How to Be a Bedroom Goddess - book discontinued by Ryland Peters & Small - review by Kayla

"How to Be a Bedroom Goddess" is a small, 64 page book produced by Ryland Peters. The book is written by Sophia Mortensen and illustrated by Des Taylor. It's a small, square book at about a six inch square and was published in 2006, so it's still pretty modern. The front cover shows a girl reclining on a bed along with the title, and the back cover shows a sexy pair of an illustrated-girls legs. Because of the large title, I'd recommend against taking this in public to read, but it's all about your own preferences and comfort level. This book only took me a half-hour to read, so it's a short book.

I absolutely love the illustrations on this book, and the art style just looks flirty and sexual at the same time. The art is extremely, extremely tastefully done, and it looks like it could be sold as paintings to hang on your wall.

I was surprised by how this book was written. When I ordered it, I was expecting the book to be about sex tips on how to show your prowess in the bedroom and help pleasure your partner. What I received was something completely different actually.

The first half (2/3 of the book actually) is all about the history of past goddesses such as how sex was treated in Egypt, Rome, Greece, and other places. It goes from oldest to most modern in order. Each "history" lesson is a page long (two or three paragraphs) and includes a beautifully illustrated picture that helps show the historical period. When you turn the page, you receive two pages worth of sex tips that can be taken from this historical time period and used in your bedroom today. Something I thought was a little odd was how the book uses the tips to just reinforce what the "history" lesson taught. Because, in history, most people believed spiritual things about sex, the tips sometimes seem to want to "push" you to believe spiritually about sex too. Not a big deal, but I found it a little odd.

For example, back in Imperial China, did you know that it was believed that male's semen could all be used up? (Which is sorta-true in a round-a-bout way) Because of they believed that males had limited sperm and that it should be used wisely, they believed it was wasteful for man to come before the woman was allowed multiple orgasms that made her primed and "ready" for more intense pleasure. This allowed for the least wasteful method of sex.

The second half (1/3) of the book is all about how to be a modern goddess. In this portion of the book, it goes through a "Goddess Lifestyle Plan" (drinking water, exercising, eating right), Intuition and Flirting, Lingerie and Rituals, Fun-loving Seduction, and a little excerpt on some Dominance/Submission play. Each of the sections is only about four pages which is slightly disappointing, but it covers what it needs to. None of the tips are really all that solid and are probably the tip of thing that you'd forget within a day of reading it.

The sex tips honestly aren't that amazing. They are pretty much one or two sentence sex tips akin to what you'd find in a women's magazine. None of them offer much for "specific" help (like good positions, how to get good angles, etc.), but they do offer some neat ideas that could be used during sex to spice it up. As something to help improve your sex life, though, I honestly can't fully recommend it.

Some of the sex tips include:
-"State your opinions - even if they conflict with his. This will open up debate, which is good for building erotic tensions."
-"Take pleasure in being outdoors and visit the wild woodland at the time of the changing seasons. This is very energizing and will help you connect to the earth."
-"Try to imagine yourselves at an Ancient Greek Orgy where no one was embarrassed about nakedness or erotic desires."

Something to consider is that this book was written exclusively for heterosexual couples. There is no mention of lesbian or gay relationships, and the book talks to you assuming you are a female in a relationship with a male. While it isn't insulting to read, some of the tips may not carry over to a homosexual relationship.

So, my opinion on it? While the book wasn't perfect and it honestly isn't useful for finding tips to improve your sex life, it does provide a neat little history lesson in sex that was neat to find. However, it doesn't do much to answer the "How to be a Bedroom Goddess" title. With another aptly named title, I feel like the book would be more of what it intended.

As it stands though, it makes a good gift for a friend who, while you've never discussed sex with them, is still a close friend or someone else who has recently gotten married. It's cute and flirty and isn't all that in-depth about the sex tips themselves which makes it a pretty "okay" gift without crossing over the borderline of "awkward". As a book to improve your own sex life though, I'd probably pass.

I can't say I've ever really picked this one up since the first time I read it, but it isn't a horribly bad book - it just needed a different title. For anyone who is interested in history and likes sex, I usually let them borrow this because it does have good history lessons and pretty pictures. The book is hardcover, and thus, it's really nicely protected, so no harm has come to it.