Reviews for Passport to Pleasure: The Hottest Sex from Around the World

The average rating for Passport to Pleasure: The Hottest Sex from Around the World based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-11-24 00:00:00 Dawn Alvarez Reading this book immediately made me regret using the term polyamory in any self-description and made me want to exclusively use relationship anarchy instead… There's so much to criticize that it's hard to know where to start. The executive summary would be: promotion of shaky evolutionary psychology 'evidence', cherry picking in the interpretation of survey data, too big a focus on spiritual/religious stuff and last but not least a holier-than-thou mentality. For the religious/spiritual stuff, the book is full of it and (mind you:positively!) highlights schools of thoughts that are described as follows: 'she is not beholden to any traditional lineage, and her [spiritual] teachings are completely content and culture free'. Yeah, that's a good thing… And motivating polyamory from a religious perspective (all religions have had it in the past!!111) doesn't make more sense either. For the misinterpreting of data and cherry picking: I'm no expert in the social sciences by any means but I know biases in data collection procedures when I see them. Anapol quotes surveys done amongst participants exclusively recruited through organized poly communities and thinks that those surveys show that polyamorous people in general are better educated, have a higher household income and all the other good stuff. But for the lack of non-privileged people amongst the polyamorous? Oh, that's because they just didn't participate and isn't systemic. Well, you can't have it both. Either your sample is unbiased or not, especially for these categories it's mutually exclusive. What does Anapol think would happen with the level of education, income etc. once you start to include non-privileged people? Time and time again Anapol tries to convince you that she doesn't see polyamory as the better relationship model, yada yada yada. But the following quote is just too good to not show it here: 'I certainly wouldn't characterize all polyamorous people as geniuses or monogamous people as being unintelligent, but numerous observers have commented that polyamorous people tend to be far above the norms on many dimensions of intelligence, including but not limited to emotional intelligence'. I'll repeat myself: the plural of anecdotes is not data! But the best thing is the emotional intelligence bit: Just a few chapters before she brings another, equally well (i.e. not at all) supported claim that her anecdotal 'evidence' shows that people with Asperger's are overrepresented amongst the polyamorous… Besides all this the book has quite a focus on the history of polyamory, which isn't too much what I expected-given the title-but is okay and worthwhile in principle. As Dan Savage points out there is a lack of vertical transmitted domain knowledge (e.g. the history of the struggle for equality) for homosexuals (or any non-mainstream sexual orientations for that matter, though I'm not saying polyamory is directly comparable to those) due to the fact that most homosexuals are not born into homosexual families, so the knowledge won't 'automatically' be transmitted from parents to children, but has to be transferred horizontally. In that respect including a brief history doesn't seem a bad choice. What's also nice is the chapter on polyamory worldwide that includes stories from countries other than the United States, amongst others China, India and parts of Europe are included. But besides that I find one topic pretty lacking, especially for a book that carries the '21st century' around: The internet, especially the kind many of us carry around with our smartphones. Yes, I know, technical solutions to social problems don't work. Except when they do. The internet not only made it possible to connect with others with shared interests (which is especially important when considering small niches like polyamory and Anapol seems to use it herself quite heavily) but also allows to overcome the problem of scaling, which I think is inherent to polyamory. The more people you add to the mix and want to keep in the loop the higher the transaction costs tend to become. Shared calendars, broadcast media and the ability to instantly have a brief video chat over 9 timezones are a great way to bring down those costs. A last warning: you don't want to read the chapter 10 'Polyamory in Myth, Archetypes, and Human Evolution', as it will make your brain melt with it's mix of getting science wrong and putting it together with ancient myths. Unfortunately you can't just skip it, because the Kindle version of this book is produced so badly. There are no chapter marks and the introduction and the references are included as images which look like they were just scanned from the print book (it will make your eyes bleed when reading on a high resolution display). Recommended for: absolutely no one. You might find the stories of the people living polyamorous interesting, but if that's your interest you can also read some blogs or reddit. It's free and you (hopefully) have to skip less nonsense.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-06-02 00:00:00 RENEE POLIT Deborah Anapol describes polyamory in this way: "I use the word polyamory to describe the whole range of lovestyles that arise from an understanding that love cannot be forced to flow or be prevented from flowing in any particular direction. Love which is allowed to expand often grows to include a number of people. But to me, polyamory has more to do with an internal attitude of letting love evolve without expectations or demands that it look a particular way than it does with the number of partners involved." Stated that way, I believe that polyamory is philosophically a better system than enforced monogamy. If the idea that a person cannot own, possess, or control another person rings true to you, then I suggest that polyamory is the better approach to love and relationships. That said, there is, as they say, plenty of devil still in the details. This book provides strong guidance on those devilish details, giving very insightful advice, commentary, and anecdotes about the day-to-day management of a polyamorous lifestyle. Her strongest chapters are 4: The Ethics of Polyamory, 6: The Challenge of Jealousy, 7: Polyamory and Children, and 8: Coming-Out Issues. There are a few weak chapters, especially toward the end of the book, but I am very impressed with her overall sagacity in her approach to polyamory and the way she was able to communicate that approach in this book. Other books I have read on this topic spend a lot of time talking about structuring different methods of polyamory, but I couldn't help having the impression that they were just trading the rules of monogamy for a different set of rules. This book, however, strongly advocates that the rules that work will be different in any given situation, and rather than trying to come up with some globally applicable laws of relating, Deborah Anapol suggests approaching relationships with an open mind and heart, and allowing the relationship itself to determine what is best for it. This makes the most sense to me, and is why I can say, even though I have strong personal tendencies toward monogamous relationships, that I am polyamorous. I agree ethically, morally, and philosophically with this approach.