Episode 49 - The Beginner’s Guide to Sex in the Afterlife: An Explanation of the Extraordinary Potential of Sexual Energy by David Staume

Terrible Book Club

This time, we’re dead and trying to figure out just what to do with these incorporeal forms of ours. Luckily, a copy of David Straume’s Beginner’s Guide to Sex in the Afterlife was waiting here for us when we arrived in Purgatory.

This book certainly seemed like it was going to teach us about having sex in the afterlife. It did no such thing. Instead, the author just told us a whole lot of things that he thinks are true - namely, that everything in life is sexual. Painting? Sex. Playing music? Sex. Hydroelectricity? Sex. Atoms? Sex. Computer coding? Definitely sex. Masturbating? Sex that produces astral babies. Oh, and you better develop a positive relationship with the sun because it's the source of all sexual energy and you should maybe tan a lot (or something).

Mostly, we felt like this book was a slurry of very surface-level ideas from a guy who maybe took Philosophy 101 and got really into the concept of chakras. Plus, it seems to really push the masculine/feminine binary, "find-your-other-half-and-attain-wholeness", and western/christian concepts of monogamy and marriage while paying a whole 2-3 sentences of lip service to the idea that it's not really doing that.

At one point, Staume recommends that we send the, "dead or useless parts of us" to the sun, to be burned and turned into fuel. He should follow his own advice here and throw this book directly into the sun.

Many thanks to @tasteless.psd / @pencilmancer for making our in-episode revelation a reality for the episode art.