The Big Bang - book discontinued by Plume Books - review by Kayla

"The Big Bang" is a hardcover book published by Plume. It is written by Em and Lo and includes pictures by Matt Gunther. The book is a strong, firm hardcover with full-color pictures on the inside of the book. The book includes three different parts with 18 different chapters, and the book is 258 pages long. The book includes a lot of information as well as pictures. The text can be a bit small (think 8-point Arial font on your computer as a comparison), so if you have a hard time reading smaller font, this may cause a problem. However, the book has wide margins between the text links, so it doesn't look cluttered.

This book is a three-part book. The first part, which is about 90 pages is all about the basics of sex. The second part, which is about 55 pages, is all about advanced sexual issues. The last portion of the book is all about safe sex.

The basics are just that - the basics. Em and Lo cover orgasms, all about male and female masturbation (as well as why you should be doing it), foreplay for both males and females including not-so-thought-of spots, manually stimulating your male/female partner, the art of oral sex for both males and females, the ins and outs of intercourse (including sex positions) and a chapter about anal sex. None of this information is too in-depth (the manual stimulation chapter is only 10 pages long), so don't expect in-depth techniques, but it gives some pretty good information for only doing a glance-over of the basic information about sex.

The advanced stuff is interesting. It talks about g-spots and female ejaculation, fisting (!!!), sex toys, and BDSM and kink. This section does leave out a lot of the other main kinks for vanilla people, but I really, really enjoy the fact that they included fisting. How often do you see a sex book talk about fisting? Try "never". The Sex Toys chapter is the longest chapter in this section with BDSM coming in a second at about twenty pages (including some basic ties and roleplay information). Fisting and g-spot and female ejaculation only got ten pages each. These sections are very informative, but again, it'd be possible to learn a lot more to check out a full-book on the subjects. For those wanting to learn a lot in one book, though, this book does a great job.

The safe sex stuff is the third part. It includes everything about STIs, information about condoms, information birth control and emergency contraception, vaginas and breasts, penises, kegel exericses for him and her and the importance, and the importance of lubricant in safe-sex.

One thing worth mentioning is that one third of this book (almost one-hundred pages) is purely devoted to safe sex. Believe me, I am totally all for safe sex - I am - but this was a bit of overkill. However, it's hard to find this much in-depth information about sexual safety in many books, so I can't say that I blame Em and Lo for including this much information. However, out of the 260-ish pages, almost 100 are all on how to have safe sex, so be prepared to skip the last third of the book or read a lot of safe sex information. (I highly, highly recommend reading the safe sex information.)

The neat thing that's worth mentioning is that Em and Lo write in an amazingly frank way. As long as English is your first language, you'll giggle at a lot of their passages. (If English is not your first language, some of the slang may confuse you.) Em and Lo don't beat around the bush, and they're very frank in their open-ness. It's actually pretty refreshing. They flat-out state that men trying anal sex is as likely to make you gay as renting "Mommy Dearest" is, and they are very strong in their opinions about having safe sex. They have very strong opinions, and they express them, but their opinions are usually very strong about the topics of safe sex and about being open-minded, so I didn't mind them at all.

The back cover of the book shows some of the humor that Em and Lo use. They are blunt and frank in their discussions, and it makes me smile since most books usually pussy-foot around the issues. These are all actual quotes from the discussions inside the book itself:
"Masturbating is a better study break than smoking."
"Don't look your money shot in the eye."
"Men have waged wars for the view of the vulva."
"Frued really messed things up."
"The missionary position is kind of like tofu: You have to add your own flavor."
"Female ejaculation is the misunderstood goth teen of the sex world."
"Fiber is one of the best damn things you can do for your sex life."

Em and Lo walk the talk they give too. A lot of the pictures in the book show homosexual relationships as well as heterosexual ones. All of the pictures look like "real" people instead of models. There are a couple male-together ones, but there don't seem to be any "real" homosexual male couples. There are quite a few shots of women using strap-ons and such, and honestly, they chose a lot of hot, realistic-looking photos for this book. Most sex book pictures usually look fake and posed, but these pictures look really hot, sexy, and like a photographer happened to be nearby at a private moment between a couple. There are enough pictures where you won't want to read this in public, but it's still only like 10% of the book's content (if that. Probably less than 10%) The pictures show bare breasts and bare butts, but there were not graphic shots and no penetrative sex. There were some illustrations included in the sex positions chapter to illustrate the positions though.

So in the end? The book is a great, comprehensive look at sex, but do expect to get a lot of safety information from it. I think this is a good thing, and the safety information is informative, but I was expecting more information about sex and the "new" sexual universe. Would I recommend it? Yes. Of course. To anyone who wants a good, comprehensive book about sex as well as great sexual safety information, it's a great choice. It isn't too in-depth, but most comprehensive sex-ed books aren't. If you aren't too sexually educated, this book will open your eyes to different sexual techniques.