Table of Contents
To K&A,
for giving me all my body parts
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Huge thanks to my agent, Andrea Sombergtheres no other way to say it: I couldnt be in better hands. Im also extremely thankful to Maria Gagliano, my superb editor who offered such expert advice every step of the way, and to everyone else at Penguin for their support.
So many others to thank... Carly for her wealth of information and contacts; Lexa for all her research; to those who gave me their time to interview them: Kevin Blatt, Dr. Ava Cadell, Christy Canyon, Master Feenix, Adam Grayson, Farrell Hirsch, Nikki Hunter, Larry Flynt, Theresa Flynt, Matt McMullen, Christian Mann, Dana B. Myers, Miss Nikki Nefarious, Goddess Soma, Ariel Joseph Towne, and the friends, family and contacts who all helped in one way or another, either in support and/or to make sure I got the kinkiest of material: Brian Gross, Amanda Thompson, Erin Palmquist, the Kinsey Institute, the S-Factor, Sara, Patty, Jess and JP, Alexa and Pancho, Tina, Joyce, Erin and Randy, Agnieszka, Cybele, Robynn, Clara, Charles, Tom and John, Carla, Shola, Diane, Charles, Tanya, Davide, Violetta, Tomasz, Lowry, Logan, Adam, Eline and Scott, Dyanne and Matt, Agatha, Sonia, Adam and Sara, and Alex.
No book about kinky sex could have a better muse than the daily reflections from the Howard Stern Show. I want to thank Stern for his wild and incisive shows, providing me with great leads on sexy and kinky ideas. More media thanks to Gawker, the Daily Beast and the Huffington Postsomehow, these sites seemed to have something relevant to my book almost every day.
Lastly, I could not be more grateful to my parents for being so much a part of my life every single day and for all that they do, have done and continue to do; my gorgeous daughters, who take my breath awaybut wont be allowed to read this book for a very long time; and my husband, who with all his sexiness, smartness and hilarity, is even hotter in his endless support, and as my own collaborator, confidant and comfort.
INTRODUCTION
What do Marv Albert, Paris Hilton and Adolf Hitler have in common? Ill give you a hint: it has nothing to do with basketball, bad singing or brownshirts. These three famous yet completely dissimilar people have been into wild, crazy, uninhibited and kinky sex. In the public eye, they are known as a classy sports announcer, a spoiled heiress and a murderous dictator. But once you get them behind closed doors, these threeand millions of othersmake doggy-style look like Disneyland. Whether youre gnawing on a womans back like a botfly, making a homemade tape while giving fellatio with a night-vision camera or lying between an upright womans legs while you paint her vagina, people everywhere are into kinky sex. For some, its a way to spice up a withered sex life; for others, its a lifestyle. No matter how or why you engage in kinky sex, let it be known that it is as old as Adam and Eve and as commonplace as your next-door neighbor.
Why do people engage in such erotic, titillating and naughty behavior? What is it about kinkiness that makes a person risk their career and family to self-indulge for just a few hours? Why would a store clerk risk sex with a mannequin in public? Why does the timid payroll manager at your office rush home on Thursdays because shes hosting brothel night? Why does a hedge fund CEO want to be flogged? Why does a conservative housewife want her hair pulled? Is it in our blood? Our genes? Are our lives that boring that we have to supplement the private moments with behavior that is often uncharacteristic of who we portray ourselves to be in public? Can we control the urge? Do we need to? We seem to have kinkiness everywhere, and whats kinky to one person is completely different from whats kinky to another.
But if its really everywhere, why is kinky sex still so taboo?
Just like our infatuation with celebrities, kinky sex is something we all wish for but never think is within reach. And its forever intriguing. Even the word kinky sounds kinky. Its a word that evokes a secretive, sexy and sultry curiosity. Well never stop being curious. Its part of our nature. Many of us are already extremely curious about other peoples sex lives. Without other peoples sex lives, well, what the hell would we all talk about? How would tabloids stay afloat? Why would we care about Brangelina? If sex is part of our national fabric, kinky is the stain on that proverbial textile that no one wants to talk about but is impossible to cleanse.
The word kinky is used to define an act or object that is grossly racy or raunchy, gratuitously taboo or titillating, secretly lewd or obscene. In 1992, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a manual thats published by the American Psychiatric Association on mental disorders and how to refer to them, defined kinky behavior as paraphiliawhatever act or idea is abnormally used to get someone aroused. The same manual classified homosexuality as a mental health issue until 1974.
Today, kinky sex has turned in a more positive direction. Have our standards fallen? Have we moved the goalposts for what is deemed coarse or crude or too sexy? We live in a world where a movie showing someone masturbating into an apple pie becomes a box-office smash. When Madonna grabs her crotch onstage, she has countless teenybopper girls emulating her every move. Bruce Willis can prove his love for his new wife by being photographed in W magazine donning S&M attire. Geriatric sex guru Dr. Ruth Westheimer spewed out the most shockingyet informativesex advice. People pay to see Britney Spears dress as a dominatrix in one of her concerts. Books about having a year without sex or a womans quest to have an orgasm are top sellers. And Chris Rock makes the art of tossing salad funny.
The Book of Kink will take bedroom doors off of their hinges, not peeking into the world of kinkiness but exposing it. If youve never heard the terms or engaged in the practice of strap-ons, flagellation, sword fighting, rough-putting or the Sybian, this book is about to take your innocence and pop its cherry.
The book will be like a multi-camera porn shoot. Well look at every possible angle, from the history, how-tos and hilarity of kinkinessand yet it will only really scratch the surface on a subject that is enormously vast, dense and populated. Some close-up framing might cause a bit of discomfort, but most of these looks will be money shots, eye-opening focal points on the details of kinky behavior. It will discuss equipment, classes, parties and porn. It will delve into fetishes, turn-ons, role-playing and how the Internet has reinvented how kinky people find one another. It will look at why we are kinky, whether we humans were always kinky, and what it means to be kinky. Itll look back at historical personas and cultures who were kinky (Did Attila the Huns seventh wife kill him with rough and rugged sex? Did you know the ancient Egyptians masturbated in groups in order to make sure their fields were fertile?). The book will peep into the world of celebrity and political scandals, like exNew York governor Eliot Spitzers desire to have sex with high-priced hookers. It will discuss laws and scrutinize what happens when this kind of activity goes wrong.
Studies on kinky practices today are harder than ever to find because not only is it difficult to raise money for that kind of research, but its even harder to get people to be honest. Statistics vary wildly on what percentage of the population indulges in kinky sex, with 5 to 50 percent saying theyre kinky, which means theres a huge margin of error. On top of that, peoples various definitions of kinkiness factor into the equation and can throw the entire survey out the window.
