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Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me
by
Sarah Katherine Lewis (Goodreads Author)
It’s said that how we eat is reflective of our appetite in bed. Food and sex: two universal experiences that can easily become addictive and all consuming. You don’t need to look far—The Food Network, billboards, TV spots to name just a few—to witness firsthand the explosive combination of food and sex.
In Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me, Sar...more
In Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me, Sar...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
April 29th 2008
by Seal Press
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Loooooooved it! So funny, feminist, genuine, and awesome. I completely devoured this book. Friends, the Britney Spears essay made me tear up. The way she talks about food and women's bodies is a welcome reminder to stop punishing ourselves, and it actually TAKES. Also her recipes are amazing, and actually seem like I could follow them. There are a couple things near the end that I didn't love, but this was only me idolizing her and wanting ALL our opinions to be the same. I'm sure once we are bf...more
I wanted to fucking love this book but sadly that was not the case. I must confess that I was disappointed by it overall. I wanted more sex and I felt like she had probably tapped that vein already in her previous book and was struggling to come up with more on the subject. What she did have was mostly colored by her horrible experiences in the sex industry so it was kinda dark. What I did love: The food bits, the stuff about how she lost weight by eating all the foods she wanted ( also my theor...more
I really wanted to like this book. I know it's author via the Internet and various online communities and she's always seemed like a really nice person. But -- this book is boring. It has a catchy title and ostensibly it should be about two of my favorite things but it's just not very ... interesting. Each part/section of a half dozen chapters has an "introduction" which felt like bloat to me; I don't need to be told about what I'm about to read. After each chapter, I was often left thinking, "s...more
The title is true to the content of this book. The language would be considered scandalous by many of my friend's standards. That said, I found it entertaining and also enlightening about the adult entertainment industry and the human condition. The recipes inserted seem worthy of my kitchen but I doubt I'll ever open the book to cook something up.
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This book was wonderful. Lewis writes for all the women with a girl on one arm, a boy on the other and a 7 layer cake on the counter. She takes big bites and savors them, and lives to write about it. A former sex-worker who has a delicious way with words, Lewis has given us a book that is part memoir, part advice column, and part scrumptious cookbook. She embraces her humanity in a beautiful way, and celebrates all manner of decadent things. Sex-positive but interestingly judgmental of the clien...more
I really liked this book, so much so that I didn't want to return it to the library, and now it's overdue. This is a great celebration of food, sex, and women who love food and sex. Also good essays on risky behavior, such as having unsafe sex.
I really enjoyed Lewis’ bluntness about sex (she’s a former sex worker), and good sense of humor. For instance, her first essay is about ass-eating, and why it doesn't turn her on. She describes it as “being on the receiving end of an intestinal Wet Willy...more
I really enjoyed Lewis’ bluntness about sex (she’s a former sex worker), and good sense of humor. For instance, her first essay is about ass-eating, and why it doesn't turn her on. She describes it as “being on the receiving end of an intestinal Wet Willy...more
For as much complaining I've done about this book, the last section was good enough to bump it up from a two star rating to a three star. In the last 60 pages she cuts the shit. It's not overwritten or preachy like the first 200. It's not disgusting just for the sake of it. It's not shocking just to be shocking. It is real, and I started caring about her.
Do the last 60 pages make up for the first 200? No, but I got it. She set out to write a funny book about sex and rib jobs and pee drinking an...more
Do the last 60 pages make up for the first 200? No, but I got it. She set out to write a funny book about sex and rib jobs and pee drinking an...more
Oh Sarah Katherine Lewis, why won't you marry me? I will cook you all the deliciously fattening recipes in your book while you paint my face in too much glitter like a drag queen on speed. You're the perfect blend of queer femme angry lesbian hooker with a heart of gold. And you're fucking gorgeous - even your words are gorgeous. I have serious girl tooth for you. I hope that everyone and their mother buys your book so you can keep on keepin on...the recipes alone are really worth the price. The...more
I wanted to love this, especially after really enjoying the author's sex work memoir, Indecent: How I Make It and Fake It as a Girl for Hire, but it was ultimately a little disappointing. Sarah Katherine Lewis's writing is so shameless and in-your-face that I expected this to be a manifesto, something that I would find myself reading passages aloud from, nodding and excited that someone GETS IT, but it just turned out to be a collection of lukewarm essays about, well, food and sex. Some were bet...more
Okay, truth be told - Sarah Katherine Lewis is not all that good of a writer. This book is written with a casual, slightly affected intimacy that is most often found on blogs. In fact, this book would have made an amazing blog.
That said, I did enjoy the book. I picked it up after realizing that all of my recent reading had been about serious, weighty emotional topics, which isn't surprising since I am going through a separation. And what could be less emotionally draining than sex and bacon! Wi...more
That said, I did enjoy the book. I picked it up after realizing that all of my recent reading had been about serious, weighty emotional topics, which isn't surprising since I am going through a separation. And what could be less emotionally draining than sex and bacon! Wi...more
SK is out of the sex industry, but she's still got stories to tell -- about sex, food, desire, and appetite. Plus recipes that include how much red or white wine the chef should imbibe while cooking.
I gulped this down in one sitting, and I'll probably buy it, too (SK needs the cash).
Quotes
Being hungry and miserable is never okay. Hunger makes women mean and dumb ... If we're too hungry to think, we're too hungry to fuck shit up. And if we're too hungry to fuck shit up, we're collaborating with...more
I gulped this down in one sitting, and I'll probably buy it, too (SK needs the cash).
