Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Hubby and I saw "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" last night. It stars Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas (who was superb), and is a lovely little movie for a date night if you don't examine the plot too closely. It's a very chaste movie, too--only one f-bomb is dropped, and I think there's only one extended makeout session, one scene of rather pathetic marital relations, and one hot bout of first-time ex. But there is a lot of witty dialogue and fine acting. So check it out.

What Science Tells Us about Power and Infidelity

Interesting NPR article discussing studies that find that the more power people have, the more they're likely to engage in adultery. Well, duh.

And yet, I think that people who feel completely powerless--because they're stuck in a loveless or sexless marriage, for example--are vulnerable to infidelity as well. Some might call cheating under these circumstances as passive-aggressive, but who's ready to cast the first stone?

This could be on my mind because we've been watching "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer." Which I'm finding to be a horrifying movie, but not because of what Spitzer did. Watch it back to back with "Inside Job," and you'll see what I mean. But that's another blog post.

Interview with "Sex @ 11 with Rebecca"

Today seemed to be my own personal Media Day. First I did an interview with CNN about TreeRing.com, the website that my son's school used to create its yearbook. (I was a co-editor, something I volunteered to do in a moment of insanity.) We'll see if any of the footage makes the light of day. Still, it was fun, and if the comments afterwards from the TreeRing.com folks are true, I did an OK job. It was nice to feel that I'm slightly good at something (I haven't been feeling that way so much lately...but that's the subject for another post).

Then, tonight, I did an interview with Rebecca Rosenblat, a.k.a. Dr. Date, for her TV show "Sex @ 11 with Rebecca." We talked about What Women Really Want in Bed and What Men Really Want in Bed, the top 3 sex tips guys need to know--and a few tips for women, too.

It was a fun interview; Rebecca made me feel right at home. But I guess I was a little nervous, because when I started talking about What Women Really Want in Bed, I realized I was talking about the men we surveyed, not the women. Oops. But after that little glitch, things went smoothly...

...until my son burst in the room as I was talking about how men need to pay attention to the clitoris. Yeah, that was a little distracting. My husband, who was supposed to be watching our small human, claimed he had run upstairs before he could catch him, like some sort of pint-sized Olympic sprinter.

Moral of the story: If you're a sex author, look the office door when you're doing an interview.

And how can you listen in? The show only airs in Canada, but the producers are sending me a DVD of it. Which I'll post here.

Watch our new book trailer!

I love our new commercial for What Men Really Want in Bed. Take a peek.

I have to thank Ben and Stew of Bay Area Pictures for the great work (and his patience).

Another interview on Pillow Talk!

Just finished another interview on the Pillow Talk 101 show on Blog Talk Radio! I was so pleased to be asked back. The topic was "Self Pleasure: Getting to Know Yourself," but the conversation covered a bunch of topics, from role playing to the A-spot.

We read and talked about two of the "seductions" from Secret Seductions, too.

Joining us was the fabulous JenniFDB from the 2Chix 1Mic Radio Show.

Thanks to my host Tai for another great time,and for inviting me back! Great way to start the weekend.

And sorry I disappeared at the end of the show...I accidentally hung up when my cheek bumped the receiver. D'oh.

(Note: This post was cross-posted on my other blog, What Women Really Want in Bed.)

Listen to me on Pillow Talk Radio

Just finished doing a wild, no-holds-barred interview on Pillow Talk Radio's Freaky Friday Hangout! Talked for over an hour with hosts Tai and Dre (hope I spelled that right) about everything you can imagine and then some: what men and women really want in bed, adult toys, faking orgasms (why not to), domination/submission...and more.

Tune in to Better Sex Radio tomorrow!

Yeah, I'm back, after six months. To quote the movie "Airplane": "But that's not important right now."

What is important is that I'll be on Better Sex Radio tomorrow, Wednesday, January 19, at 11am talking with host Chrystal Bougon about What Women Really Want in Bed and fabulous foreplay. And isn't all foreplay fabulous? We think so.

We've had to reschedule this interview at least twice now due to technical difficulties, but we're hoping that third time will be a charm. I love this blog post she wrote about the "Fabulous Foreplay" chapter of What Women Really Want in Bed:

Foreplay for women is NOT optional. Remember, for women, it's often going to take our brain about 10 - 15 minutes to get in the moment. We just don't CLICK OVER like men seem to be able to. We are not quite as visually stimulated as men are. Just seeing a penis or his nipples does not instantly get us going like flashing a nipple or showing a little butt cleavage can do for a man.

(That's not to say, of course, that we gals don't like a quickie now and then.)

I've been listening to Chrystal's show in the gym--which explains the smile on my face while I'm on the elliptical! I've learned a lot of great stuff, like you should always right a thank-you note after you've taken part in a threesome. (This is great to me: I read Emily Post's etiquette handbook as a child. I was weird.)

Guys, tune in...who knows, you might just learn something!

Listen to Sex with Emily!

No, I don't mean you have to listen to Emily actually having sex, although, since she's on a "manatorium," that might not be possible anyway.

