cover image Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me

Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me

Sarah Katherine Lewis, . . Seal, $14.95 (269pp) ISBN 978-1-58005-228-3

Lewis's first book, Indecent: How I Make It and Fake It as a Girl for Hire , focused on her career in the sex industry; her latest offering includes some sex stories but marries them to a new theme: eating for pleasure. As Lewis points out, we're so obsessed with needing to lose weight that we eat pseudo-food, which offers little satisfaction. Lewis suggests, instead, frying up some chicken or corncakes for your dinner date, and then taking him or her to bed for some great sex. Lewis can't stop herself from speculating on whether his body fluids or her “cooch” will taste garlicky, which is in keeping with her penchant for considering a lover's body as a sort of naked lunch. Her explicit rejection of condom use may outrage or upset some readers, but—in the same way that she celebrates bacon, sausage, whale meat and other politically incorrect food—Lewis is not interested in pleasing everyone. While her food discourses—particularly the how-to chapters—are often inspired, and her politics delightfully pleasure-positive, the many raunchy sex passages, though written with a joyful sensuality and a dash of humor, are not for everyone. (May)