I am currently reading books on personality types in order to manage a prickly situation. As I am well aware that we can’t change anyone but ourselves. So of course these are self-help books.

While I have gained many new insights from “Type Talk at Work” and “Fundamentals of Organizational Communication”, the most interesting bits are from a book I stumbled on because it was nearby on the virtual shelf. The online public library system has very broad keyword sorting so next to the work related material was “Your Erotic Personality: Identifying and Understanding Your Sexual Self.” Who can resist?

Because these are all E-books I don’t even have to explain to anyone why I would be reading such a book. All anyone can see is the cover of my iPad.

The book, written by Sage Vivant (a nom de plume?) starts with a quiz called “How do you like it?” where you choose as many items as apply and then add up your score. This format must be irresistible to most humans because I’ve seen it in magazines from Tiger Beat to Cosmo to GQ and Fitness.

The items range from I fantasize about “…anyone with a pierced tongue who can perform oral sex in zero gravity”, to “…my best friends parents”. People may think S&M, group sex or fetishes (all covered in the quiz) are wild and deviant, but I think fantasizing about your best friends parents is waaay freaky.

Once you get through the selections in My Ideal Lover (…someone worth sharing with others) and Whats on My Nightstand (…a salacious note from my marriage counselor), you work your way through choices for Danger, Pick-ups, Costumes, First Dates, Destinations and The Perfect Sex Party. Voila! Your Erotic Personality is revealed.

The possibilities were exhausting.

Who has time to organize the Perfect Sex Party? I’m lucky to manage arranging to see friends for dinner once a month. Is this what all the stay-at-home MILFs do? Is one of them Sage Vivant? Hmm…

I will say this for Sage, the quiz results focused on figuring out what you like rather than, “What He REALLY Wants” which is a Cosmo SOP that puts any and all blame at your non-sexy feet.

I took the quiz and my type was revealed as … never mind. It was a relief to discover that I am not a “Save Me!” – seriously, that is a category – or a “You Show Me Yours”. I did however learn two very important, non-sexy things:

First, You can get almost anything published, and, second there may be a future for me in writing snarky quizzes. I bet there would be a strong market for titles like

• “Are You Secretly the Asshole Everyone Hates?” and
• “How Boring Are Your Stories?”.

And its just a coincidence that both work and sex ended up being labels for this post.