The new book, Sex: Our Bodies, Our Junk, comes with high praise. Titter titter. No, seriously. The covers boast compliments in the forms of quotes from Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Andy Richter and his wife, Sarah Thyre, contribute the foreward. The illustrated naked man on the front looks a little bit like Zach Galifianakis. Go ahead. Try not imagining that now. Too late.
And the authoring team behind the book, "The Association For the Betterment of Sex," is made up of writers from The Onion, The Daily Show, Conan and Vanity Fair. There's more than 230 pages of sexual misedumacation in all, complete with pictures, illustrations, and the most important part for any reader who blushes at the sight of pictures and illustrations: words. They also have a blog!?
If the whole book is NSFW, then what possibly could be too racy to get into the book? Or what just barely made it into publication? I asked the authors. Co-author Todd Levin told me: "We actually didn’t get a ton of interference from our editor, except in the rare case when she admitted she simply didn’t “get” something. (Always a good barometer.) However, even within that very generous framework, there were still things we were proud/surprised made it into the book."
To wit…
Scott Jacobson: "Mine would be the "Five Rock Classics You Didn't Realize Concerned Masturbation" piece. It's easily the most gratuitously tasteless thing I've ever written (why are we taking digs at Eric Clapton and Richie Valens in the middle of our fake sex manual?) but it makes me laugh."
Todd Levin: "There was one joke I personally championed for no other reason than it made me laugh out loud when I wrote it—and that’s pretty rare.
In the “Recommended Reading” section at the end of the book, I included a joke book title: Cooking with Piss, by Emeril Lagasse. It’s not an important joke, or even a great one, but there was something about the way those words hit my ear that really tickled me. When I sent in all my fake book titles for this section, I remember including a note that said “If Cooking with Piss doesn’t make it into the final manuscript, I want my name taken off the book.”
Jason Roeder: "I'd have to say I’m proud of a piece I wrote on “Less Well-Known STDs.” I didn't have to fight for it, though. I think that’s because we all agreed that people needed to be made aware of afflictions like Pubic Wolves.
Mike Sacks: "I guess I like these two jokes the best:
"In 2001, Sacks published an award-winning children's book called
'Stuart,' about a gentle, carefree African American pimp who wears
dress socks and likes to perform magic tricks."
And also the sex fantasy that will never work that involves "a bored
housewife who meets a fifty-year-old pizza deliveryman who still wants
to make it big on the Swedish death-metal scene."
Also, I’m extremely proud of the fact that in every illustration of me
I have a black eye, the reason for which is never made clear."
Ted Travelstead: "I was happy to see one particular “Didja Know” factoid sailed through the editing process. Here’s the fact, as it appears in the book: “Didja know…the first marshmallows were produced by vaginas, and were a by-product of stress?” I've always regarded marshmallows as kind of wonderful and mysterious, so it's only natural that they'd come from a place as wonderful and mysterious as the vagina. Also, I kept imagining it as the premise for some deranged CATHY cartoon. Her saying "Ack!" and popping a marshmallow out of her vagina."
Want to read what else these demented sexperts have to teach you? Buy the book!