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

by Sarah Katherine Lewis

It's said that how we eat is reflective of our appetite in bed. Food and 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 Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me , Sarah Katherine Lewis is a seductress whose observations about the interplay between food and sex are unusually delightful, sometimes raunchy, and always absorbing. Sex and Bacon is a unique type of lovefest, and Lewis is not your run-of-the-mill food writer. A lusty eater who's spent the better part of her adult life as a sex worker, Lewis is as reckless as she is adventurous. She writes of eating whale and bone marrow as challenges she was incapable of resisting.  With chapters that hone in on the categorically simple—fat, sugar, meat—Lewis infuses even the most quotidian meals and food memories with sensual observations and decadence worthy of savoring. Sex and Bacon is exuberant-a celebration that honors the rawness and base needs that are central to our experiences of both food and sex.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Humor, Biography Memoir, Sexuality, Food

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 29, 2008

Reviews

[Pamster · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 bffs we can come to an understanding that no, monogamy is not better than casual sex for everyone, just for her; and porn CAN be awesome, even if it isn't usually. The grossness of her clients when she was in the sex industry makes me reeeeally see why she'd feel that way, though. What else. I love that she repeatedly calls women with weight on them "sleek." It makes so much more sense than fashion mags calling thin bonies "sleek." And I love that almost every recipe uses bacon grease. Sigh. Absolute crush.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

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,” and goes on to say that she was able to relax and enjoy it somewhat by pretending to be a tiny kitten being cleaned all over by a mommy cat (although it didn’t do anything for her sexually).

I also loved her celebration of womanly curves, in an essay lamenting her friend’s anorexia: “The thing is, woman are supposed to be woman-shaped. Our thighs are supposed to touch. We’re at our best when we’re healthy, strong, soft and libidinous. We’re at our most fuckable when we’re well-fed and sleek, not when we’re dry as toast and out of our minds with hunger.”

Oh, and there are a few good recipes in here, too.

I may pick this up to add to my collection, as I wound up quoting from it or referring to it several times since reading it.

I will warn you, though, not to read the essay about her ex-girlfriend's career as a colonic irrigationist while you're eating.

[Melisa Resch · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 theory on that btw) , the "Southbound" piece on giving head and "Earl Gray Tea", the essay about Micki. SIgh. Micki sounded like the sexiest being on the planet. But overall the book felt cobbled together or maybe not organic? Lewis speaks about her struggle to write the book and her battle with depression, which may account for the forced feeling I got from some of the writing. The stuff about her break up and her love for her man was a downer. I would read another book by her though, and think that she is a talented writer.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 clients she used to service- understandable, from the descriptions. It's also fascinating to see how compartmentalized her sex life was when she was working in the trade. Well-written, funny, loving and wry. It'll make you hungry for more.

Not for the faint of heart or those who eschew Anglo-Saxon terms for genitalia.

[Jenn Alton · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rawness, dirty sex, a glimpse into the sex industry combined with the experience of a sarcastic dry perspective of the world will make the audience want to keep turning those pages. I highly appreciated her sense of humor and how she made her words dance around to create an honest image of human interaction. I also loved the Seattle references, read her books, support local authors!

[C. Vandermyde · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Ben Hyde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book, some important principles and beliefs (and recipes) that reflect my own philosophy on life. A lot of underlying feminism as well, which I found only added to the content.

Great book, and a fun read. However, a caveat for those faint of heart.. it gets pretty raunchy.

[Gloria Diaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never met Sarah Katherine in person, but back in the 1990s, we both published ‘zines: hers was called Pasty, mine was called Angry Young Woman. Somehow, we became aware of each other, and we traded issues back and forth. With the advent of blogs, the ‘zine craze went electronic, and I lost touch with her.

Thanks to Facebook, we got back in touch. I found out she’s written a couple of books. Sex and Bacon is an entertaining read—it’s a collection of stories about sex, relationships, love, and food. Despite not having great relationships, and despite both loving and hating food, I devoured this book.

Sarah Katherine was a sex worker, and for someone like me, reading about her experiences was fascinating. I’m more the wallflower, and still am.

The book is in four sections: Desire, Flesh, Sweet, and Pain. It’s a collection of essays about food and the dating scene, and life, and love and the ickiness and the gloriousness of it all. There’s the guy who gets off by watching sex workers eating Baby Ruth bars, because Baby Ruth bars look like turds. There’s the section where Sarah Katherine eats the food she likes and loses weight (if only that worked for me!).

