Doing what comes naturally

Press, 28 December 1985, Page 14

Doing what comes naturally

A Commonsense Guide to Sex. By Dr Sandra Pertot. Angus and Robertson, 1985. 196 pp. $9.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Ralf Unger) An Australian clinical psychologist claims to have wide experience in sex therapy in her practice, and to have felt the lack of a book to lend her patients—hence she has written this one. For all but the most ignorant and unsophisticated clients their need will still not have been satisfied. Doctor Pertot with her “commonsense” has a quaint, _ dated tone to her didactic approach. Women, she constantly implies, have a much lower sex drive than men and therefore must somehow mesh in with their partner’s urgent demands, a “fact” which would certainly be attacked by most modern investigators. Part of the problem, she says, is that due to a lack of masturbation and encouragement to “think sexually” during adolescence, women do not have sexual fantasies. The published books of women’s sexual fantasies and the novels based upon them by women writers indicate she is somewhat off -track. Masturbation, which frequently comes

up, she needs to reassure the reader is acceptable and the feelings of guilt associated with it should be put aside, which seems to be more of a problem in Dr Pertot’s mind than it is for many younger members of the community Regarding some of the difficulties of both males and females, her approach is mainly to laugh about them, accept them, and they will pass; that for instance “rapid” ejaculation in the male—a term she prefers to “premature”—is a biological essential so that the male could finish intercourse before a huge mammoth came charging towards the entwined couple and that most men with this problem are fooled by the lengthy accounts of love-making in torrid novels. The “Beautrais manoeuvre” that she advocates as a help for this has not been widely acclaimed as there are difficulties in pulling down testicles just before the climax of the sexual act The questionnaires to be answered before visiting the doctor about sexual problems might be useful to the shy and nonverbal, but all in all this book is not even a flickering candle to light toe path to sexual happiness.