Instead, download and listen to the "Sex with Emily" podcast, episode 138, to hear me talk about my new book, What Women Really Want in Bed, and join Emily in answering some listener email. It was a blast!

Emily interviewed me about the book, how women feel about oral sex, orgasms, porn and more.

(Full disclosure: This post also appears on What Women Really Want in Bed, in a slightly different format.)

What Women Really Want in Bed - Book launch today!

The day we've been waiting for has FINALLY arrived. Today's the day that men everywhere will stop wondering "What does my woman really want in bed?" (Well, we hope today's the day, anyway). We're happy to announce the official launch of the book What Women Really Want in Bed: The Surprising Secrets Women Wish Men Knew About Sex, which I wrote with co-author and childhood friend Dana Fredsti.

You can buy your copy online now through our site. Or buy it for your man and stop hoping he will read your mind or ask for directions in bed--he won't, without this book! That's our story and we're sticking to it.

We've launched a Twitter page and hope you'll follow our many tweets from the book at http://www.twitter.com/womenwantinbed -- please follow us and say hi!

We also have a Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/What-Women-Really-Want-In-Bed-The-Surprising-Secrets-Women-Wish-Men-Knew/359139043886
Please become a fan and share us with your friends!

Thanks to everyone how participated in the survey for this book and shared their candid responses with us. We couldn't have written it without you. Thanks also for your support of the book and for passing the word along to your girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, lovers and fans!

FSH: When numbers don't matter.

Scanning the latest email newsletter from the American Fertility Association, I came across this article. In it, the author discovers--through an answering machine message left by her doctor--that at 35, she has an FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) level of 14.5. For those of you not up on your hormones, this is high. And the author is devastated.

I was right there with her, but for a different reason. Back in the day, during my infertility "journey," I got similar calls from my doctor. But in my case, the news was "good": my FSH, at 41, hovered around 5. It still took us 11 cycles of IUIs to conceive our son. A few years later, trying to conceive #2, the news was similar: Again, my FSH was around 5-6, sometimes as low as 4. The IVF doctor shook his head. "You have the biological makeup of a 35-year-old." He had never seen anything like it. And yet, it didn't make a difference. Nine IUI cycles, 3 rounds of IVF and 2 more IUI cycles (one resulting in a miscarriage) later, I still hadn't conceived. It didn't matter what my numbers were. There was to be no sibling for my son.

So what's the point? The point is that we really have no control over whether we're able to conceive or not. It's a total crap shoot. People we consider to be unfit parents pump out babies, while the dearest, most caring people we know can't conceive their own biological children. It's not fair. There's no explaining it.

Last week during my small group bible study, we were talking about the movie "V for Vendetta" and spiritual crucibles, about radical turning points that changed the course of our lives. I don't have a "road to Damascus" moment, but infertility was my crucible, and the realization that there are many, many things over which I have no control--a lesson I forget over and over again--was a turning point for me.

I live in an area where people believe without a shadow of a doubt that they can succeed if they're smart enough and they work hard enough. It's a lie. You can have "everything" going for you, including a low FSH and "beautiful" ovaries (see an earlier blog post). And you can still "fail," if the rubric is the number of children to whom you can give birth. So the only way to keep your sanity is to let go. Most of the time, I can.

Mind-Blowing Orgasms Every Day: Now available in German!

Imagine my surprise when I opened up a package from my publisher the other day and discovered a copy of the German translation of Mind-Blowing Orgasms Every Day: 365 Wild and Wicked Ways to Revitalize Your Sex Life.

Which, in German, is Höhepunkte: 365 Ideen für unschlagbar guten Sex. Of course it is.

I must say I adore the picture on the cover, but not as much as I adore the friend who asked if I had posed for it. (Answer: No, because a) even if I did wear heels that high, I would probably trip on them rather than get them caught in my thong; and b) I've never had a body like that, even at my thinnest.) But it's the thought that counts.

Eden Fantasys is giving away a Freestyle

The other day, a friend and I were joking about how there should be a vibrator app for the iPhone. Then I began to wonder: If I bought an iPhone to check out a vibrator app, could I consider it a business expense? While I work up the courage to ask my accountant, here's a close second: the Freestyle from OhMiBod. And Eden Fantasys is giving them away.

The Freestyle is a traditional vibrator that you can connect to your iPod, MP3 player, stereo or computer. Then it vibrates to the music.

What will they think of next? The mind reels.

You know you're infertile when...

From the "Finding a Resolution for Infertility" on the Resolve online support community:

You know you're infertile when...

You use and understand more acronyms than the government space program.

You know that cycling has nothing to do with a bike.

You list your IF stats like a pro baseball player.

You hate at least one person that's pregnant.

You have long since learned to check your pride at the door (stirrups anyone?).

You think of expenses in terms of IVF cycles (i.e. 3,750 Starbucks coffees = one IVF try).

You readily admit that you're a powder keg and nothing you say should be taken personally.

You'd like to throttle your parents for how easy they made it sound when you were 16 and they wanted to scare you out of having sex.

At one point or another you want to smack just about everyone you love, but then we cry over the failed fertility treatments of perfect strangers.

