Sex Detective vs Oprahland, Level One

One of my more popular posts a while back was a two-parter dealing with the plastic insanity that is Dr Phil McGraw, but as formidable as he was, Phil-baby was only one man.  Oprah Winfrey is a fucking empire in human form, a walking corporation, a were-company if you will.  Visiting her cybernetic home base is like attacking a main boss lair - there's so many minions to get through first, each with uniquely evil and bizarre powers.  I'm a Sex Detective, so my speciality is a form of sex-kung-fu that targets sex advice and relationship bullshit.  All that other shite about solar-powered self-esteem generators and orphan makeovers I'll leave to the Hippie/Cosmetic Detectives, thank you very much.  As it is, in my field of war, there's more than enough to battle.

Versus the Dr Laura Sexbot

Meet Dr Laura Berman.  She's a radio talkshow host and Oprah regular who loves to talk all dirty and sexy about how to improve your bedroom performance.  You know, optimal angles of penetration, how to write your name on that special someone's face with semen, that sort of thing.  Or so I hoped.  Turns out that the sauciest tips she can provide are three thousand ways to be nice to whoever it is you happen to be shagging.  Yawn.  We already know how to be nice, Berman, it's being Naaasty that we want to perfect.

Still, Dr Laura acknowledges that maybe there's more to sex that being a cum-dumpster, and she educates us like any other sexy, domineering school mistress - by using... homework?

Yep, for each of 83 weeks she sets you sex homework.  That a bit over a year and a half of relatively lame assigments with which to bore your partner into domestic submission.  Let's look at a typical assignment, shall we?

Week 54: Stop Being Critical

Are you guilty of judging others? Be honest. Can you admit to being judgmental? It can be difficult to make it from one day to the next without passing judgment on anyone else—your partner, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors—even people you don't know. But try.



Embrace the fact that you don't know as much as you think you do about someone else's life. Stop judging—even for just one day this week. No judgment!

So, your advice on how to stop nagging is to... try to nag less?  Seems a little pedestrian to me.  Maybe it's code!  Try substituting any word in the above advice containing the word 'judge' with an actual sex problem.  Like so...

Are you guilty of compulsively masturbating others? Be honest. Can you admit to compulsive masturbation? It can be difficult to make it from one day to the next without compulsvively masturbating on anyone else—your partner, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors—even people you don't know. But try.


Embrace the fact that you don't know as much as you think you do about someone else's life. Stop compulsively masturbating—even for just one day this week. No wanking!

See, that makes much more sense.

So far so boring, right?  Wrong, because I had a look at some other parts of Laura's webpages and came across a brand new level of sex advice insanity: the Assess Your Sex Life section.

Dr Laura shows off various lubes and vibrators to her Queen, but Oprah, lacking Earthling genitalia, seems confused
and bored by this tribute.

According to Dr Berman there's 5 steps to increasing your root-ranking in the bedroom.  I'm not going to address all five (I mean, Jesus, step 4 is 'See A Doctor' for fuck's sake), but I have to mention Step Two: Ask For What You Want Foreplay Map. And it's not even an anology, it's an actual map!

So go ahead, people, download the PDF diagrams and start labelling in numerical order which parts of your body you want your partner to put their tongue/finger/dick in.  This is worse than the time I tried marketing a Rape by Numbers boardgame.  Congratulations, Laura, you've managed to turn an act of spontaneous lust into a dot-to-dot puzzle book.  I've felt more aroused by opening an Ikea flatpack manual.
Oh, and fellas?  Make sure she's in the mood before handing her the form, otherwise it just becomes a prioritisation list for stab wounds.



Lastly, I jumped across from Dr Laura's kindergarten sex instruction chapter to the staple diet of all self-proclaimed experts (including myself): Q & A shit.  Here Dr Laura reassures her customers with all manner of platitudes.  I've summarised a prime example just below, taking the liberty to translate it into our native tongue.

Q: Is my vulva meant to look like theatre curtains made out of pressed beef?

A: Of course, most female genitalia is supposed to resemble an unmasked Predator.  Don't believe me?  Watch this 3 hour tape of me deboning a leg of ham for Christmas.
It's important to normalise the vast spectrum of sex-related hassles out there.  Otherwise women won't learn how to stop their labia majora from chafing their knees while jogging, and men will make rushed mistakes when numbering the 'Back' part of their sex maps.  But when your Q & A page lists questions like "My wife just past away, is it too soon to get physical?" then I'm honour-bound by the Laws of Baseline Internet Humour to respond with a necrophilia reference.  To wit: "You should probably get a doctor to declare it first, but don't wait until she's too cold."

And the issue isn't even about normalising this shit, it's about how we do that. 

Arbitrary directives concerning the sex education of offspring that state: "Make it totally normal for them to touch themselves..." send very weird messages.  Do you withold allowances until your kid masturbates properly?  Should you have a chart in your kitchen with a packet of gold stars?  I think kids are meant to feel embarrassed and confused about puberty, otherwise they might think that 'normal' means 'material for show n' tell tomorrow at school'.  If I, as a teen, came home from school one day and mum said, "Your father and I wish to talk to you about masturbation as a family," the only two key words I'd hear were 'masturbation' and 'family', leaving me no choice but to fake their suicides before chopping my own dick off so that my new foster family would avoid that very subject.

NEXT TIME IN OPRAHLAND: From sex to romance, SD battles Oprah's stable of love demons...