Book Review and Fantasizing

Today I'm going to review a book that I bought recently titled 227 Ways to Unleash the Sex Goddess Within by Olivia St. Claire.  It seemed a good enough book for what I'm trying to do lately.  There were mixed reviews on it, but it was cheap so I decided to go for it.  I recently finished reading it and I'll share what I got out of it.

This is not a book that will teach you 227 tricks of fellatio, sex positions, or how to dress up for your man.  Not one bit.  It's not even really about how to set the mood, or other more sensual, less sexual things to spice up the bedroom.  It is pretty much all about self-pleasure.  I think that's a good topic to explore, especially if you're more subdued in the bedroom or you find you're disappointed more often than not because your man doesn't know how to please you.  If either of those is a problem for you, masturbation or self-pleasuring can be extremely helpful because it can help you become a more sexual being by getting comfortable with yourself first, and then sharing that with a partner; or if you're not being pleased (which is a travesty) you can figure out what you like, what exactly gets you off, what exactly you need and where and how long you need it, and not only can you do this for yourself pretty much any time you like, but you can teach your partner to do it, too.  So anyway, there are reasons as to why one would write a book all about how masturbation and learning to love yourself can help you bring out your inner sex goddess.

But here's the thing, ladies.  I don't masturbate.  Well, I guess I can't say I never have.  Maybe I will once every three months.  Or, when me and my boyfriend were forced to be long-distance for a while a couple years back, I often had phone sex with him talking dirty to me on the other end.  And I LOVE to read smut stories (Lusty Library's my favorite), so if a story is very good and my man's not around, then I'll give it a shot.  But frankly, I don't care for it.  I don't own a vibrator and never got the appeal of the shower/tub, so all I've really got to work with is my hands, and they don't provide me near as strong of an orgasm as my lover does.  It's just not my thing.  Now, I think it's awesome when other women take their sexuality into their own hands, whether they're with someone or not, and in a way I envy that they can get so much pleasure from themselves. 

Now that you know that I don't really care for doing what the whole book is about, I think it's safe to say that I, personally, did not find much use from this book.  It really did give a LOT of great tips (227, to be exact, but there was even more information than that) of different ways to self-pleasure, and some of them even sounded like they would be fun to try.  But most of the time, when it comes to sex, I like it with someone else.  So if you are someone who loves to masturbate, or is looking to do it more, or are what I described in the first paragraph, I think this book would definitely benefit you.  A few of the ideas are a little strange or out there, but a lot of them are worth trying out, I'd imagine.  But, if you're looking for a book that will teach you how to better please your man or things like that, look elsewhere. 

The last thing I want to talk about in this post is fantasizing.  Olivia St. Claire has an entire chapter in that book devoted to fantasizing and how it can do wonders for you.  But on the other end of the spectrum, in the Goddess in the Bedroom teleconference that I recently finished, Sierra Bender said that if you are in a relationship fantasizing about other men can often be harmful because it gets your mind off your partner, who is really the only one you should be thinking about when it comes to the act of sex.  Let me tell you how it worked out for me.  The only "fantasizing" I've ever done is while reading a smut story I will often put myself into the role of the woman in the story.  It helps make the story more real and interesting to me, and that fantasy only lasts until the story is over.  If I liked something particular that was in it, then I'll think about doing that more with my actual boyfriend.  In fact, there are several fantasies that involve him.  But I've always been careful not to fantasize about other men. 

Until recently.  There's a new co-worker I started working with who's young, hot, in his sexual prime, and flirts with me occasionally.  He knows I have a boyfriend who I have no interest in leaving, and so it's all innocent.  But I am a very sexual creature and so I decided that even though I couldn't do anything with him, it couldn't hurt to fantasize about him a little.  It's not like I was cheating, and my thoughts wouldn't be hurting J.  So I started doing it fairly often.  And you know what?  It wasn't a good thing.  Sure, the fantasizing was nice, but the last time I had sex with J., a couple nights ago, I wasn't present.  I'm never not present.  It's just not me.  I enjoy sex, I don't think about other things, I'm fully there.  But all I could think about was how this guy would be doing what J. was doing or how it would be different.  So I'm sorry, Ms. St. Claire, but I do not think it is a helpful thing to do while in a relationship, at least not about anyone you actually know (which she mentioned doing in the book).  I've since stopped thinking about this guy in any way other than just being friends with him.  What about you?  Do you enjoy fantasizing about men you can't have, maybe even ones you know in real life?  Do you enjoy masturbating often, or is it something that you've shied away from?