I’ve read the Redbook magazine for awhile now, and even when I was younger, I would love flipping through it.
Stay in Lust Forever is written by Pamela Lister who is a contributor to Redbook as well as other women’s magazines. This book for relationship help has 320 pages, but don’t be too scared. It’s not all that much reading. It’s only seven inches tall and five inches across. For a better visual, this is about the size of one of those cheap-o romance novels you can buy at the store. It’s a tiny little book, but it’s definitely thick because of all of the pages. I almost wish they would have made it taller since being so tiny and thick makes the binding a pain in the butt to keep and holding open because it’s so stiff. The book was published in 2001 by Hearst Books, so most of the issues included in here are still pretty modern.
The front of the book states “Stay In Lust Forever” in really large letters, and the back just says “Discover 10 Secrets for keeping your marriage healthy”, so honestly, I didn’t find it bad to take out in public. I refrained from taking it to work, bu I did take it to college and read it between classes. Anyone who asked about the book usually just nodded when I showed them, and I didn’t get any weird looks. I’d say that reading it from cover to cover took me about four hours, and I’m a fast reader. A lot of that time was spent being a little annoyed at the binding though.
This book was written based upon a survey that Redbook magazine did. Unlike other pop-statistic surveys, this one found that their findings were a lot different than what most magazines report and decided to write a book to let these people know that they aren’t alone as well to as to help give suggestions to help improve some of the issues that were brought up in the survey.
This is the part where I’ll say that this book is targeted at married couples with children – just like the Redbook magazine is. A lot of the suggestions talk about making sure you find a babysitter for the children, and most of the suggestions seem to assume the reader is in their thirties or fourties in a heterosexual marriage. A lot of the tips can be applied otherwise – even outside that target audience, but it’s something to consider when reading the book. It all will talk about the wife and husband of a heterosexual couple. No mention to homosexuality or couples without children is given.
Something to also consider is that this book is being written to a female. This means that all of the suggestions will be things that the female can do to improve their relationship with the male. Many will include talking to your partner and making suggestions, but a lot will just suggest doing something yourself.
One neat little feature is that, throughout the book, the results of the survey are included. It analyzes the results in the text and even gives quotations from the survey itself to help prove their point. A lot of the survey statistics and quotations are included to let the reader know that they aren’t the only ones out there who are having the same problem. The statistics are a nice little change-up from the regular text. Another neat feature is how the pages have color on them – they aren’t just black and white. That helps make the read a little more enjoyable.
The writing wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t call it amazing, but it didn’t bore me to death. The biggest problem I found with the writing is that the author tended to continue re-clarifying points that she’d already clarified. It got a little bit old after awhile, but it wasn’t too horribly bad. The points she made were good ones, and she even took the time to include suggestions about how to fix the problems that the couple was having.
This book is centered about ten different aspects of your sex-life that you can improve in. It’s not the “Oral sex”, “Manual sex” type of aspects. It’s actually Enthusiasm, Variety, Adventure, Generosity, Authenticity, Attention, Courage, Confidence, Attraction, and Delight. Each chapter talks about how those different aspects of your relationship will affect your sex life as well as gives suggestions about how to improve it.
The Enthusiasm chapter is all about how showing enthusiasm can improve your sex life. There are suggestions in there, and their survey showed that most men just want their women to take initiative and seem like they are enjoying it more. It also talks about making sex a priority as well as making it spontaneous. The next chapter, Variety, talks about adding some variety to your sex life. It talks about how boring the same progression of sex or the same positions can get. It also talks about how to change up the location as well as make your sex life a bit rougher. After that, Adventure comes into play. It talks about being voyeur and exhibitionist as well as roleplaying in your sex life. It talks about how important communication is to adventuring then talks a bit about having a threesome.
Chapter four is about generosity. This book for relationship help talks about the different scenarios: She wants to give, he doesn’t want to get and et cetera. It talks about suggestions for how to fix it. The fifth relationship tip is authenticity. It talks about being honest about your sexual desires as well as doing small day-to-day romantic things to help your spouse know that you love them. The sixth relationship secret is Attention. This entire chapter is about learning how to balance your attention between the children and your husband including tips on how to do it and information about how this inequality is harming your sex life. The seventh chapter is all about courage, and it includes ways to be courageous about what you dislike in your husband. It also talks about having the courage to sit down with your partner and talk to them about the problems that your relationship is facing before they get worse. The eighth chapter is all about confidence and talks about the importance of both the male and female having confidence in the bedroom. It talks about how you both should be comfortable with yourselves and learn to support one another so there isn’t a lack of confidence.
The ninth chapter is Attraction. It first talks about how to be comfortable in your own skin since many women have been conditioned to always want to feel skinnier. It also talks about how great it would be to bring lingerie into the bedroom. It gets a little bad from there. After that, it delves into “what happens when it’s too much weight” where we get quotes from husbands saying their wives are downright ugly after gaining forty pounds and they aren’t attracted to them at all anymore. The second-half of the chapter, which included eating right and exercising because spouses secretly find you ugly, was downright depressing. It talked about how, if you gain over a “little bit” of weight after the marriage, it’s unfair to your partner. Totally unfond of this chapter.
The tenth, and final tip, is Absolute Delight. It talks about giving you and your partner the time to get to know each other and spend good time with each other. It talks about the importance of taking a vacation together to renew your love for each other and focus only on one another. After this, it includes the survey results in their entirety at the end of the chapter. The survey results take about thirty pages out of the book to complete, but the author presented them in an attractive manner.
Overall, the book was a positive experience. I think it would have helped more if I was a middle-aged married parent who felt my sex life was worsening, but it still included some good tips to help me as I got older. It took awhile to read, but it all was helpful tips to help improve my relationship. I’d recommend this for those that fit the target audience as well as those that want to improve their sex life in their relationship or marriage.
