Dry Humping: A Guide to Dating, Relating, and Hooking Up Without the Booze - Softcover

Lara, Tawny

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1683693639 ISBN 13: 9781683693635

Publisher: Quirk Books, 2023

Synopsis

A lighthearted, cheeky, and judgment-free handbook from sober sexpert Tawny Lara on how to have better sex, better dates, and better partnerships―without relying on alcohol!

When you’re intimidated or overwhelmed, it’s easy to turn to alcohol to feel more relaxed and outgoing. But what if you want to cut back or cut out alcohol from your life? What do you do on dates? How do you soothe worries and hang-ups? And how the heck do you get up the nerve to be naked with someone new?

In Dry Humping, you will learn how to have better dates, sex, and partnerships with tools like:

• Booze-free date ideas
• Scripts for awkward conversations
• Interviews with experts
• Thought-provoking prompts
• Perspectives from a diverse range of regular people
• And more!

You don’t need alcohol to have a fun, carefree, fulfilling dating life. Dry Humping offers you the tools to step away from alcohol, for however long you want to, while also having more fun in and out of the bedroom.

About this title

About the Author

Tawny Lara, also known as The Sober Sexpert, writes and speaks about alcohol-free sex and dating. Her work is featured in Playboy, Men s Health, the Huffington Post, and two essay collections: Sex and the Single Woman and The Addiction Diaries. She is the co-host of the Signal Award-winning podcast Recovery Rocks, and story developer for the Webby Award winning podcast F*cking Sober. Dry Humping is her first book

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction: Letting Go of Liquid Courage

In my late twenties, my years of binge drinking, hangovers, and regrettable sex started to take a toll on my overall well-being and love life. I knew that, on some level, I’d have to stop to reevaluate my relationship with alcohol. While I could handle a dry month here and there, one question held me back from ditching the booze for good:
    How will I date, let alone have sex, without liquid courage?
     Perhaps you, too, have relied on liquid courage to get through a first date or to ask your partner to try something new in bed. Dating, sex, and romance can be scary, and when we’re scared, a lot of us outsource our bravery to booze. If you’re reading this book, you’re probably thinking about drinking less, and like me, you’re worried about how you’ll handle the anxieties surrounding sex and dating. (I quit drinking altogether, because that’s what I needed, but you don’t need to commit to complete abstinence to change the way alcohol operates in your love life.)
     For starters, you may never have seen a model for healthy, booze-free dating. When it comes to dating and falling in love, many of us learn the ins and outs from movies and TV. Those ins and outs often involve a drink. Tune in to nearly any show or movie to see alcohol depicted as a magical elixir that helps take the edge off whatever might be worrying the characters. The 2018 remake of the film A Star Is Born shows Lady Gaga’s character taking a shot of tequila before performing her vulnerable love song, “Always Remember Us This Way,” for the first time on stage. In the Big Bang Theory TV series, Raj morphs from feeling shy around women into feeling overly confident after just one drink. Even Carrie Bradshaw from the iconic TV show Sex and the City hypes herself up for an uncomfortable sex talk with her boyfriend with “two-for-the-price-of-one margaritas.” I couldn’t help but wonder: if Carrie Bradshaw—America’s go-to for sex positivity before that term even entered our lexicon—needs alcohol to talk about sex, how do regular people find the courage to engage in uncomfortable or scary dating moments?
     Despite what society, Hollywood, and peer pressure might tell you (and what you may say to yourself), you don’t need margaritas to navigate the world of dating, sex, and romantic relationships. You just need to learn how to embrace your real, intrinsic courage, which you can access—with a little practice—without booze.
     If you’ve seen Disney’s Dumbo, remember when the crows give Dumbo (the adorable, floppy-eared elephant) a feather they say is magic, insisting that the feather would make him fly? He later discovered that he could fly all along—the feather wasn’t magic, it just gave him the confidence to access the powers he already had. Alcohol may have been a magic feather for you; it may have helped you muster the courage to talk to the cute person at the bar or given you the confidence to have a difficult conversation with a partner. But that’s not the same as saying you need it. Your desires and abilities were there all along; alcohol just made it easier (maybe sometimes too easy) to ignore your doubts, hesitations, or inhibitions.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quirk Books
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1683693639
• ISBN 13: 9781683693635
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208