With the Kisses of His Mouth [Hardcover]

I read & reread "With the Kisses of his Mouth" because of a recent favourable review & article about Monique Roffey in a national paper. I'm all in favour of aspirational quests of any kind & this is just such. (Also, I couldn't resist an offer of a hardback by Amazon of 400+ pages for under £8!) As a man of what I believe to be a particularly liberated generation, married for 50+ years and aware retrospectively as an adult of how miserable pre-war marriages could be for many women I am naturally prone to celebrate most pro-feminist views in all their forms, but I was disappointed by this book. It is very articulate, even page turning, because you want to know what happens but it contains very little that is new & which has not been said by others before & better. It is also rather long.
Describing the events of about the middle six years of a woman writer Roffey covers a wide spectrum of themes. Firstly there is the tension that can be generated within a longish & truly loving relationship with a partner in the absence of a relevant & practical sexual attraction of/by him.

"What I said to my ex about not being attracted to him, sexually, is the worst thing a man can hear."

Then there is the realisation as a result of counselling that things often occur in cycles or at least change their nature over time & the book itself is an account of such evolution.

"Loving attraction needs to be fed or else fades into an affectionate regard"

The effects of the sexual failure of the partnership, counselling & browsing through the sexual liberation literature from the 60's onwards leads Roffey into her own sexual Odyssey, the main theme. Internet dating -"no strings attached sex"- & her own definition of "an ethical sexual slut" emerges. This ought to constitute a seminal position paper for the future of these arrangements! The contrast between her own broken relationship & those which remain satisfactory for the few married men she dates is very sharp.

"He loved his wife, but the sex had dried up between them years ago"

They'd been married for over twenty years; they had kids. He had no intention of leaving her.

"I just miss sex"

These early encounters by computer dating seem to read well but somehow they do not stick in the mind. They are not individual enough & not particularly graphic for this day & age. It leads to meetings with sex therapists, sex therapy & eventually Tantric Sex. Roffey seems overly surprised by the effects of simply being in a group of people with a common interest & the close connections there are between mind, perception & what is being done by, or to, the body. She learns a lot about her own responses in group sessions with other women & the use of massage & sex yoys.

"I was happy to be alone with the women. It was easy & comfortable with my own sex.....I sank into a sublime comfort"

She found her "..crystal wand..perspex/plastic, bulbous at the end.." particularly effective. I loved that but found it strange that she could have lived into her middle years & neither she nor her male partners had been curious about such things before.
It was the tantric sex theme - where attempts are made to explain sexual responses & their potential in the terms of New-Age type spiritual (I would say pseudo-spiritual)- that is the longest & most tedious part of the book. The geographical travelogue part is fine but the tantric & spiritual journey described fails to convince me. I'm not impressed by claims that "energies" exist out there which can be experienced but not measured by anything. Roffey is. Intersecting Ley Lines, Yogic spiritual energy, Chakras & Medicine Wheels to my mind are very poor explanations of perceived changes in the states of mind & body. The effects are real enough, like those seen in placebo effects, but I prefer explanations based on nerves, neurotransmitters, neuroreceptors & brain activity patterns. These can be objectively correlated with subjective states of mind. Roffey is poetic but extreme about thisv stuff:

"The second level orgasm can be achieved by conscientious students of tantra & yoga. These are orgasms that reach the heart....Third & fourth level orgasms unite the body & soul with the rest of the universe"' Really?

But OK, this is a memoir of experiences not a biology text book. Quotes on the cover of the book indicate that it is a redemptive book; I suppose it is. If you don't enquire & question the significance of your own life in the broader cntext of whatever aspects concern you then you neither receive answers nor new perspectives & Roffey does both. Even so, I would sooner not have been told that of the nine female genital types espoused by certain shamans Roffey is that of the fox. Foxy Lady! Perhaps this may come in handy in a future Trivia quiz.

Originally I gave this only two stars & tried to post this on the 30th of June but failed to register it with Amazon for some reason. I re read it - there was only Wimbledon to watch on TV - & revised it to three stars. I thought it OK, nearly there, but not quite.

A friend bought this for me and I read it (at first) so I could say I had for my friend's sake. It's a strangely compulsive read. Yes, there are some things that are annoying - Ms Roffey's obsession with a man who sounds pretty gross for one. And, let's face it, a little bit of self-absorption too (it's impossible to write a nearly-500 page book 'all about me and my sex life' without coming over a tad self-absorbed I suppose). But altogether I thought this was an extremely courageous 'project' - both to live and to write/publish. I hope it has been as cathartic as, I suspect, Ms Roffey hoped it would be.

A literary and thoughtful account of a long period of sexual and emotional exploration following the end of the author's long-term relationship. In some ways I found the emotional candour even more shocking than the sex--a reminder of how fragile we are and how powerless when in the grip of a grief, despite having the courage to be intimate with new people in new ways. This is an important book for women. It shows us there are many ways to live more fully if we open ourselves--if you feel alienated by conventional dating behaviour you're not alone. I was grateful to the author for taking the time to explain some of the philosophies behind (largely tantric) sexual practice as well as telling us how it felt to her to try out these many new things. Not all of us can live this way but we can make more conscious choices about our bodies and our relationships with others, thanks to Monique Joffrey's willingness to share her story.