Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm
by Kim Cattrall and Mark Levinson
illustrations by Fritz Drury
144pp, Thorsons, £16.99
Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha Jones in the TV series Sex and the City, is sniffy about her over-sexed screen persona. "In real life women want great sex as part of something more substantial: a partnership that comprises love, caring, and support, and provides avenues for growth and fulfilment on many different levels."
It's a warning to anyone hoping for a taste of the series' titillating scenarios that they are approaching the book in the wrong spirit. "The book is not really about sex. It is about love. Loving means caring... commitment to care for our partner, to be sensitive to his or her needs and desires, and to strive to bring out the best in each other." Funny how Caring and the City doesn't have quite the same ring to it. If you were feeling like sex when you opened this sex manual, Kim and Mark will soon help you with your problem.
The book positively oozes New Man (who is really a woman, of course). It has some suggestions for love-talk. We should say, "I'd like to forget about my penis for a while and concentrate on you. If it's all right with you, could we just take our time and let me feel you more and really get lost in your pleasure?" I'm sure the authors think a few reallys and justs make their writing more user-friendly. "Really getting into your pleasure will turn me on even more, and I think it would be good for me to feel you more."
Note that "good for me". If a chap wants to step up the action, he should say: "I feel that you have a lot more inside you that wants to come, and I'd like to help bring it out of you." The triumphant humourlessness of this robot-talk is impressive, denying the existence of all the absurdity and waywardness that runs through life.
In my experience, sex is about "caring" only on Neighbours, where it is the accepted code for what goes on in those non-existent bedrooms. In real life, nobody wants to think that the person is doing it to us to be kind. "If it isn't dirty you aren't doing it right."
Satisfaction is a kind of Joy of Sex for the 21st century, an emasculated, PC version of Alex Comfort's alphabetical feast. His subtitle, "A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking", would horrify Mark and Kim - much too greed-oriented for New Age sex.
Unlike Comfort's handy paperback, Satisfaction is a large, screen-shaped coffee-table book with very few words per page. The margins are about five inches wide. (Joe Orton would have loved it.) It's an article that might have appeared in GQ or Arena, though not in Loaded.
What bulks out the book are the pictures: sad-faced, racially equivocal. Taking its lead from Joy rather than Terence Hendrickson's earlier Variations on a Sexual Theme, which used photographs, the publishers have gone for smudgy charcoal drawings, with red symbols representing the various sexual parts superimposed on them. The "Glossary of Symbols" makes a nice page. The G-spot is a short arc. The anus is a child's sun.
In keeping with the clean-shaven feeling of the text (and the era), the authors have eschewed the beard worn by the man in Joy, even though it was a handy indicator in some of the more advanced positions. "Clean and Smooth" is a whole chapter in the book, although it has to be said that chapters rarely exceed three short paragraphs. "Men," exhorts Mark, "imagine stroking your penis with sandpaper. This is what it can be like for women to make love with you when you need a shave." Field-work seems inappropriate here. I'll take Mark's word for it.
In Joy, there is a short chapter on "Anal Intercourse", the gist of which is "Go in slowly, never more than glans deep, take your friction on the pull rather than the push" - a piece of practical advice that must have travelled far. In Satisfaction, there is a brief note on "Anal Stimulation", which suggests that this is the duty of the little finger only.
Here's what you do, according to Mark and Kim: "Fold your fourth finger down, palm to the side. Simultaneously insert the first and second fingers in her vagina and the fifth into her anus." All right, I've got that, but what shall I do with my third?
The instructions come straight out of a conjuring manual. I'm not sure I would be able to remember which finger to fold down for these card-palming tricks, although I suppose you could always have the book with you under the covers and perform with the aid of a torch. That must be what caring young people do nowadays, for a better understanding of each other's needs.
In between each chapter in the book appear personal messages from Kim and Mark, printed in inverted commas for some reason. Before the chapter "Every Man Can Be An Artist", Mark confides: "One night Kim said, 'You're an artist.' That was one of the greatest compliments I received in my entire life." In case other men feel discouraged by this testimonial, he goes on to explain that we too can be artists. "The material in this book is like colour on an artist's palette. It's up to the man to paint the picture." What a beautiful metaphor that is. "I feel nauteous," as Jackie Mason would say.
What I'd like to ask Mark is this: how does he know Kim is telling the truth? "Faked orgasm" is another chapter heading that doesn't appear in Satisfaction; it is assumed that modern women don't fake it any more because it's no longer their fault if we don't make them come. However, a couple of discreet enquires revealed that faked orgasm still has a part to play, if only to bring on the real one.
Such a thought plays no part in the deadpan philosophy of Satisfaction, because it implies the existence of ambiguity and negativity in our emotional make-up. To a man like Mark, who likes to be told that he is an artist in the sack, a burst of orgasmic laughter would be highly confusing. "I wasn't aware that I was being amusing, honey."
Too much openness on the subject of orgasm can be counter-productive, viz the New Yorker cartoon: "What's the matter, darling, can't you think of anyone either?" If women faking it is on the decline, men faking it is supposed to be on the increase, as we try to keep up.
There are three reasons why a man might want to fake it: boredom, boastfulness and infidelity. But we just aren't good enough liars to carry it off. Personally, I get nervous even when I'm telling the truth. I wouldn't dream of trusting myself to make the right noises or obscenities (called "birdsong" by Alex Comfort) even if I wanted to. There must be a book, called Lying in Bed, about all the little borderline untruths involved in the theatre of lovemaking whose existence Satisfaction doesn't acknowledge.
In this blurb-like tombstone, something different is going on: male lying is implicitly recommended by suggesting we follow the female sex agenda to get what we want. Could a man really be sincere when he says, as advocated here, "I'd like to please you more but I may not be good at it, so I may need your help to find the best way of giving you more pleasure", or "Well, I have this book and I'm really excited about doing some of the things with you. I think this will help me be a better lover with you"? Yeah, right. He might as well add that it costs £16.99 in hardback while he's at it.
· Hugo Williams's Collected Poems is published in August
