Moregasm is Babeland’s entrance into the world of comprehensive sex guides. There are quite a few out there and some are better than others. Moregasm does some things extremely well, much better than a lot of the competition, and it does other things kind of poorly. Overall though, it is one of the better sex guides I have read.
The biggest shortfall of most sex guides is that they default to heterosexual sex and treat queer sex as if it’s this other thing that other people do, but obviously not the reader. They’ll usually include a chapter about homosexuality and bisexuality and another chapter about trans folks, but always from the point of view that they’re teaching us about a foreign concept. They couldn’t possibly be teaching anyone who actually is one of those things. That can really make LGBTQQI folks feel abnormal and like maybe something is wrong with them. And is it really a comprehensive guide if they’re cutting out a good portion of the population?
Moregasm does not make this mistake. Throughout the entire book they address the reader as if they might be open to any kind of sex. This is not surprising given the writers. They are the founders of Babeland. As someone who works in a sex shop I know exactly how to talk to a customer without making any sort of judgments about who the person would be having sex with. I make sure to include all types of bodies in my discussions unless the customer makes it clear who they intend to use the object with.
At the same time, sex shop workers are used to talking directly to a person whose gender we can usually assume from looking and talking to them. We rarely try to make assumptions about the person’s sex, only about what gender they are presenting. Because of this and many other reasons they decided to write the book from the perspective of a woman for women. It can be extremely complicated to write a book that makes absolutely no assumptions what so ever. I’d really like to see someone try to do it and come out with an amazingly fantastic inclusive book. I really would. But damn it would be difficult. So I gotta give Moregasm props for being inclusive even if they wrote the book specifically for women. At least they acknowledge that fact.
Moregasm is not only inclusive, but it’s also completely accessible. The writing is light, fun, and educational. The writers know that they know more about sex than the average reader of this book, but they don’t make you feel bad for it. They celebrate your quest for knowledge and they never once put you to sleep. The colorful explicit pictures help to make the book fun and sexy although make it much more difficult for me to read on my morning commute to work on the bus. In fact I blame those giant naked pictures for me taking so long to get through this easy to read guide. It is DIFFICULT to hide them! But you’re all good if you just plan on reading this guide in the comfort of your own home, which is probably recommended anyway.
So, what doesn’t Moregasm do well?
The thing about publishing a book is that the publisher has to approve it and that means they have to approve the look of it. This can be extremely difficult if you are trying to create an all inclusive guide to sex. This book is filled with beautiful pictures of beautiful people. There are some pictures of different types of bodies, but most of them are thin, young, white, and cis-gendered. There are a few different races sprinkled around in the book. There is one picture of a trans man pictured next to a write up about trans, genderqueer, and intersexed folks. Although, I do credit them for picturing a few more androgynous women throughout the book. There are two pictures of older people, but those are tucked in the back amongst the questions about sex when you get older. And while the models aren’t all super skinny, there isn’t one person I would categorize as fat in the whole book. There is also not a single picture of anyone who is visibly disabled. This is all important because I feel that it is necessary for everyone to see themselves in a comprehensive sex guide in order for them to feel included in the discussion and because it is important for everyone to see that people of all types are sexy and beautiful in their own ways. But like I said before, this can depend hugely on what the publisher okays.
The other thing that I didn’t really like about Moregasm is that I felt that it was constantly trying to promote Babeland. This is probably going to keep this book out of a lot of other sex shops that are just as good as Babeland is. Why would a shop owner want to sell a book that is constantly telling the reader to shop at Babeland? This is especially poorly done in the section on lube. Every single lube that the book recommends is a Babeland brand lube. There are lots of good lubes out there that aren’t made by Babeland, but they aren’t mentioned. Probably because Babeland makes more money on their lubes, especially if you have to buy them from Babeland.
So overall, this book is fun, sexy, and educational. It doesn’t do everything perfectly, but it delivers where a lot of books don’t. I definitely recommend this book to all sexualities, but would recommend other books for information on sex with disabilities, aging, and trans identities.
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This post, Moregasm, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 03/07/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Moregasm. Thanks for visiting!
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