Speaking of bad sex . ..
Eva Christina, filmmaker and writer for TV shows such as “Las Vegas” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” as well as former senior editor of Notorious magazine, is taking a humorous and enlightening look into all things beyond the pale when it comes to sex in her recently released “The Book of Kink: Sex Beyond the Missionary.”
In her first book, Christina compiled an abridged, interesting summary/history of kink, written as a series of definitions with descriptive paragraphs rather than a linear format — certainly not a how-to book.
For the vanilla reader, it will be enlightening and informative. (In our society, that’s likely someone who hasn’t had access to the Internet, cable television, prime-time television, porn, dirty magazines, free-spirited/exhibitionist/TMI-sharing friends or information about sex that dates past 1989. You know … when “kinky” was still a go-to word to describe fetishes.)
Now, we admit that we might be desensitized to the sexual information contained in “The Book of Kink” (we think the phrase “Isn’t that quaint” crossed our lips at some point), thanks largely to our own voracious academic pursuits, travels and numerous misadventures. And we were disappointed there was very little if anything we hadn’t heard of and, even worse, no pictures or illustrations (damn it all!) in its pages. But the book does delve enough into historical facts to be academically interesting and makes for a nice conversation piece on our coffee table.
PGN: So what inspired you to write “The Book of Kink”? EC: There was a point where the news was just inundated with all the different vampire shows: “True Blood,” “Vampire Diaries” and “Twilight.” I was wondering what their appeal was. I enjoyed some of them but not all of them. I realized a lot of it just had to do with kinky sex — vampires, blood, biting, sexual activity. It was also around the same time I began noticing a lot of friends going to exercise classes at stripper pole-dance classes instead of going to the gym. There are all these different things that seem very normal and I realized how the standards of kinky sex had changed and how mainstream so much of kinky sex had become. So I just thought it would be interesting to take a look at what has been kinky in the past and what people do today that is kinky and how sex always fascinates.
PGN: With all the access people have to information, do you find that people are still often misinformed when it comes to sex? EC: Definitely. Sex is this taboo subject. As much as we see today — celebrities have sex tapes and people are fascinated by that — what people do behind closed doors are never told. If you knew that your kid’s teacher was into spanking someone every night, you’d have a different opinion of them. So that teacher is not going to say that’s what they do. It doesn’t make them a bad person. That’s something they do behind closed doors. What’s hard today is this generation has porn on their computers and they are not even mature enough sexually and they are seeing everything possible. There’s this disconnect from where they should be sexually.
PGN: What do you think LGBT readers will take away from this book? EC: You can’t take anyone at face value. I definitely learned that I’m not shocked by anyone being into anything anymore. If something is out there, someone has got a kink for it. It’s a book that will hopefully open people’s eyes to the fact that there are plenty of people into so many things and that they aren’t alone in the things they are into, and that they can find compatible partners sexually out there who may be into what they are into. Also, no matter how odd or weird a kink is, there’s always going to be something more weird out there.
PGN: What was the most surprising fact you found out while researching this book? EC: I found so many factoids about Japan and how kinky Japan is. They have so many things going on, like selling soiled schoolgirls’ underwear in vending machines. There are so many kinky fashions and people marrying pillows as sexual partners. When it comes to sex between couples and procreation, it’s just a very closed society, and yet extremely open about its kinkiness. It’s very ironic and strange how such openness and kinkiness doesn’t lead to people being more sexually active with each other.
“The Book of Kink: Sex Beyond the Missionary” is in stores now.