Anne Hooper's Ultimate Sex Positions - guides to a better sex by DK Publishing - review by Kayla

Anne Hooper, the writer of this product, is a former associate editor of the Penthouse Forum magazine and is the founder of the Women's Sexuality Workshop. She has also written books entitled "Erotic Massage", "Kama Sutra for 21st Century Lovers", "Kama Sutra for Him and Her", "Great Sex Games", "Great Sex Guide", and "Pocket Sex Guide".

Anne Hooper's Ultimate Sex Positions is a book of over 100 different sex positions. The book is a full-color book and is divided into five sections: The Introduction, Chapter 1: Erotic Embrace, Chapter 2: Maximum Sensation, Chapter 3: Acrobatic Ecstasy, Chapter 4: Sex Games and Adventures.

The Introduction talks about the contents of the rest of the book, Chapter 1 will include intimate and spiritual positions, Chapter 2 will include positions that provide the best sensation to both partners, Chapter 3 includes positions that require flexibility and adventure, and Chapter 4 includes positions that are great to use with sex accessories such as bondage items or vibrators.

Each position includes one or two pages about the position. The more popular positions will receive two pages while the other positions receive one. Each position, regardless of page room, gets a title to the position and a tagline with what the position achieves. The position titles are titles that most won't use to call the positions; For example, missionary position is titled "Face to Face" in this book and the from-behind position is called "The Cat". Each position will also include one full-color picture of a couple doing the position.

On each position, there will also be quite a bit of text. This text, for the most part, will include why the position is pleasurable along with different suggestions for the male or female to do to their partner while in this position. For example, with the previously mentioned "Face to Face" position, it recommends the female play with the male's anus and recommends the male position her clitoris against the base of his penis.

I found that the descriptive text of each position rarely includes instructions on how to do the position. It will include what the position looks like, how each partner is positioned to do the position, or what makes the position pleasurable, but it doesn't include step-by-step instructions for any of the harder positions. A couple of the positions do include a sidenote that this position won't work with overweight or pregnant women, but for the most part, most of the positions don't have any notes like that.

Each position also has a small little box of text off-set from the rest of the text. This little box usually has text that has nothing to do with the position; instead, it usually includes some sort of random sex fact or talks about different ways that you can improve your sex life. For example, one of the boxes talks about the importance of talking dirty, another talks about how human's sense of smell is connected to sex, another talks about how to delay the female orgasm, talks about how to give a foot massage among many others.

The pictures to demonstrate the positions are gorgeous. Many are done on different-colored backgrounds, and all are very tasteful. None of the pictures include any genitals and only a handful of the pictures include full-views of the butt or breasts. All of the couples pictured seem to be enjoying themselves. The pictures also represent racial diversity with a couple different races being represented. None of the pictures have any sort of variety in body type, however; all of the men and women pictured are in peak physical condition without any extra weight.

All of the pictures of this book are all male/female. All of the text also references male/female as well. While a gay or lesbian couple could use some of these tips, none of the content of the book references anything but heterosexuality.

Another neat feature of the book is the random feature pages. I say random because there doesn't appear to be any place to track down these extra features unless you know what you're looking for - they aren't listed in the table of contents. These extra features are two-page spreads of a sex-related thing, but they aren't about positions. For example, the features I can find include kissing, licking, and biting, sensual massage, erotic strokes, oral stimulation, tantric sex, beyond the bedroom, sex games, and sex toys. This equals out to be two features per chapter. The only thing that I've found that makes these features easier to find is that they include a red border at the bottom of the page.

Each feature includes instructions about how to better perform the feature it is talking about. For example, sex games will include information on acting out a fantasy, fantasy visuals, and blindfolds and restraints. The erotic strokes talks about how to stroke the genitals, give light caresses, and how to stroke the chest. As the features are only two pages long, they are very brief and only give the most basic of information.

The last section is the index. The index helps the reader look through the book. The index is three pages long and categorizes all of the positions by name as well as the extra features that the book includes. For the most part, this index is virtually useless unless you know what the name of the position is that you're looking for. Since the book renamed most of the traditional positions, it will be hard to find them by index alone.

Overall, the book does include some interesting positions, but I'd say that only forty positions out of this book are positions that the average couple hasn't thought up before. The book does provide many variations on the same position that can make it pleasurable, and the pictures and suggestions will give many couples the motivation that they need to try out more adventurous positions. Many of the positions that this book includes are positions that the average couple would be able to perform while some of the other positions will take extra strength, practice, and flexibility. This book includes a good range.

The book, published by DK publishing, is a hardcover book with a paper sleeve on the outside. The paper sleeve is not attached to the book itself and can be taken off. Underneath the paper sleeve, the hardcover book includes the exact same pictures and information as the paper sleeve does.

The pages of the book itself are printed on high-quality photography paper and are securely fastened into the binding of the book itself. There are 192 pages in this book, and it appears like this book wasn't meant to be read from cover to cover. It looks like this was meant to be looked through and to pick out positions that you and your partner would like to try.

The organization of the book is very basic. The positions are split up between the chapters of the book. The chapters seem logical although having the "Extra information" split into different chapters may make it difficult to find the information.

The cover is not discreet. The word "sex" is included in giant letters, and there are pictures of couples having sex on the cover. As stated previously, taking off the paper sleeve only leads to the exact same copy of the paper printed onto the book itself, so this is a book to keep out of the way of prying eyes.

While the book does include a single picture from each position, I do think the book would have benefited from including multiple pictures for some of the harder positions. The single picture along with the lack of helpful text makes the more difficult positions harder to figure out. For example, when you see a couple butt-to-butt, and the book says it's a sex position, I am completely flabbergasted as to how to get myself into that position.

If I had to suggest a best use for this, I recommend taking a fun night with your partner and flipping through the book. Together, the two of you should pick out some of the positions that look exciting and mark them with a post-it. From there, when you both are feeling like you've gone into a sex rut, you have a nice book that marked what you two thought would be exciting.