** 7/30 update: Amazon investigated "Jim" and removed his review!
Aargh, I am so incredibly blocked right now. I have piles of work to do, pressing deadlines, friends who think I hate them because I’m not returning phone calls, and I find myself balancing my checkbook when I should be writing chapters. Unlike other people, who seem to have way too much time on their hands. Procrastinating, I surfed Amazon.com to see what people are writing about my books, and found something that probably won’t be up for very long. It’s a very nice review from someone who claims their grandfather learned how to fist them by reading The Ultimate Guide to Fellatio. Wow, I am touching people in way’s I’d certainly never imagined. Amazon yanks this stuff off their site pretty fast, so here it is:
fist-o-rific, July 14, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from oklahomo back before the war (i don’t recall which one)i would go to my grandfather’s farm every weekend. he would take me on hay-rides and we would eat watermelon and spit the seeds into the garden for the birds. i remember the first time he fisted me. we were in a field of sunny golden wheat with a cool breeze blowing. he fisted me under the lone oak tree that stood in the center of the field. it wasn’t until later that i learned from my grandma that grandpa learned his technique from this book. even though grandpa past on may years ago i still remember those summers.
Ahh, life’s tender pasttimes. I read it out loud to my friend Thomas Roche on the phone (he’s also trying to write right now) and we both laughed so hard we had to stop and breathe. It’s a pretty awesome review. But I’m glad my Fellatio book is having an impact on the sanity-challenged. On the whole, my reviews are positive, which is happy-making. But there is this one huge review on The Ultimate Guide to Cunnilingus by some dude who clearly is a master on all aspects of sexuality, yet faces serious challenges when it comes to spelling, grammar and the shift key. "Jim" from Chicago tells us all about his "ladyfriend" (that’s how my mom’s hippie friends used to refer to their "old ladies" on the 1970s) and what she taught him, disses my book, and then says how these three other products can make you a master of pussy, too.
What gets me isn’t that Jim dissed my book, because it doesn’t seem like he read it. Jim evidently can use a keyboard, so it’s possible he can read, too. My book covers all the topics he claims it lacks, and c’mon, you guys all know my writing, it’s light years away from the two books he compared me to, Cattrall’s Satisfaction (awful) and Paget’s How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure (pretty good). No, what bothers me is that Jim takes up valuable space that could be used by smart people with constructive comments and criticisms with his preposterous claims about female sexuality, promises about how to get ahead in business using your sexual power, and how to have a sexually spiritual relationship with god! Is this Stan’s uncle Jimbo from South Park? Or Jimbo from The Simpsons? What’s more, Jimbo’s whole pitch is annoyingly hetero-centric. Does he mention any of the groundbreaking lesbian sex manuals? Nope. Only the top three selling books on female sex techniques.
So I checked out Jim’s recommendations. I found out on Amazon that the video, Goddess Worship stars the person who wrote Jim’s second recommendation, a fellow named "Arte." My spider senses started tingling, so I tracked down Jim’s second recommendation on Amazon, an audio sex instruction CD by Arte — "from the founder of the New Sex Institute." I thought, wow, what a dynamic fellow this Arte is, and why haven’t I heard of this institute? So I Googled the institute (in quotes to get the exact words), and lo, it was risen. And then it went flaccid. I found the full money-making enterprise, a site that reads like an "as seen on TV" version of sex ed — nauseating, and rife with impossible promises about sex. To my great, great surprise, everything Jim recommended was for sale here. Wow! How cool! Except that the whole site is copyright the author of Jim’s third and final recommendation — Clint Arthur.
Will Amazon ever contend with the clearly unethical practices of people like Jim, er, I mean Clint Arthur? Too bad he’s not a local, if you know what I mean. Feel free to email Mr. Clint Artie Arthur Jim and tell him what you think of how he conducts his business — or anything at all — at Information@NewSex.org
