Dr Amelia Haines.

• home
• news
• about
• events
• contact
• links

She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman

Ian Kerner’s 2008 book, Passionista, was about male sexuality for female readers. She Comes First is now marketed as the companion volume to Passionista, but this earlier book is for men and it’s about cunnilingus (oral sex for women). Its subject is not as broad as his book about male sexuality, but that said it is a great book on female sexual response and psychology.

Ian Kerner is a New York sex therapist with years of experience, and he writes well. He is very funny, medically and historically accurate, and psychologically insightful. She Comes First takes the (perhaps nervous) reader through the literature on cunnilingus and provides sociological information about men and women’s attitudes to the activity. His physiological explanations of what is most pleasurable to women in general are the kind of knowledge of which no man who cares should be ignorant. He provides this information in a light-hearted rather than clinical style, which means the reader is more likely to listen. For example, men will do well to recall his emphasis on the idea that women need to be ‘teased’ rather than ‘handled’.
She Comes First is not just a fascinating, intelligent, witty read but it is also that most uncommon thing with so much writing about sex—it’s useful. The fact that the book is predominantly about oral sex does limit it, and I feel a warning needs to be extended: not all women are going to enjoy cunnilingus; not all men are going to want to perform it; and even Mr. Kerner’s helpful insights are still not going to work out for everyone. There is a very cute end section about different ‘routines’ one can attempt. I feel Kerner may be having a little joke with us all here, as I imagine bedrooms full of very motivated men memorizing ‘Routine Number 3’ or lying at awkward angles with his book propped up at eyeline level as they seek to please their partners!

The book is so wonderfully informative, however, it deserves to be made into a non-pornographic documentary. It would appear Mr. Kerner and I agree that a good laugh can be the best therapy when coupled with accurate information.

Pornography, Hollywood and the Beauty of the Mundane

Passionista by Ian Kerner

A single digit present: reflections of a sex therapist on Valentine’s Day

Celluloid v. Cellutite Sex