIFF is occasionally above average, e.g. the chapter "Hate Mail", in which Grant describes his weekend stay at Leather Camp, an anything-goes gathering of hedonists-in-heat in the New Jersey woods. Also, in the chapter "Talent", the author's recounting of his abortive attempt to be the host/foil of a reality-TV series is illustrative of Hollywood's capricious shallowness in such ventures. However, in the aggregate, the book is only worthwhile if you've temporarily nothing left on the shelf to read.

Hands down one of the best accounts of New York hijinx from a foreign point of view. Makes "How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People" look like a lame substitute and Toby Young like a whiny little tosser.

I'm having a hard time getting through this book. It was reviewed well in the Advocate magazine so I bought it. It's quite boring, actually.

The chapter about "Manflesh" was unethical. Stoddard used lies and deception to obtain his information and then slandered those who took him "under their wing". Yellow journalism at its most bilious.