The Republican party platform statement?

Can the next question be 10 BEST books to read during sex?

“The Great Gatsby”. Yeah, I said it.

1. Any sex manual that causes you to point out that your partner isn’t doing it correctly
2. He’s Just Not Into You
3. any Charles Bukowski, poetry or prose
4. Valtrex users counterindications and side-effects booklet, revised 9/08
5. 100 Days of Sodom, especially aloud
6. Everybody Poops
7. Algebra II/Trigonometry textbook
8. Real Girl Users Manual
9. 101 Uses for Human Skin
10. The Book of Revelation

The Uniform Commercial Code
“It Takes a Family” by Rick Santorum
Sadly, “History of Sexuality: An Introduction” is pretty non-inspiring.

1. LOLITA by Nabokov

That’s all I’ve got, since EVERYBODY POOPS has already been claimed

Triplanetary by “Doc” E.E. Smith.

7. Algebra II/Trigonometry textbook

A calculus textbook, on the other hand, heats the room right up.

1. The Gun Digest Blackpowder Loading Manual
2. Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto
3. See, I Told You So by Rush Limbaugh
4. Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves
5. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pleasing Your Woman

Studies in Pessimism, by Arthur Schopenhauer.

Any fantasy novel in which the characters get it on, (e.g. Bujold’s Sharing Knife series) because of the prime rule of sex in fantasy:

People with access to magic will use it to have better sex than you ever will.

The author will also point out exactly which of their magical powers get used and how, just in case there’s any doubt.

I’m guessing Anne Geddes, although it could really encompass a range of writers going from Maddox to Dworkin, in a really roundabout way of course. Black Beauty would also be worrying.

Or possibly this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Tonight-Darling-Im-Knitting/dp/0715324071/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224463571&sr=1-3

Check out the cover too - Sex-ay!

Do you mean read out loud, or read to yourself?

Ahem.

NO ONE SHOULD READ DURING SEX.

I embrace my noble memefail.

And nominate “Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?” by Dr. Seuss.

Anything by Ayn Rand.

“Green Eggs and Ham” is far worse than “Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?”

On the other hand, the “Betty Crocker Cookbook” would be seven layers of awesome.

Depends on if you read ‘em out loud.

Too depressing to read before or during sex….but perhaps not after.
1.  Les Miserables
2.  The Corrections

Everybody Poos

War and Peace.

The Philosophy of History - Emmanuel Kant

The Sun Also Rises.
The Handmaid’s Tale.
Touched by Venom.

HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS: THE CASE AGAINST BILL CLINTON by Ann Coulter

I was going to suggest “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” by Dale Carnegie. But then I thought “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language” is good bedroom advice, especially compared to the names of other people, especially those of former lovers.

Bad sex books, from my own library: “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets”, “J. Edgar Hoover: A Man and His Secrets”, “Spoiling for a Fight” (Eliot Spitzer bio).

I know it’s kind of an obvious idea, but perhaps we could find room on the list for G. F. Lydston, “The surgical diseases of the genito-urinary tract”

The Bible.  Especially aloud.

Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President

“Worth the Fighting For,” by John Sidney McCain. Or, worse, “The Faith of My Fathers”.

Fear and Trembling. Never sleep with a Kierkegaard scholar, I don’t care how hot s/he is.

20th century analytic philosophy - Wittgenstein, Quine, and especially Russell - are another story entirely.

“The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”

NOT sexy.

The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

Eric, the trout-tickling passage in the Origin of Consciousness is pretty sexy, no?

Anything boring… because the whole point of reading during sex is to pick a supposedly enthralling page-turner, so your partner can work really hard at distracting you.

anything by Dworkin

The Bible.  Especially aloud.

Except maybe for Song of Solomon.

1. The Awakening
2. The Scarlet Letter

Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook.
Kinetics and Mechanism of Reactions of Transition Metal Complexes
Where’s Mom Now That I Need Her

(Just a few examples that are in my line of sight right this minute - yes, I’m a geek.)

Dungeons and Dragons books are okay.  You never know when you’ll need to consult some rule or another.  But make sure you pick up the dice, especially those d4s and d8s, which can be painful if you get them in the wrong places.

libdevil, I think there can be a case made that there are very limited, cosplay-related circumstances where it is acceptable to read the Monster Manual during sex. Nothing 4e, though.

11. Crossword puzzle dictionary

Books that will kill your libido dead:

1.  Anything by John Norman, especially Slave Girl of Gor.

2.  Anything by Pel Torro.

3.  The collected oeuvre of Carlos Castenada.

4.  The Dancers of Arun, especially the one with the line “His hands smelled of sex.”

5.  Anything by Paul Tillich, Thomas Aquinas, or John Calvin

6.  Newt Gingrich’s ghostwritten novels.

7.  Samuel Richardson’s 18th century “masterpiece” Pamela.

8.  Victorian pornography of the pedophilic persuasion.

9.  Books about Jack the Ripper.

10. The Twilight Series, especially the last one.  EWWW.

Outside of certain specific, agreed-upon semi-role-playing situations you probably shouldn’t read sex manuals during sex.  Not Joy of Sex, not 101 Nights in Bed, nor any “ten best” tips from Cosmo or Details.  Definitely nothing with anything like “How to…” in either the title or subtitle.  We’ve usually got enough anxiety as it is.  As Heather Corinna says, idealized procedures and checklists rarely work on actual people.  She also reminds her readers that mutual exploration and “fumbling around” are *highly* underrated ways to get to know each other.

figleaf

The latest issue of “Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance”, by the CDC.

Oh, and if you’re a straight female or gay male, “Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand” by Samuel Delany will probably give you problems too…

‘‘The Quilt: Stories from the Names Project.’‘

Has to be The Chicago Manual of Style.  Honorable mention: any 100-page section of Treasury Regulations.

Whoops - that’s the wrong way around.

It’s *interesting* that I recalled the use of gender incorrectly there…

Ah-hah - Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules.  Bonus erotic dysfunction points if you throw in a full set of Library of Congress Rule Interpretations as well.

Russel & Whitehead’s Principia Mathmatica,
Godel, Escher, Bach,
anything by Jaqueline Susanne (it may have sex, but does it have ENGLISH???)
Ian Frazier’s “Dating your Mom,”
Marquis De Sade’s “Justine.”  (if you disagree, I don’t want to know!),
Well, that’s five…

Fart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School

PIATOR wins: that book was made of pure fail.

“Surviving Incest”

The Starr Report

I can’t believe no one put down the “Left Behind” series of books!  Come on people, that’s a gimmie.  I mean, end of the world, where most of us are still here after the rapture?  At least with the bible you get cool imagery.  (I had a youth pastor that said perhaps St. John just got some really good mexican food one night and wrote it with his indigestion.)

I originally came up with the idea in terms of “worst message to send to your partner”

Ah. In that case…since I’m currently in a <strike>May/December</strike> late-June/October romance, “Elder Care: What to Look For, What to Look Out For!” He’d probably be pissed.

Also what Lindsay Beyerstein said!  A quick Google of Dale Carnegie also turns up “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”  Also “Pay less attention to what men say. Just watch what they do.”

Sort the inverse of the cable-tv “pick-up artist” view of things.  Hmmm….

So I guess he wouldn’t make my top-10 list of books not to read during sex.  But I still wouldn’t read him *during sex!* 

figleaf

“The Elements of Style” by Strunk & White. 

Guaranteed to kill any happy or energetic mood in most people I know…...unless you’re like a classmate who detested that book with such passion that he celebrated the end of his expository writing class by using that book to start a campfire to roast his hot dogs and marshmallows. 

Amanda,

Out of curiosity, what prompted you to list the unabridged version of “The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich”? Is it the evilness associated with the Third Reich, the fact it is a historically themed book, something else, or all of the above?

Though I can see some weirdos becoming aroused by the title “The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich”, it is probably the same variant of weird that I’d associate with a few classmates who were turned on by that damned Strunk & White book because the authors had some issues with “penetrate” and other related words. 

My Pet Goat

Any of John Norman’s GOR books.

I’m cheating a little by saying The Fountainhead because it’s really “The Worst Ten Books” material, sex notwithstanding.

Sex for Dummies
Bleakhouse
Middlemarch

Also, must disagree about reading “anything” during sex as being the worst book to read during sex. Sex encompasses more than just the physical act of penetration until orgasm, and includes foreplay and reading something racy aloud to one another can be ... ahem… stimulating.

How could I have forgotten Proust?!  It’s certainly appropriate for bedtime, but definitely not for sex.

First two that came to mind: “Porn for Women” by Susan Anderson, for title irony and “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, for obvious reasons.

How could I have forgotten Proust?!  It’s certainly appropriate for bedtime, but definitely not for sex.

“As I was going down on her, my nose buried between her lips and my tongue gently teasing her perineum, her musky scent filled my nostrils, and I was suddenly transported back to my childhood in my grandmother’s house…”

“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” is written in the kind of ‘breathless’ overpurpled prose that made it a best seller when it came out, but has since fallen out of favor with the current public who reads such things.  It also has what the Wikipedia calls a “Luther to Hitler” thesis, that Nazism was the logical outcome of the German character.  As Shirer put it:

“...the course of German history… made blind obedience to temporal rulers the highest virtue of Germanic man and put a premium on servility.

I had the honor of meeting the author when I was at university in St. Louis, MO.  I was playing the piano in an empty classroom, but I can’t recall whether I played for him or not.

The Necronomicon -Abdul Alhazred

The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases
esp. Ballistic Organ Syndrome or Hsing’s Spontaneous Self Flaying Sarcoma