Quotes
Being hungry and miserable is never okay. Hunger makes women mean and dumb ... If we're too hungry to think, we're too hungry to fuck shit up. And if we're too hungry to fuck shit up, we're collaborating with...more
Having recently devoured her first tasty morsel of a book on her career in the adult industry, Indecent: How to Make It and Fake It as a Girl for Hire, I jumped at the chance to borrow her second book from a fellow classmate of ours. Yes, you read that right. I went to school with Sarah. Twice even. Both in middle-school and during my early college years at Evergreen before I headed off to the UW. In fact, the two us costarred in our freshman-year production of Arthur Miller's Salem witch-trial...more
Jan 01, 2009
Heidi
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
women who make their own rules and live by them
Sex and Bacon was my final book read in 2008 as I wanted a horrendous year to end on a positive note. I couldn’t have chosen better. SKL managed to make me laugh, bring me to tears, and turn me on in less than 300 pages. I honestly can’t think of another book that’s succeeded at all three.
While others have cited her casual writing style as a detriment, it’s what I find most engaging. It reads like a conversation with a good friend who’s stronger, braver, smarter, and sexier than you. The friend...more
While others have cited her casual writing style as a detriment, it’s what I find most engaging. It reads like a conversation with a good friend who’s stronger, braver, smarter, and sexier than you. The friend...more
I give the first 3/4 of this book four stars. The beginning of the book was mouthwatering. The last bit, where she was depressed and moping around after some guy, was sort of dull and I think the author sort of lost track of where the book was supposed to be going.
She almost, almost gets to things that I want someone to be writing about. Guess I still have to write my own book. However, for an examination of appetites, this was far better and more joyous than Caroline Knapp's "Appetite".
3.5, maybe? Series of essays on her life, experiences as a sex worker, and her love of food. It was funny, sad, interesting, thought provoking and a quick read. I really liked her and will have to check out her blog.
I really enjoyed this book, but it's not for the faint of heart. Even I had to skip the chapter dealing with people's affinity for bodily excrement. Besides that chapter, it's a good (and hot) read.
Ms. Lewis' first book, Indecent: How I Make it and Fake It as a Girl for Hire was leaps and bounds better than this second book. Both are steeped in shock value, which makes sense, because she did work in the sex industry, which is all about shock value.
But her first book let the seedy and tawdry bits pepper the well-written text, rather than jump out at you all at once: HERE I AM LOOK AT ME I'M SO EDGY AND DIRTY LA LA LA. I mean, c'mon, really? Really? This is all shock, and no value. If she do...more
But her first book let the seedy and tawdry bits pepper the well-written text, rather than jump out at you all at once: HERE I AM LOOK AT ME I'M SO EDGY AND DIRTY LA LA LA. I mean, c'mon, really? Really? This is all shock, and no value. If she do...more
Her 2nd book, focus on food porn. Most memorable for me because I realized she'd written about a close friend (and their breakup) in a fairly recognizable way in it!
S.K. Lewis is my favorite author. Bitch-slap honest about things like heartbreak, poverty, and depression. Great recipes throughout.
Jul 03, 2011
Hana Shhh
marked it as to-read
Okay, I stumbled upon this one by accident. But I'm already halfway through this light read and I'm loving the accident. <3
Sarah Katherine Lewis graduated from the high school my daughter was going to. This terrified me somehow.
too many of my reviews start off "oh my god did i want to love this book", and this is sadly yet another such review. there was one essay that grabbed me in a good way (she breaks down why britney spears is getting the brunt of our food and sex hating culture thrown at her), and for that i will bump it to 2 stars. it's not unreadable, by any means, yet any feminist book about food and sex (two of my absolute favorite things!) should have me staying up all night until i finish it and that SO did...more
I loved this book, it was honest, it was funny, it is the kind of book that gets inside your head and articulates things that you are thinking deep down but never actually formulated into conveyable words. I loved the chapter about Britney and every part of the book that was encouraging of being a real woman with a real body with real curves. I found it validating. I am a vegetarian, which is probably why I give it 4 stars instead of 5, cause to be honest, some food parts were just gross to me....more
So cheesy and cliche. Some of the absolute worst writing I have ever come across.
Feb 19, 2009
Rachel
added it
Interesting, cant say that it was my favorite though.
I wanted to love it, but I just didn't. It is fun to attempt to live vicariously through someone who works in such a taboo profession, and she did make me obsessed with fried chicken for about a week, but the writing was tedious. While she went on and on about the joys of sex and trans fats... I mostly just craved an editor.
I found this self-aggrandizing book both boring and irritating. I skipped around some, hoping upon hope that she would have something interesting or, at least, amusing to say about sex or port products, and every time I felt like she was going on a good point, she would lose her train of thought and revert back to mindless dribble. I could also list as many words for the vagina, ass and dick as I know, but that does not a book make. If you want to know about the sex industry, go see the sex work...more
People who know me might think I'm writing a positive review of this book because I know and like Lewis, but the fact of the matter is I'm giving this book five stars because there are large portions of it--sentences, sometimes entire chapters--I want to highlight and then shove in the face of my loved ones and the universe in general and go, "Read this! Read it! This is what I have been trying to say to you all these years!"
Reading this book was like a little feminazi epiphany for me.
Sometimes you just need to be told that it's okay to enjoy sex, and it's okay to enjoy food.
Logically, we should know this already, but there are times when hearing it from an outside source just drives it home.
I really and truly think I am in love, and it's not often that the object of my affection is a mass of bound paper and ink.
Sometimes you just need to be told that it's okay to enjoy sex, and it's okay to enjoy food.
Logically, we should know this already, but there are times when hearing it from an outside source just drives it home.
I really and truly think I am in love, and it's not often that the object of my affection is a mass of bound paper and ink.
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“If there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that love is an unstoppable human drive, fierce and universal, and that sex is the physical manifestation of love. And that sex without love is missing the whole damn point. Sex brings us home to love.”
—
4 people liked it
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