America Unzipped: In Search of Sex and Satisfaction

Welcome to the America we don't usually talk about, a place where that nice couple down the street could be saddling up for "pony play," making and selling their own porn DVDs, or hosting other couples for a little flogging. As award-winning journalist Brian Alexander uncovers, fringe experimentation has gone suburban. Soccer moms, your accountant, even your own parents could be turning kinky.

Stunned by the uninhibited questions from ordinary people on his MSNBC.com column, "Sexploration" ("My wife and I have heard that a lot of couples in their thirties are playing strip poker...as well as skinny-dipping with other couples/friends. Any idea if this is a fashionable trend or has it been going on for some time and we never knew it?" or "I am interested in bondage and hear that there are secret bondage clubs someplace. Can you help me find them?"), Brian Alexander was driven to understand Americans' desire to get down and dirty — especially in an era where conservative family values dominate.

To find out what people are really doing — and why a country that suffered a national freak-out over Janet Jackson's breast was enthusiastically getting in touch with its inner perv — Alexander set out on a sexual safari in modern America. Whether mixing it up at a convention of fetishists, struggling into his own pair of PVC pants for a wild night at a sex club, being tutored on dildos by a nineteen-year-old supervisor while working in an adult store, or learning the surprising ways of Biblical sex from an evangelical preacher, Alexander uses humor and insight to reveal a sexual world that is quickly redefining the phrase "polite society."

Gonzo journalism at its funniest and kinkiest, America Unzipped is a fascinating cultural study and an eye-popping peek into the lives of people you'd least expect to find tied up and wearing latex.

"Alexander, a Glamour contributing editor and author of MSNBC's 'Sexploration' column, seeks to pin down American sexuality by investigating the tension between America's 'hypersexual culture' and the persistent, sexually conservative traditions which oppose it. Arguing that Americans of all kinds are embracing sexual exploration, Alexander wonders 'why there is so much sexual experimentation now and if anybody is finding any happiness doing it.' To find out, he sets off on a cross-country trek to interview average (and otherwise) Americans about their love lives. The journey's highlights include a talk with Phil Harvey, founder of his own 'porn and sex product empire'; preacher Joe Beam's sex class for married Christian couples; Alexander selling sex toys at a 'romance superstore' in Arizona; Passion Party women in the Midwest; and a fetish convention in Florida. Most of Alexander's subjects have a rather permissive view of sexuality, so the book feels slightly weighted against social conservatives (though, according to his research, Alexander's focus mirrors the trend). Still, for anyone curious about the state of sexuality in America, this smart, intriguing tour will scratch your (intellectual) itch." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"In a culture in which the pornographic has become predictable, it seems downright cheeky to write and publish a sex book — not because it's difficult, but because, to cop an exhausted term, eros has jumped the shark. Is there really anything new to say about sex? Lisa M. Diamond and Brian Alexander think there is.

The title of the first chapter in Diamond's 'Sexual Fluidity' --... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) 'Will the Real Lesbians Please Stand Up?' — is likely to intrigue even the most jaded sexpert. In the kick-off to her study of the malleability of female erotic longing, Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, writes:

'In 1997, the actress Anne Heche began a widely publicized romantic relationship with the openly lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres after having had no prior same-sex attractions. ... The relationship with DeGeneres ended after two years, and Heche went on to marry a man. The actress Cynthia Nixon of the HBO series 'Sex and the City' developed a serious relationship with a woman in 2004 after ending a fifteen-year relationship with a man. Julie Cypher left a heterosexual marriage for the musician Melissa Etheridge in 1988. After twelve years together, the pair separated and Cypher — like Heche — has returned to heterosexual relationships. In other cases, longtime lesbians have unexpectedly initiated relationships with men, sometimes after decades of exclusively same-sex ties. ... What's going on? Are these women confused? Were they just going through a phase before, or are they in one now?'

Setting out to prove the theory that, for some women, love is truly blind where gender is concerned, Diamond presents her evidence in a fascinating, anecdotal fashion — by tracking over the span of a decade the relationships of nearly 100 women who at one point or another had experienced 'same-sex attractions.' The women move from men to women and back again (or vice-versa), their sexual identity as changeable as their desires. Additionally, she delves into the brain science behind lust, love and infatuation, revealing that what draws women toward a particular partner is as much a function of biology as it is anything else. To her credit, Diamond avoids scripting her arguments in obtuse academese. With her compassionate, understated approach, she has stepped up the business of gender research.

Far more splashy is Brian Alexander's 'America Unzipped,' which covers the same even-kinky-sex-is-as-wholesome-as-apple-pie territory as HBO's long-running docu-series 'Real Sex,' with an emphasis on the challenges of self-discovery. The book feels at once forward-thinking and oddly dated, in a 1990s 'sex positive' kind of way. Ostensibly, we're to be comforted by the notion that nothing's shocking anymore, and that behind the Pottery Barn curtains of middle-class America, people are gettin' it on, bow-chicka-bow-wow. There are all-female sex toy parties being hosted by housewives in suburban Kansas, Connecticut prepsters running porn empires and fetishists flocking to conventions at the Tampa Hyatt. Throughout his travels in sexual America, Alexander, who is MSNBC's 'Sexploration' columnist, points out, with something akin to delight, that a fair number of kinksters are avowed conservatives — politically, anyway. According to him, the Internet is the great sexual democratizer (and educator) of our age.

A likable, open-minded guide through the sexual underworld, Alexander salts his observations with casual wit (though most of his better asides aren't fit to print in a family newspaper). Toward the end, he finds the limits of his own tolerance when he comes upon the sight of a male submissive at a BDSM (bondage domination sado-masochism) club in Seattle: 'He is lying there in her arms curled like an infant against a mother's breast and all I can think of is wanting to slap him so hard he'll know what real pain is. ... This is the end of my journey and I get this guy, a white-haired, bearded, sixty-something 'computer guy' nuzzling into her lap as if he's trying to return to the womb? This is what we've all been looking for? Mommy?' A moment later, Alexander regains his perspective — and his composure. 'Maybe it's just my pants,' he writes. 'They are punishingly tight.' Often the most revealing — and entertaining — things in 'America Unzipped' are the thoughts of the author.

Despite the barrage of girls going wild, prostitution scandals and paparazzi crotch shots, it appears we're still stumbling, no more knowledgeable about sex than we were when modesty carried the day, a fact that lies at the heart of these two books. Even in a permissive environment, we're seized with self-consciousness and looking for reassurance. A sex-toy party hostess in the heartland says it best: 'It's OK. Everyone else is doing it.'

Lily Burana is the author of 'Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America' and the forthcoming memoir, 'I Love a Man in Uniform.'"

Reviewed by Lily Burana, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)

"A clearheaded and open-minded look at the sexual revolution's final stage." Kirkus Reviews

"[Alexander's] voice is sensible, humorous and largely unbiased, even when he is aghast." Bookgasm.com

"Navigating each episode with both humor and reflection, Alexander sees exhilarating liberation but also a kind of 'kitschy banality': Where's the excitement when our thrills are no longer taboo?" Psychology Today

"Scintillating....The author's thoughtful observations on the need for contact at all costs in an increasingly virtual society ring true." The Washington Post

"Engaging....The point Alexander...drive[s] home is that sexual repression and explosions of sexual 'deviance' need each other to exist, and tend to flourish in society simultaneously." San Diego Union-Tribune

"Part Andy Rooney, part Kerouac, part de Tocqueville, Alexander has traveled America from end to end, reporting on what our sexuality is really like: the lust, the embarrassment, the fear of God, the unending question of what's 'normal.' If you want to know what's really going on these days, read America Unzipped." Marty Klein, Ph.D., sex therapist and author of America's War on Sex

"Eye-openingly smart....Picking up where Sallie Tisdale's Talk Dirty to Me left off in the '90s, Brian Alexander's America Unzipped appreciatively unpacks our culture's last remaining sexual taboos. (Apparently, we've still got a few!)" Genevieve Field, cofounder of Nerve.com

"Alexander has written a book that reflects our next sexual revolution and goes behind the scenes to put a human face on this most recent development in our journey toward sexual enlightenment." Barbara Keesling, Ph.D., author of The Good Girls' Guide to Bad Girl Sex and Sexual Healing

"Entertaining, funny, shocking, smart, provocative, and extremely thoughtful....Alexander gains entry into some of the most bizarre worlds — think Alice in Wonderland meets Dante's Inferno — and takes us along for the ride." Candida Royalle, erotic film director and author of How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do

Gonzo journalism at its kinkiest, America Unzipped is a provocative look at how mainstream Americans have embraced sexual exploration in an age of conservatism.

Welcome to the America we dont usually talk about, a place where that nice couple down the street could be saddling up for “pony play,” making and selling their own porn DVDs, or hosting other couples for a little flogging. As award-winning journalist Brian Alexander uncovers, fringe experimentation has gone suburban. Soccer moms, your accountant, even your own parents could be turning kinky.

Stunned by the uninhibited questions from ordinary people on his msnbc.com column, “Sexploration” (“My wife and I have heard that a lot of couples in their thirties are playing strip poker . . . as well as skinny-dipping with other couples/friends. Any idea if this is a fashionable trend or has it been going on for some time and we never knew it?” or “I am interested in bondage and hear that there are secret bondage clubs someplace. Can you help me find them?”), Brian Alexander was driven to understand Americans desire to get down and dirtyespecially in an era where conservative family values dominate.

To find out what people are really doingand why a country that suffered a national freak- out over Janet Jacksons breast was enthusiastically getting in touch with its inner pervAlexander set out on a sexual safari in modern America. Whether mixing it up at a convention of fetishists, struggling into his own pair of PVC pants for a wild night at a sex club, being tutored on dildos by a nineteen-year-old supervisor while working in an adult store, or learning the surprising ways of Biblical sex from an evangelical preacher, Alexander uses humor and insight to reveal a sexual world that is quickly redefining the phrase “polite society.”

Gonzo journalism at its funniest and kinkiest, America Unzipped is a fascinating cultural study and an eye-popping peek into the lives of people youd least expect to find tied up and wearing latex.

One Dozen Things to Avoid When Exploring American Sex

1. Asking an enthusiastic devotee to explain cock-and-ball torture while standing within arms length.

2. Assuming an evangelical Christian will not be familiar with the term “69.”

3. Incredibly tight PVC pants.

4. Trying to become the first male sex toy home party salesman in Missouri.

5. Standing too close to bondage models without wearing overalls and safety goggles.

6. Insisting that Dan Quayle would never invest in porn.

7. Displaying a look of surprise when a grandmother discusses the risk of removing a dildo from a microwave oven.

8. Admitting your sex vocabulary is smaller than an eighth graders.

9. Explaining the difference between “cream pie” and “gonzo” to a suburban mom shopping for her sons birthday sex DVDs.

10. Trying to interview a naked submissive locked on a cage.

11. Expecting answers about sex from a six-foot-tall pink rabbit.

12. Thinking that porn kings could not possibly have Ivy League degrees and run charitable foundations.

Brian Alexander is an award-winning contributing editor at Glamour magazine and writes the Sexploration column for MSNBC.com. His six-part online series, "America Unzipped," received more than one million viewers per month. He lives in San Diego, California.