How to Make Great Love to a Woman

With a similar structure to How to Make Great Love to a Man, this self-help book first discusses psychology and emotions, then the initial phases in relationships, long-term relationships, and ending with particular discussion of sexual technique.  The book uses straightforward language to explain psychology, and without being academic, provides a sensible and well-grounded perspective that acknowledges some differences between men and women without insisting that they are universally true.  While the book about men discussed male sexual problems of impotence and self-control with ejaculation and loss of libido in men, How to Make Great Love to a Woman deals with problems of lack of desire in women and ways to increase her sexual interest. 

The book is aimed at heterosexual readers who want to improve their sexual lives and are not easily offended.  The language used by the authors is easily accessible without being crude.  The photographs of different sexual positions are not highly explicit, but they do show nudity.  There are explicit drawings that give a little more detail about performing particular actions.  There are also many boxes and separate lists within the texts that provide helpful hints, such as different kinds of listening skills, myths of romantic love, how to kiss, how not to kiss, as well as how to perform different sexual techniques.  Generally, the book keeps a good balance between the psychological, with focus on emotions, intimacy, and mutual understanding, and the nitty-gritty basics of how-to-do-it. 

This is just a general guide and it doesn't take on more specialized issues in any detail – there is nothing about the sexuality of the disabled, for instance, and very little on the G-spot.  There's hardly any discussion of how to address more chronic sexual problems in relationships, and not much on perversions, fetishes or obsessions.  There's nothing about online sexuality and cybersex.  So most of the information in the book will probably be familiar and pretty obvious to most readers, but nevertheless, it could be a useful resource for couples who want some way to address their sexuality together. 

© 2004 Christian Perring. All rights reserved.

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of the Arts & Humanties Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island. He is also editor of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main research is on philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.