The New Male Sexuality

Every once in a while a book comes along that you read and think, shit, why did nobody tell me to read this AGES ago? The New Male Sexuality, by leading US therapist Bernie Zilbergeld Ph.D. is one such book.

Describing itself as “the truth about men, sex and pleasure”, the book is a guide for men of any age who want to know more about their sexuality. Sexuality, in this sense, means less your sexual orientation (it's a book for hetero men) and more your life as a sexual man- your thoughts about yourself, women and sex.

I'm not going to go too much into the detail of the book, as the reviews out there will say more than I ever could about its content and how incredibly reassuring it is to read. Consider this as a comparison if you can: there's an old Woody Allen film called Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).

It's a bit of a misleading title, considering its content. Instead of asking “what is normal?” it shows you people and situations who definitely aren't. (I have never wanted to know what it is like to fuck a sheep.) It's a funny film, but not an educational one.

The New Male Sexuality is as close as I've found to a resource that fulfills that need so far. If you want to know something sex-related, it'll more than likely be detailed in explicit but light-hearted form somewhere in this book. If I had read it when I was 18, things could have been much different and much better.

Read it now, before you get any older.