ANKA

Columbus Alive Wired Feature


Sexplorations: Journeys to the Erogenous Frontier

Anka Radakovich/Crown Publications


Whatever anyone says about Anka Radakovich, sex columnist for Details magazine, she knows sex... and not just plain ol' sex, sex in all its vagaries, varieties and vulgarities. From wife swapping to dominatrix adventures to one-night stands, Anka acts as the Indiana Jones of the sex world, an adventurer of orgasmic proportions.

Sexplorations, the follow-up to The Wild Girls Club, definitely has something for everyone. It's everything you wanted to read about sex but were afraid to check out of the library. Divided into eight sections- Sexual Revolution Resuscitated, Sexcapades, Sexcursions, Win a date with Anka, Sextremes, Ooohs and Aaahs, Sexperiments and On-The-Road Testing-Anka delves into all the different facets, fads and fascinations our culture has in the sex zone, without any judgments about her subjects.

The best thing about this book is Anka herself; the writing is conversational, filled with funny asides, such as this crack in Whip It Good: Dominatrix for a Day chapter: "At this point it hit me that I was spanking a guy who looked like Frank Perdue. ("It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.") Her tone is one we can all relate to; who hasn't had silly thoughts at inopportune times? That Anka shares them brings the reader into her mind and makes the act of living vicariously through her words all the more plausible.

Beyond all the author's jaunts into the world of drag kings, nudie camps and swing clubs the trio of chapters that makes up the Win a Date With Anka section shows this siren of sex as just another girlie. Culling a winner out of the thousand entries that poured into Details Headquarters, Anka teams up with a student from San Francisco and clicks with her choice: "Our dream date came to a close, and as we drove back to San Francisco, I was feeling frisky and Tom was practically driving the car with his nasty thing. I didn't want the date to end. But unfortunately, I had to catch a flight in an hour. It was his idea to keep the sexual tension going; after all, it wasn't Win-a-Hump with Anka. And the fact that we didn't go all way made it even sweeter and more exciting."

However, when Anka returns to the Big Apple and Tom comes a-visitin', the romance takes a turn for the worst; "Suddenly the passion has ended, the kisses were gone, the boner thing was over... In San Francisco, he told me everything a woman ever wanted to hear, and now he was telling me everything I didn't like." However, even though Tom is acting like a colossal jerk and tells Anka that he isn't physically attracted to her, she still writes, "This is when I considered the idea that maybe $20,000 worth of plastic surgery might not be such a bad investment after all." So, like many young women in the world (and men as well, perhaps), who aren't as hip and cool and mod as Anka, she still thinks the whole dating mess is something she can fix, even when it is obvious to God and everyone that this dream date is a dud. The empathy factor is large.

Sexplorations is a book for anyone who wants to be a sexual voyeur and see the world through the eyes of a woman who is not afraid to go the distance and come back and tell us about it. Like your best girlfriend, Anka tells you the truth, sprinkled with winking laughter and honesty.



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