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In Review

04 December 2008 02:42 BST

The Sex Doctor: Fix Your Love Life Fast by Tracey Cox

Published by Corgi Books, out January 15th, paperback, 306pp, £7.99.

In a nutshell…

Sex. Candid. No punches pulled.

What's it all about?

Surprisingly, it's about sex. But more specifically it's about modern, 21st century sex without the hang-ups, or at least that is the author's objective. Although such books are ten-a-penny these days, Cox is better qualified than most to tell us what is right and wrong with our sex lives, having spent the best part of her journalistic career doing exactly that.

The former star of Channel 4's The Sex Inspectors attempts to cover pretty much everything in this, her latest in a long line of sex-help books. From life as a sex-starved singleton to deciding whether a loving relationship without the lust is worth hanging around for, Cox has something to say about it all. She even takes her guidance down the same-sex route, dishing out advice to those new on the lesbian and gay scene. The subsection entitled Fisting for First-timers succinctly sums up her aim here.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly for an author so deeply entrenched in the populist, the feel of the book is very much of the easy-read, aesthetically-pleasing variety. Top tens proliferate, as do sections split up into For Him and For Her segments. Variously amusing and informing factoids are also generously littered across the pages, from the intriguing – "women with red hair have more sex, according to a study of hundreds of German women"- to the rather worrying – "one in 25 British men have no idea that they aren't the fathers of the children who call them Daddy".

Who's it by?

British-born, Australian-bred Tracey Cox can claim she has done everything any self-respecting sex doctor hopes to do. She's a bestselling author having already shifted lorry-loads of her previous titles, including Hot Relationships and Supersex. Indeed her debut book, Hot Sex: How to do it, has been sold in more than 140 countries and is available in over 20 languages.

She is also a star on the small screen, having fronted the controversial The Sex Inspectors series on Channel 4, when she, Jay Hunt and Jeremy Milnes left very few stones unturned in dissecting couples' sex lives on national TV. She also presented the dating show Would Like to Meet and ITV's Under One Roof.

And no sex guru's CV would be complete without the ubiquitous agony aunt columns and Cox has those in abundance, with regular work in Closer and Glamour magazines and expert appearances on Richard and Judy and BBC Radio 1 to name but a few.

As an example…

"Experts now believe the only way to keep passion alive is to have the courage to let your partner see the real sexual you – the naughty one."

"Are our lovers finally getting to ride in the front seat of a spanking new Porsche, only to find out that the plush leather seats are actually vinyl, there's no CD player and the car putters along at 30mph?"

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

Please God, no.

What the others say

"Her advice is brutally honest and all the more effective because of it. She warns about living in the past and letting previous experiences damage your present and future relationships." – Daily Mail

"Cox is fantastically unshockable...She has the practical, unsqueamish air of a doctor without the white coat." – Observer.

So is it any good?

Make no mistake, this is no Kama Sutra or Desmond Morris-esque anthropoligical investigation. But it is not entirely frivilous either. Delve beneath the glossy exterior that Cox seeks to propogate in order to ensure her work is as widely-read as possible and there is some informative stuff. Of course there is much about the various sexual spots and which letters of the alphabet to refer to them by, but much of the practical how-to guidance is to be found in Cox's previous outing, Hot Sex.

In The Sex Doctor the theme seems to be more about the emotions behind the bedroom business – how to keep things exciting and avoid the perils of that old chesnut, the extramarital affair. Cox also seeks to dispel a number of sexual myths, from the much-held view that men just want it more than women (don't they?) to the idea that a diminishing level of desire is the natural scheme of things in a long-term partnership (isn't it?).

Whether her tips on how to 'fix your love live fast' actually work remains to seen, but if nothing else there is always the guilty pleasure from reading the end-of-book problem-page type section, where Cox does what she does best – dish out the advice. She tells one concerned male owner that "erections are fickle" and not to seek James Bond hero status, while another adventurous woman was warned to watch out for "pesticides" when raiding the kitchen fridge to spice up her sex life.

This is very much, if you'll excuse the non-intentional pun, a dip-in, dip-out kind of book and there is little doubt that Ms Cox is on to another winner with The Sex Doctor. Countless couples will surely make this their bedtime reading this year but as to whether it helps them 'fix' their presumably broken sex lives, one imagines we'll have to wait until the TV follow-up series that will surely follow.

6/10

Martin Ashplant

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