Review: Together Sex (The Playful Couple's key to Enjoying Swinging) -Ed & Dana Allen

[JustAskJulie]

This book was originally written in 1976 and revised in 2001. According to the introduction the book is about swinging as it relates to group sex (sex parties). Personally, I wish they'd spent more of the book on just that, and less on a lot of other things.

Too much of the book was, in my opinion, useless or outdated. Too often it seemed that the authors tried to sound over-educated and parts of the book came off too scientific and, in turn, too negative.

While the book was revised in 2001, I'm not sure how much revision was actually done. The authors still focus their discussion on ad writing to doing so for contact magazines and pretty much state that they find little to no use with the online swinger sites (even though at that point they've already set up their own to promote the book).

I would suggest completely skipping over the first 4 chapters and starting at Chapter 5, where the book finally gets into a bit of discussion on actually partying. From Chapter 5 on each chapter has some good points and some not so good.

Chapter 7 discusses "Physical Matters" (from attraction to performance). The way the chapter started I thought they were going to say that beauty is relative and that beauty is about being who you are. But, they took a strong turn away from that to say that beauty is about being the best you that you can be, whatever it takes... even if that means plastic surgery - then you should do it. Once I got past that little "WTF?" moment, the rest of the chapter was actually pretty good, including their discussion on performance issues and how to deal with them.

Chapter 8 "A Swinging Attitude" was also a good one and had a very good discussion of "tolerance" (aka the idea of being open-minded) something that has come up on this board many times.

Chapter 9 "Handling Emotions" did a great job of covering the various emotions you may encounter as you swing, but really did very little in the way of discussing how to actually handle those emotions.

The best chapters in the book were the last 3 chapters which were the most focused on actually sex parties and primarily gave instruction for how to throw a house party. Everything from what you need to have on hand, to how to properly invite your guests, to ideas for theme parties and contests (if you feel the need to go that route).

Overall, I'd say this is not the book for those who are new to swinging and seeking to understand (or help their partner understand) swinging. I would most reccomend this book to experienced swingers who would like a good guide to "how to throw a house party".

[vesman]

We love your reviews on your books so far,we were just wondering what would be the best book about swinging or the lifestyle in your opinion,we are fairly new to swinging and would like to get a lot more info on it we have bought a book called open and my wife is currently reading that,what are some of your favorites.

[JustAskJulie]

Originally Posted by vesman

We love your reviews on your books so far,we were just wondering what would be the best book about swinging or the lifestyle in your opinion,we are fairly new to swinging and would like to get a lot more info on it we have bought a book called open and my wife is currently reading that,what are some of your favorites.

Your question is the reason why we started the reviews here, as it comes up often. Honestly, you'll probably find more good info on this board than you will in any 3 of the books on the market. Take some time and read here and ask questions that you may have.

Of the books I've read the best one is by far Recreational Sex by Patti Thomas (there is a review posted for it here as well), but even it just skims the surface.