Action: A Book about Sex

by Amy Rose Spiegel

Overview

With whip-smart prose, reminiscent of Roxane Gay and Meghan Daum, Action interweaves Spiegel's own sexual autobiography with loving advice on one-night stands, relationships, and everything in between.

With whip-smart prose, reminiscent of Roxane Gay and Meghan Daum, Action interweaves Spiegel's own sexual autobiography with loving advice on one-night stands, relationships, and everything in between. Action is a book about sex that people won't feel embarrassed about owning. There are absolutely zero provocatively shaped fruit on the cover, for one. In Action, Amy Rose Spiegel exhorts you to trust yourself and be respectful of others—and to have the best possible time doing the things you search for on the Internet, except in reality. The book covers consent, safety, group sex, gender, and the best breakfast to make for a one-night stand. Spiegel also includes dissections of threesomes, how to pick people up without being a skeezer, celibacy as a display of autonomy, and, of course, how to clean your room in 10 minutes if a devastatingly lovely side-piece is about to stop by. All told, Action totally doesn't think it's weird that you want to try that thing together. In fact, Action is very into it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455534494
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	05/17/2016
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Amy Rose Spiegel is an editor and freelance writ(h)er. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, NME, BuzzFeed, Dazed & Confused, The FADER, and many other publications. She came up in New Jersey and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Editorial Reviews

04/04/2016
Debut author Spiegel charms with frank, empowering advice on embracing one’s sexuality without apology. After advising that feeling good about one’s self is crucial to good sex, she divides her wise book into three sections: “Ready for Action” (on mentally preparing for sex), “Where the Action Is” (finding sexual partners), and “Pieces of the Action”(advice on dealing with embarrassing moments, such as when someone walks in on you when you’re masturbating and there’s period blood all over the bed). No sexual subject is off limits, including enjoying anal sex, giving a blow job, buying sex toys and lingerie, group sex etiquette, sexually transmitted diseases, pornography, and fetishes. Even the sensitive topic of sexual assault is skillfully handled, with an eye toward reassuring and empowering assault survivors. Spiegel’s witty, slapstick style of prose veers into the absurd (such as discussing the possible fetish of ben-wa balls embossed with the faces of America’s founding fathers) but the advice is warm and sensible. Spiegel liberally dishes about sexual experiences from her life, personalizing the book. This should be required reading for anyone even considering having sex for the first time. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"A candid guide to 21st-century sexual politics...[where] Spiegel's gift is being able to write with total inclusivity - for queer, trans, straight, asexual and celibate bodies and desires - without scrimping on specificity."—The Guardian

ACTION is a sex advice book for a new, progressive generation, one whose views on sex are informed by a basic ethos of fluid sexuality, body positivity, and feminist responses to rape culture...ensuring that all that sex is not only safe and consensual, but good."—Slate

"ACTION takes a humorous, kind, and informative bent on humanity's most popular and most confusing activity....[and] is wildly thorough, covering everything."—Milk

"A perfect compendium...Equal parts banging field guide...and revealing post-romantic memoir."—The Rumpus

"Action is a perfect mix of informational guide and personal accounts."—Bitch

"This book should be taught in sex ed classes around the nation and is a treasure."—The Frisky

"Fast-paced and fun and should be required reading in high schools."—Fusion

"Thoughtful, informative and sensitive, writing in a way that invites any reader, regardless of gender identity or sexuality, to take part."—The Huffington Post

"This outrageously funny book interweaves Spiegel's own sexual history with tender advice on one-night stands, relationships, group sex and absolutely everything in between."—ELLE UK

"I've never actually laughed out loud so frequently in any reading experience, nor received such a thorough education in sexing healthily. Even the most literal, practical, graphic advice in this book is imbued with love, and with Amy Rose Spiegel's singular voice."—Tavi Gevinson, Editor-in-Chief, Rookie

"Reading Amy Rose Spiegel is tantamount to listening to a new language-surprising to the ear, a shock to the senses, and utterly invigorating. She charters the brave new world of identity politics with trusting vigor-and that rarest of qualities, humor."—Hilton Als, staff writer for The New Yorker

"Amy Rose Spiegel is the doyenne of doing it, and this book is an open-hearted and open-minded guide for those of us who may not be quite as sexy as its author. Clear, informative, and hilarious, ACTION is made to be read under the covers with a flashlight, and passed surreptitiously among teenage girls in between classes. An instant classic of the sex tome variety."—Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of The Vacationers

"ACTION is a marvelous modern manual on sex, relationships, consent and communication in an era that deeply craves a disappearing intimacy between them all. Ms. Spiegel's writing is both who we are and everything we wish we were brave enough to become: a living, breathing, life-long experiment that lights up everyone and everything that can be touched."—Amber Tamblyn, actress and author of Dark Sparkler

"Spiegel charms with frank, empowering advice on embracing one's sexuality without apology...This should be required reading for anyone even considering having sex for the first time."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher