Nina Hartley’s Advanced Guide to Anal Sex for Men and Women provided for us by http://www.tabutoys.com/

Joseph

Nina Hartley’s Advanced Guide to Anal Sex for Men and Women had some valuable information and some hot anal sex. It also had some obnoxious imperfections.

It opens with Nina Hartley and Kylie Ireland sitting behind a table loaded with various sex toys and discussing safe and pleasurable techniques for anal sex. They candidly discuss everything from how to feel better about anal hygiene to how to properly clean sex toys once they have been in your ass.

After the lead in discussion, the film transitioned to the demonstration section. Nina Hartley does a scene with Christian that I thought was very hot. They talk to one another, they take turns playing with one another’s ass, and they made each other cum. Nina Hartley has a very real and very loud orgasm with Christian is fucking her ass and she is using a vibrator on her clit. She screams, she convulses, and she laughs. It is everything an orgasm should be and it is exquisite.

Hartley continues the education through most of this scene, stopping to briefly discuss technique and safety. It can be somewhat tedious at times, but it is nice that she is trying to stay true to the educational aspect of the program.

We then move on to a scene with Adrianna Nicole and Evan Stone that is really just a sex scene. There is no instruction and there is no anal play with Evan Stone. It seems somewhat as though Nina Hartley wanted to make an educational video but Adam & Eve Pictures told her that to do so, she must include a regular porn scene. It felt out of place. There was anal sex in it, but it was the same kind of anal sex you can see in almost any porn.

The obnoxious imperfections that I mentioned earlier are a couple of little things and one big thing. The little things are noises in the background and a boom mic being visible briefly. I know, I know…that’s nit picky cause this is porn, right? Well, I think that I a lot of the problem with the porn industry. Noises in the background would not get by on even lowest quality network television show. Just because you are cramming a pink rod up someone’s ass doesn’t mean it is ok accept mediocrity.

Standards, people, standards.

The big thing is that even though this is called Nina Hartley’s Advanced Guide to Anal Sex for Men and Women, there is no male on male anal sex in the film. That’s almost a deal breaker for me. For a guide to anal sex for MEN, there should be some homosexual male interaction. It seems like it should be obvious.

Despite that, it is definitely worth a view or two.

Mimi

“There will be unsuccessful attempts along the way. You need to show compassion for yourself and your partner to get through them.” – Nina Hartley

Nina Hartley’s Advanced Guide to Anal Sex for Men and Women offers a lot of practical advice very quickly, such as what to look for in a sex toy and possibilities for use of a sex toy in addition to anal sex, and if an award was given to the best sex positive cheerleader, it would totally be Nina Hartley. I’ve never been so cheerfully encouraged to stick my tongue in someone’s ass before. She brings a lot of humanity to porn that I think is too often lacking. For example, at one point in the introduction scene with her and Kylie Ireland, friend and “co-host”, Nina Hartley mentions that warming up for anal sex is a process and that when people jump right into it in pornographic films, we’re not seeing all the previous activities leading up to that point. The film and the fantasy are separate from real life scenarios.

Casual, playful humor carries on through to Nina Hartley’s “demonstration” with Christian, which was, by the way, really hot. Some of the commentary Nina Hartley made during the scene was a little tedious (I can SEE what you’re doing there, you know), but overall, I found her comments, giggling, and smiling to be really charming. The environment was sexy, Nina Hartley was sexy, Christian was sexy, and they even managed to make the Hitachi Magic Wand look kind of sexy.

Most importantly (to me), the scene appeared to be very equal in regards to the performer’s individual pleasure, and knowing how much these beautiful people were into it made the scene especially arousing.  As Nina Hartley points out later to Kylie Ireland, it’s admirable for a man to communicate his desires in regard to receiving anal play because of all the homophobic pressures placed upon our men. There was quite a lot of discussion – visually supplemented by exposed breasts and lingerie – about confronting the taboos of anal sex.

My only complaints about the film are basically the same as those that Joseph already made, so I won’t repeat them in my own review. However, I will mention that the last scene between Adrianna Nicole and Evan Stone could be improved if their dialogue was more clearly audible since dirty talk was obviously a big component of the scene and might have made it special, but mostly I found their interaction annoyingly familiar and thus forgettable.

Also, no condoms? Anywhere? I realize that this is a debated issue in porn and often remains up to personal preference, but in an educational film about sex, especially anal sex, it seems really remiss to leave it out of discussion and out of “instructional” scenes.

As an aside, I have looked at some old photographs of Nina Hartley and in my opinion she now looks better than ever.

We are quick learners.

The Naked Truth:

Aesthetics:

Level of Arousal:

Educational Value:

Storyline: N/A

Overall:

Tristan Taormino’s “Opening Up” Provided by us by our favorite: Babeland

Mimi

“Opening Up” is not just about fucking multiple people. This book is about re-thinking what history and culture has brought us, then make a decision for yourself. Are you monogamous because you consciously choose to be or because everyone in your family is monogamous? Would you be happier if you could pursue your interest in the same sex? Can you be the submissive that your primary partner wants? Do you believe that the current family structure is really the best for raising children? These are the kind of questions you’ll ask yourself (and perhaps your partner) while reading this book and probably long after your done. It’s an excellent beginning to an exciting, interesting, and totally relevant subject.

Joseph

This was a fun one!

Tristan Taormino’s Expert Guide to Oral Sex: Part One, Cunnilingus

Again, provided for us by our fabulous friends at Babeland

Joseph

I have read a good many cunnilingus guides in my time. I was a rather late bloomer, keeping my virginity until the age of 23. In my insecure mind, I thought that I was going to be rather disappointing to my first partner (which actually turned out to be true, but for different reasons than I expected) so I thought that I should learn ways to compensate for my inexperience. I read countless online tutorials. I even sampled some of the books at Barnes & Noble that claimed to be able to teach “tongue magic”.

I have been told by every woman that I have been with that I am quite skilled with my mouth. I don’t think that I am talented or gifted in that regard. I think the thing that sets me apart from most is that I enjoy cunnilingus. So much so that I daydream about making Her moan with nothing but my tongue and lips.

Looking back, I do not think that any of the guides or books had anything in them that was not common sense. “Listen to your lover,” and “Ask what she likes,” and “The clitoris is extremely sensitive.”

Tristan’s guide was much the same, but with people acting out the advice.

Broken up into several sections and scenes with different people, the DVD illustrates all of the teaching points with visual aid. Yes. People performing cunnilingus. As much as it markets itself otherwise, there is still a lot of  ”porn” element to this DVD. Men on women, women on women, with and without commentary. In addition to guided instruction, the DVD offers a good feature on safer cunnilingus which I am always in favor of.

This DVD would be great for young men or women seeking to get a good overview of technique and communication practice. It would be (and was) useful for a more experienced couple as a reminder to always slow down and experiment. Aside from moments when its porn roots show through, it gets my seal of approval.

Mimi

I am very lucky to have a partner that is notably talented at performing cunnilingus, so when we chose to get “Tristan Taormino’s Expert Guide to Oral Sex: Part One Cunnilingus”, it was not a rescue mission. In a bold stretch of arrogance, we had even considered that the video wouldn’t have anything to teach. If nothing else, we hoped to be comforted by the knowledge that a good, educational video about cunnilingus existed out in the world – one that people might actually watch.

We decided to go about it like this: he would watch the video alone, then work his magic when I got home, and then we could talk about any improvements that may have been made. I noticed that he slowed down more, and that was, primarily, the change. It makes a difference. Based on my experience and the things other women have told me, a lot of people tend to forget that they need to slow down, that the build-up is very important. The video emphasized that a lot, which I think is a really great thing.

It also emphasized experimentation (various ideas for tongue and hand movement were offered), sex toy use, and a woman’s responsibility to communicate her desires. Surely body language can offer a lot of useful feedback, but sometimes you really need to say, “Could you move your finger a little more to the left?” These are not things that we needed to be taught or reminded of, necessarily, but I’m sure it would be helpful for other people given how carefully these ideas and actions are presented to the viewer.

One thing that I really liked about the video, once I got around to watching it, was a special mini feature devoted to safer cunnilingus. Taormino narrated a young, attractive couple demonstrating each method in such a way that the information is clearly understandable and approachable in practice. Aside from condoms, which exist very near the surface of sexual conscientiousness, tools and methods of safer sexual activities always seem kind of awkward and mood killing. This video takes away some of that awkwardness.

There is, of course, a lot of cunnilingus in the video, with and without commentary. There’s also a “bonus” section where Justine Joli, a sexy redhead leading the hands-on workshop, and her assistant, Ariel, go at it on a couch, which didn’t particularly do it for me, although finally seeing the redhead naked was certainly fulfilling the promise of a bonus. It was a bit strange to hear standard “educational video” music as the background to blatantly pornographic scenes, but I think this DVD navigated the peculiar state of being educational and pornographic fairly well.

The Naked Truth:

Aesthetics:

Level of Arousal:

Educational Value:

Storyline: N/A

Overall: – Given the fact that this DVD’s main purpose is educational.