wild violet | ^hot sand^ | review - why should guys have all the fun by cindy x. novo

At times satirical and at times wickedly hilarious, Why Should Guys Have All the Fun? reverses sexual stereotypes, asking:

“Why ... should the male species play the game on its own terms and not yours? Who wrote the rule that men should call the shots and women should respond like trained monkeys? How, as a woman, can you learn the secrets of finding and manipulating men who have the ability to bring you sexual bliss?”

Following in the tradition of the randy “how-to” instruction books you’d expect 1970s-era male swingers to own, Cindy X. Novo (not her real name) provides a raunchy guide to how to pick up guys. Make no mistake: this is not a Cosmo article on how to get, and keep, a man. Cindy’s motto is “find them and forget them.” Well, not exactly in those words. (Warning: Those offended by crude language and situations would do well to avoid this book.)

There is plenty of anger beneath the surface, and plenty of belittling her male “bringers of pleasure.” The reason may be a gut response to the sort of ugly, belittling comments that have frequently been made about women. Here’s Cindy’s response to one of those stereotypical comments:

“The lady’s so ugly, that if I woke up with her resting on my arm, I’d gnaw my arm off at the shoulder to keep from waking her up. He’s so ugly, it looks as if his face was set on fire and somebody used a pickax to extinguish the blaze.”

While it’s hard to recommend this book across the board -- it is definitely too raunchy and too angry for many readers -- it can be a fun read for those willing not to take it too seriously. In a way, Cindy is a sort of cyberpunk Margaret Cho, delivering her tongue-in-cheek advice to rescue women from the self-loathing and powerlessness many have learned.

Her tag line for the book says it all, this is “Deep Throat Meets the Three Stooges.” And Curly always came back for more.