She talks about oral sex, anal sex, personal ads, finding someone, going home with them that first day (which is always mind-blowing to me) and sploshing, and that’s in just the first 33 pages.

The subtitle of this book is Why I Love Things That are Very, Very Bad For me. Sarah Katherine talks about having protected sex, then having unprotected sex. A particularly frightening (for me) passage on page 45 talks about having unprotected sex on the first date with a man who said he’d been tested a few months ago. Sarah Katherine had been tested too. She acknowledged it was unsafe. She also talks about risk. In life and in love, and it’s this attitude that impresses me and terrifies me.
Then, there’s the food. There are suggestions for food and recipes. And most of it sounds really, really good. Some of it is extreme: she eats four pounds of bacon in one sitting. She talks about fried chicken. Mussels. Lamb roast. Autumn foods, containing pumpkin. The tediousness of vegetables. Sarah Katherine offers some suggestions for preparing them.

For those without a terribly educated palate, there are details about eating pancreas, marrow, and whale.

The book is in four sections: Desire, Flesh, Sweet, and Pain. It’s a collection of essays about food and the dating scene, and life, and love and the ickiness and the gloriousness of it all. There’s the guy who gets off by watching sex workers eating Baby Ruth bars, because Baby Ruth bars look like turds. There’s the section where Sarah Katherine eats the food she likes and loses weight (if only that worked for me!).

There’s humor in this book, and heartache, and some sad truths about being poor. There’s also gratefulness. There’s advice: despite (or because of) working in the sex industry, Sarah Katherine warns against porn: she tells men not to go to strip clubs, or rent adult films or look at porn on the Internet. “That shit will fuck you up—it’s addictive nonsense designed to wreck your chances of having loving relationships with real, live females and to make sure you keep paying for the fake stuff.”

Is this book entertaining? Is the Pope Catholic (and progressive and generally turning out to be a very pleasant surprise? Hell yes. This will open your eyes about the sex industry, food, and the culture we live in. Parts of this book are disturbing, true, but that’s the thing about knowledge. Sometimes you learn stuff that is terrifying and disgusting—particularly if it has to do with people. But this book overflows with passion and gusto. Not everyone will agree with Sarah Katherine’s opinions on food, sex and relationships, but she is about living. Don’t be afraid to indulge, or to take a few chances.

[Blissfish · Rating 3 out of 5]

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! With a title like that...well, I bought the book. And I read it that evening (with a rich, fruity zinfandel), so obviously I enjoyed it. The "recipes", which are more narratives on the process of cooking a dish that happen to include ingredients and some measurements, are delightful. The experiment to find out how much bacon is enough bacon is something I have joked about recreating with friends.

I was touched by Ms. Lewis' honest account of depression, and how difficult it is to live a life of considered hedonism when one is broke, ill, and heartbroken. I appreciated her candor about the effects of the sex industry on the perception of all women, and how harmful that can be while at the same time allowing the women involved with lucrative careers - far more lucrative than most conventional jobs.

But none of these are why I enjoyed the book as much as I did, despite a writing style that grated on me, and introductory passages that seemed only tangentially related to the stories that followed. Really - it is the siren song of a woman who looks at the world and declares it hers for the tasting. A woman in touch with her desires, and who is fully aware of how women are constantly pressured to squelch their desires in service to the desires of others, and decides that she doesn't give a flying hoot for what other people expect her to do.

For the shy, the stressed, the introverted - Sex and Bacon is a nice, friendly dose of liberate-your-inner-hedonist catnip.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 drama,"The Crucible." But I'm terribly off-topic, aren't I? Ahem.

Anyhow, this finger-lickin' good book will make your tummy crave bacon fat (ambrosia, by my meat-lovin' standards), glorious southern-style fried chicken (just add some of that left-over bacon fat, you hear?), and even wonderfully simple baked beans and rice with all its possible accoutrements.

Although Ms. Lewis and I part ways on cheese -- her bane is my boon -- I'm feelin' the love of her passion for food. And not just food. I equally admire her for her uninhibited discussion about other physical need: sexual gratification through physical love. But where others go down the path of Smut-ville, Lewis points out the communion of both food and sex go hand-in-hand as basic human desires that yearn to be fulfilled. And for that, I thank her for blowing a hole in our prudish, repressed, and puritanical ways. (Shades of "The Crucible", you think?)

Oh, and on a more depraved note: I'm totally down for getting paid to pee in a wine glass for $150. Or even simulate eating shit by slowly devouring a slightly micro-waved Baby Ruth. I mean, wouldn't you? You gotta admit: Either way you slice it – or rather, pee/eat it – that’s easy money.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

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, "so what? what's the point?"

The prose was also littered with a lot of anti-fat sentiment (odd in a book that purports to be about loving food) and anti-porn sentiment (odd in a book that purports to be about loving sex) and several overly casual uses of the word "rape" (odd coming from a self-proclaimed feminist) -- all of this was very off-putting. The "recipes" included in some of the chapters were overly folksy in their tone. Perhaps because she lacks a sense of self-confidence as a cook? There's no shame in publishing a favorite humble/simple recipe in plain language and easy to follow standardized directions. Reading recipes as a narrative was not a value-add for me.

I think the "last straw" for me was when Lewis wraps up this disorganized collection of anecdotes by concluding that sex without a relationship isn't good and that any sexual contact (porn, strippers, other sex workers) etc. outside of a primary, monogamous relationship diminishes the quality of the primary relationship sex. Sorry, I don't agree. And I found her admonition overly moralistic as opposed to just a personal preference.

[Riona · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 better than others, certainly: Earl Grey Tea, a "love story" of sorts about hooking up with a butch lesbian in a new city; Britney, in which the author espouses her love for the pop princess and why she considers Ms. Spears a feminist icon; Baby Ruth Man and Agapae, tales similar to those in her previous book about delightfully kinky clients. I loved the simplicity of The Bacon Quotient, because really, who hasn't been there? And I appreciated the body-love messages of Thin and Fat. The last section about heartbreak really began to grate on me, though. There's only so much wallowing in self-pity and cartons of ice cream as I can stand, and we've all been there, so she's not really saying anything original.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 the enemy.

When it comes down to the choice between living a life of yes, please and living one of no, thanks I'll choose yes, thanks every time, and I'll generally raise you a can I have some more? just to keep the stakes high.

When even a crack habit won't make you as thin as a Hollywood starlet or a fashion model, it's time to reevaluate the beauty standards that keep us literally starving ourselves to death.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 you aspire to be like; only to have her turn around and make you realize you’re just fine the way you are.

“What would happen if we all decided that we were going to eat how we wanted, fXck how we wanted, dress how we wanted, live how we wanted?”

I can only hope that every single one of us finds out the answer to that question.

[Allyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 and it wasn't working. She knew she had deadlines to make. So, she cut the shit and wrote something real. I wish the whole book could have been like that.

So book club? Go to Borders, flip through the first 200 pages, but then sit down and read the last section. It won't take long. Then we will get to have a discussion at New Wave that won't give anyone overhearing us a huge boner.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very well written. It was also strangely sad. It wasn't laudatory of the sex industry and Lewis' sex-positivity and body-positivity were neither hedonistic nor naive. I'm a vegetarian and didn't love all of the food parts but they enriched the book. I have read that Lewis' had a more extensive and significant drug history that was not addressed in the book. It is not Lewis' job to bare all of her life to readers but it raised the issue of faithfulness of the narrative. I'm assuming everything she said was true but that's always an issue in memoir. In all honesty I wanted to read this to see how I felt about my own life choices and it provided some good perspective. Again, very well-written (much better written than this rambling, fragmented review).

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 does have a third book in her, I hope that she dials it down some and actually tries to write, rather than letting crude language do all the (heh) dirty work.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 stories are also jaw dropping at times - just know that you will never want to eat a broccoli floret again after the parasite chapter.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

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. But I would love to find the bacon quotient with veggie bacon, I can still relate!!!

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 workers art show or read another book.

[cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 not happen. too much cliche and attempted titillation with no writing skill to back it up.

[The Scarlet Pervygirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!"

[Cyn Coons · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[else fine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, raunchy, heart-wrenching, and full of delicious recipes to boot! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll head for the kitchen. Underneath the awesomely colorful stories, Sarah Lewis has some very serious things to say about women, and the crappy things we choose to do to our bodies and our hearts. This book is a band-aid for your spirit.

[Shannon Barber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know Sarah and I can hear everything in her voice. I am enjoying this a lot. I love knowing what an authors voice sounds like. It's kind of a weird fetishy thing. I love how Sarah writes. This book is juicy and funny. I think it's only proper for a book about female desire and appetite be so fleshy. I highly recommend it.

[David Wen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure what I was expecting when I got this book but I never really got into it. The sections are scattered and thoughts aren't very well organized. At times it's an autobiography, others it's a nonfiction about the sex industry, occasionally recipes are thrown in haphazardly. Almost like reading a magazine at times.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Sarah Jaffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

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".

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.