“Tickle Your Fancy” is a book that is supposed to be A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Self-Pleasure. The book is written by Dr. Sadie Allison and published by Tickle Kitty. It has won the Independent Publisher Award as well. It’s a softcover book with black and white pages on the inside. The book has 89 pages which are divided into 13 chapters. (Which means that the chapters are pretty short at about 5 or 6 pages each.) The book is a smaller book at about seven inches tall and four inches wide – and since it has so few pages, it ends up being pretty thin too. The front cover shows a woman’s neck stretched sexually while the back shows a picture of Sadie herself as well as features of the book. I wouldn’t recommend reading this in public because of the illustrations on the inside of the book. However, it only took me about 30 minutes to read through, so it isn’t a long book.
The basic premise of “Tickle Your Fancy” is to teach a female how to masturbate. I wouldn’t say that this would be useful to those who have masturbating for awhile, but if you are having problems orgasming or don’t see the point in masturbating, or are just curious, there’s things in here that the book could teach you. It is definitely intended for those who have never masturbated or enjoyed masturbation before. The short time it takes you to read it does help you stay interested then jump right into enjoying masturbation for yourself.
The book does include quite a few illustrations. This isn’t going to be those pictures that is all text and no pictures – almost every page includes some sort of illustration. Whether it’s just a picture of a woman enjoying herself, an example of a masturbation technique or position, or a picture of a sex toy you could use, almost every page does have some sort of illustration to offer you. The women drawn are usually pretty slender and of model-like proportions, but it shows the idea. Again, though, because of these drawings, I probably wouldn’t take this one out to read in public.
The book does a good job of providing an overview of all the things you should know for masturbation. It doesn’t include a lot of any one specific thing which does help keep your interest, so you don’t get bored of any certain topic. The writing is well-written and written in a way that should seem friendly without being rude or too beginner-friendly. However, because it does include only the basics, you may find yourself wanting to know a lot more about a specific subject but it won’t be included – you may have to check out other books after reading this one. However, at least, when you read this one, you’ll know in what areas your interests lie.
An interesting addition to “Tickle Your Fancy” is the “Playtime” sections. Basically, after it introduces something (like vibrators) the chapter after is a sensual description of how you could use the object described. It talks about dimming the lights, doing other sensual things, and teasing yourself before using it. It’s very softcore and makes the act seem very romantic instead of “gross” or “dirty”. If you’ve always thought masturbation was wrong, I could easily see how these Playtime sections would help someone feel a lot more comfortable participating in what is described. Aside from the Playtime sections, the book just reads like a regular book.
The book is split into those 13 chapters though. I can’t say that any of the chapters are amazingly long nor detailed – but they do get the basic point across and give you information about the basic things you need to know. The book gives a good introduction and talks about why masturbation is healthy then dives right into discussing the female anatomy. It also covers what an orgasm feels like, why it’s good for you, and the different types of orgasm.
Now we get to learn about being actually pleasured. It starts off by giving us tips on how to be ready for masturbation such as finding a quiet place, playing music, and dressing up. From there, we learn that movies and books are good places to find some sexy scenes to turn us on. Once we’re turned on, it talks about the different types of lubricant and why you should use water-based. (However, there is no mention of silicone-based lubricant. It mentions N-9 which makes me think this book is a bit old too. (Apparently the copyright is 2001, so yeah, a bit.)
We then learn about how to actually give the pleasure. There are three pages of “techniques” to use on the clitoris to provide pleasure then it goes into a Playtime story about doing it. Each technique does show a diagram to make it easier though. The next sections repeat the same thing but instead with information about dildos, vibrators, anal, and g-spot play. It does show you the specific types of sex toys that are out there for pleasure too, so you know what basics you have to choose from.
We then get a neat little chapter about how to use water for your pleasure as well as other objects including a washing machine, couch, pillows, and other things. It’s just a basic overview. After that is the chapter on how to have safe sex and keep everything clean.
Overall, Tickle Your Fancy is an interesting book but I found it to not be as amazing as I’ve found the rest of Sadie Allison’s series to be (Toygasms, Ride ’em Cowgirl). It does provide the basics, and it makes you feel more comfortable about masturbation, and with practice, this book does provide everything you’d need to know to orgasm – but mostly for those who have never tried. If you are having difficult getting an orgasm, this probably won’t help you too much. If you’ve always been curious about masturbation or want to try it, I would recommend picking this up because it is an easy, fast read that provides all the basics and encouragement you need to try it.