More than 100 rude responses jump to mind when people ask why you're not pregnant yet. And some of them make even you blush.

And here's mine:

...almost two years after you throw in the towel and decide you're "over" IF, the news of yet another birth can throw you into an unexpected tailspin.

(More on that later.)

Got a good "You know you're infertile when..."? Send it to me. Or join this Resolve board. There were many more funny, moving and heart-wrenching contributions. Many thanks to Laura143 for starting this thread...

Watch the book trailer for Secret Seductions.

The book trailer for Secret Seductions is online! Take a look.



Many thanks to Ben Hess of Bay Area Pictures for the great work!

How I became a sex writer.

On Saturday, I read a pared-down version of my essay "Following Anais, or How I Became a Sex Writer," as part of LitCrawl, which is the climax of San Francisco's LitQuake literary festival. I read in an alley. Really. With the obligatory drunk crazy person and everything. Evan Carp from the San Francisco Examiner posted an article, here.

Here's the video. We only had 7 minutes, so I'm reading pretty fast.

Thanks to Evan Karp of the San Francisco Examiner for this video!

Funny, you don't even notice the dry mouth that afflicted me halfway through. I was in a state of abject terror all day about the reading, but once I got on the BART train headed to SF, my anxiety vanished, and I had a great time. Thanks, Amanda Coggin, for inviting me!

The original essay appeared in HerStory: What I Learned in My Bathtub...and More True Stories on Life, Love, and Other Inconveniences.

And the second giveaway winner is...

...is Miah! She wins the bottle of FertilAid for Women from FairHaven Health from my August 12 giveaway. I selected her name totally randomly using--what else--a website called Random.org.

Sorry it's taken me so long to announce the winners. In addition to having to put my cat to sleep last month, work has been nuts, I've had health problems, and well, life has been a bit challenging. And my dear son, bless his heart, is going through what one friend suggested is a "transitional period." This seems to involve much defiance and screaming from a normally happy, sweet and loving child.

Transitional period: right. I call it an AFGO. Which stands for, Another Fucking Growth Opportunity. I continue to have a lot of those, especially this summer.

Watch this blog for the third and final FairHaven Health winner from the September 3 giveaway for a package of FertiliTea.

I'm in the October issue of Cosmo.

...And it's one issue of Cosmo you can share with your man, because it has Megan Fox on the cover, and from what I understand, guys think she's hot or something. In the article, she claims to be really insecure. Yeah, whatever.

But Megan's not important right now. (Really.) See that headline on the cover that says "Bad Girl Sex"? Yeah, that's the article I was interviewed for. It starts on page 126--"Get Naughty Tonight!" is the name of the actual article--and I'm quoted a couple of times, talking about why bondage and role playing are so exciting.

Oh, and you'll note that the article mentions my forthcoming book, What Women Really Want in Bed, which I wrote with my dear friend Dana Fredsti. I found out the other day that it's not coming out until April 2010. Which is a huge bummer, but not that far off. Gulp.

If I had one request for Cosmo, it's that they make their articles available online to subscribers. It's an idea whose time has come, don't you think?

Great post on living with infertility.

Jump over to SexIs for a great article on living with infertility. I wish there was a way to respond to the author to tell her how much I related to what she describes. Maybe I'll post to the forum.

I'll be on Sex Drive Radio tonight.

I'll be a call-in guest on Dr. Ava Cadell's Internet radio show, Sex Drive Radio, tonight at 7:10pm PST. Dr. Cadell is a renowned clinical sexologist. I'll be talking about boundaries in relationships (I think). I'll only be on for about 5 minutes, so don't be late!





Update: I was on for all of 1 minute...three other authors called in before me, so by the time I got on, even though I followed the producer's instructions, Dr. Cadell was ready to talk to someone with real issues. Little did she know that I could oblige her there...

Final giveaway: FertiliTea. And the first winner.

Here's my final Fairhaven Health giveaway: FertiliTea, an herbal tea "designed to support the entire reproductive system and help increase your chances of conceiving." It contains chasteberry (vitex), red raspberry leaf, green tea, ladies mantle, nettle leaf and peppermint leaf. Just leave a comment on this blog. I'll select a winner at random, and announce him or her at the end of the month.

Sounds so good I'm tempted to try it myself, even though I'm no longer TTC. Although in a cruel irony, my boobs hurt so much right before my period that I actual went and bought an EPT. I was filled with dread; my husband, not so much. But as soon as I took the test (literally as I was waiting for the result), my period started. It was like my body was saying, "Ha! Got you again!" Anyway. Back to FertiliTea.

Again, my standard disclaimer: I'm in no way endorsing or suggesting you use this product; the kind folks at Fairhaven sent me a free sample and asked that I give it away to one lucky reader. Consult with your doctor before taking this or any other supplement.

DVD Winner!
Back at the end of July, I offered up a copy of the Bend, Breath, and Conceive Fertility DVD. I'm happy to report that the winner of my random drawing is The Single Hussy! So if you're reading this, Single, send me your email and snail-mail addresses by going to my website, www.cwgentry.com, and sending me a note through the Contact form.