Where Do Nudists Keep Their Hankies?: ... and Other Naughty Questions You Always Wanted Answered

by Mitchell Symons

Of course you have! (Or if you haven't, perhaps you should.) Now Mitchell Symons, the reigning King of All Pointless Trivia, carries his inquisitiveness unabashedly into the bedroom and emerges with a smile, answering not only the above but also a veritable "pornucopia" of scandalous and sexual conundrums. So for all of you burning to learn that an octopus has sex for ten straight hours or intensely curious about "uncircumcision," the astute Mr. Symons pulls back the covers to expose it all—from pick-up lines to popular positions to the greatest of all male and female sexual lies!

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Trivia, Sexuality, Health, Comedy

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Lindsay · Rating 1 out of 5]

A crap book with stupid questions and obvious answers. The title was clever but wasn't even slightly funny like it was supposed to be and the author proved he was a misogynistic bastard throughout the whole book. If I could travel 'cross the pond to merry old England, I'd bitch slap him.

Glad I got it used.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of this was the authors opinions, rather than the result of research (which is what he said he would do, but didn't. Quite.) And bits of it had no basis in proof, just gossip or rumor (specifically noting celebrities through the ages on various lists.) It was interesting, but just OK.

[Zaira Delgado Bula · Rating 1 out of 5]

The worst book I’ve ever read. This guy tried so hard to be funny but he is just disrespectful, rude and pathetic. I couldn’t stop thinking about his wife, must be really difficult to know that the father of your kids is such a douchebag. Some pages were just impossible to finish. I’m glad I just found it and that’s why I read it, because Id rather to throw the money in the rubbish bin.

[Amy Sheridan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of useless information, I love trivia and tidbits - which is why I thought I'd give this book a go.

Mitchell Symons needs to know the difference between "useless information" and "pointless personal anecdotes that are, for the most part, unforgivably mysogynistic" because... really. It's like a 5th grade boy and his friends decided to write a book. Bleh.

[Nilchance · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is absolutely pointless. The author is a douche-waffle who says roofies are the aphrodisiacs that work on women, which is the "joke" where I lost my waning patience for his misogyny, redundancy, homophobia, fat-phobia and the uselessness of all the information presented in this book.

[Maha Aoki · Rating 2 out of 5]

The questions were interesting, and the answers? Not so much. Way too obvious.

Don’t waste your time.

[K. · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I were to just go by the facts provided herein, this was a fairly interesting book. I could not get over the tone of the author. His misogyny was pretty blatant, though he unsuccessfully tried to couch it in vapid humour. He even implied that he was a misogynist at least once, throwing it in there in a shrugging "oh well, what are you gonna do?" sort of manner.

I found the chapter about the morality of the rape of a nun vs. the rape of a prostitute particularly repugnant. Here's a man, who has already thrown in little demeaning comments about any of the "unattractive" female experts he's spoken to, asking another man about the morality of rape of a woman!

[Jeannie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written by a man and intended for men. And while its aim is clearly to be light-hearted and fun, and to some extent it is, the disrespect shown to women within these pages was a little irksome to me.

To clarify, I would not go so far as to refer to Symons as a misogynist. Instead, I presume that he was aiming for a ‘friends chatting over a beer’ conversational tone, but the end result feels more like fratboys ogling the new sorority recruits than a professional journalist diving beneath the sheets. In fact, every time an expert is introduced and happens to be a woman, she is graded on her looks rather than her education or background.

Then there are Symons’ attempts at humor that fail so abysmally that even the text seems to convey his interview subjects rolling their eyes. One particularly memorable and enraging such musing involved wife-swapping, and whether a participant in such activity has the right to ask the woman who is not his wife if she will iron his dress shirts. (Personally, I would clobber him with the iron.)

I’m aware that this all reads rather harsh and I actually don’t mean it to be. Symons had a fun concept and he did it some justice, but the tone is definitely intended to be one man speaking to other men. Similar books are almost always exactly the same, so I do not fault the author for assuming female readers would not be his target audience.

For me, this is a 2/5 stars.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently I have finished this book sometime ago, but forgot when I rest ky case, so here you go. It’s full of trivia on general questions people want to know about human sexuality, but I don’t think it has every answer to it. However, it is interesting to read this book, author make it as if it is a conversation between him and his friends, so it is quite engaging.

[Leon Baxter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book. Light, clever and humorous. If you need something that fits that bill, I'd recommend this book.

[Lenny Husen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was cute, and a very fast read.
Good points: great conversation starters, quotes, and facts (which famous people were well-endowed, had the most spouses, the most lovers, were gay). Glossary of sexual perversions/preferences.
I learned a little bit, but as the author himself points out, the book raises as many questions as it answers.
Bad points: would have been better if the author had done a little more research than just asking his own circle of friends, acquaintances and the occasional expert. Also, not the best written, but fine for what I think of as "magazine column" style.

[Fiona McGier · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very funny book that answers all sorts of questions that you might have thought of, but never knew whom to ask. The author seeks out the "experts" and gets answers for all of us. One of my favorite quotes from the book is: "Men need to make love, to feel loved. Women need to feel loved, to make love." No wonder we sometimes feel like we come from different planets!

[Jeannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty damn funny reading...especially if your tastes range into the outer limits like mine do. Dry sense of humor certainly was a plus for this author. and I learned some stuff by reading this...but not going to tell ya what. Read it youself! LoL

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was clever and funny. It includes lots of odd trivia, such as: Prostitution is legal in all of Nevada except for Reno and Las Vegas because research has shown that men gamble more money if they are with their wives. As a rabid fan of trivia, this book was right up my alley!

[Wagrobanite · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok. The guy had several of his facts wrong which really annoyed me, the biggest one being that Eva Peron was a prostitute. She wan't! There were several other glaring facts that were really wrong. Also there were a lot of British sayings that did't make sense.

[Lea]

What is this book doing on my shelf? I have not, nor am likely to ever read it. If I knew how to delete this, I would. Maybe someone can help me? Who put it there?

[Steve Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the pocket of their pareos, of course! This book answers interesting and sometimes disturbing questions about sex.

[Lacie Carmody · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly amusing and remarkably informative but definitely not one of the "must reads".

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light, but amusing fairly short read.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very British.

[Angela Sumter · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay, not as good as his kids books.